Fate of Pandora - Book I

One Day In The Hospital

In the morning, Ayame woke up and found herself in a sterile, white room. She took a few seconds to remember the events of the previous night. The last thing she recalled was angering Karina, and then nothing more. She raised her hand to her chest and held her necklace tightly. The small ruby, handed to her by her parents, always gave her some comfort. Then she heard familiar voices and looked to her side, finally realizing where she was.

Ayame was lying down in a bed near a window, and to the right of her was Lukas, who was sitting up in his bed, humming quietly and peeling a plate of apples. Beside Lukas was Coalt, who was still lying down and looked visibly annoyed at Lukas' overly-merry mood. Next to Coalt and near the door was Jasmet, propped up on one elbow and talking to Luna, who was sitting in a chair beside her.

There was one person missing... Ayame was startled when she realized that Risa was standing right in front of her.

"Oh, good! You woke up!" The girl smiled brightly. "Now almost everybody is awake!"

"What... What happened?" Ayame sat up too quickly and felt dizzy. "Ow." She held her head and noticed it was wrapped up.

"Don't move so fast. You hurt your head." Risa helped by preparing her pillow and slowly guiding Ayame to lean back on it.

"Why always the head? I hope I don't get any lasting trauma from this." Ayame remembered how she was targeted in the same place when Kira had attacked them.

"Don't worry." A doctor entered the room and walked to Ayame. "You're all doing astonishingly well, and I think you should be able to leave by tomorrow morning. I'm going to do a checkup exam on all of you now." And he proceeded taking their blood pressure, checking their wounds, their breathing, and their heart; everybody seemed to be fine.

"Well, everybody in this room is doing fine. Aside from these other two who were supposed to stay in their own room and rest." The doctor sent a glare at Luna and Risa, who just smiled sheepishly.

"No worries, doc. We'll leave soon." Luna assured him. They had just wanted to check up on their friends.

"I mean it. You need to rest. The woman and the other girl in your room might have to stay longer." He meant Yuko and Arika. "Please, call us when they wake up."

"We will." Luna nodded.

"All right. Seeing as you are all conscious, would someone care to tell me what happened yesterday?" The doctor stood in the middle of the room and looked around at them. The group fell in silence and looked at each other. What should they say now?

"But I already told you, we were attacked by bears!" Risa complained, annoyed that the doctor hadn't taken her seriously.

The doctor shook his head in disagreement, not believing in the girl's words. However, Ayame quickly followed up. "She's right. Well, we weren't attacked by bears, per se, but by a gang of big hairy men!" Everybody stared at Ayame in shock at first, but quickly caught her drift.

"Yes, we happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The gang attacked us for no reason!" Lukas added.

"They were armed with knives and bars. Needless to say, they beat us to a pulp," Coalt added with his serious tone.

"Oh my, these days are getting more violent, aren't they? And are you going to report this to the police?" the doctor asked them in concern.

"Yes, we will report tomorrow after we leave the hospital," Jasmet said, and everybody nodded in agreement. Apparently satisfied with their story, the doctor didn't ask any more questions as he finished taking his notes, and left them to rest.