Infernal Academia

Chapter 51 - Pharmine's Folly: Part 6 (A Visit in the Night)

Doctor Elliott stood in the door of the hospital room, staring hard at the clipboard in his hands.  He pouted, then frowned, made a few questioning "hm" sounds, then glanced over at the bed.  In response, Cobalt nervously cleared his throat and pulled the bedcovers tighter over his legs.

The pair stared at each other for a while before the Incubus finally deigned to speak.

"So... Can I be discharged yet?" he asked, cocking his head.

His doctor took a deep breath.

"I can't say I have much experience with Incubi, so I was willing to suspend my disbelief when it came to treating you.  But for all intents and purposes, Mr. Trayer, you really shouldn't be alive right now," he said in a tone that sounded both surprised and exasperated.

"Come again?"

"The back of your head was split open.  Your knuckles were badly fractured.  And yet, before we could get you into surgery, you had already begun to heal."

The Incubus raised an eyebrow.

"Th- That can't be.  Surely I wasn't hurt that badly, right?"

"The paramedics saw your skull peeking through your hair, Cobalt.  And the firefighters witnessed you break through toughened ice with naught but your fists.  This entire state of affairs is... highly unusual, to say the least."

Cobalt glanced down at his feet, his own frown growing deeper.  True enough, when he had awoken, he felt as though the entire debacle in the Brimstone Baths had been nothing more than a strange dream.  It was only when he remembered that he was incapable of having anything other than lucid dreams that he realised that it had all happened.  Not to mention that his head and hands had been swathed in bandages.

"I don't understand, doctor," he said, looking back over to Elliott.

"Neither do I, but I did a little digging, and I found some records relating to an Incubus patient we had a couple of decades ago."

Cobalt's ears pricked up.  Was that...?

"Apparently, your kind seems to just... heal quicker.  The more life-threatening the injury, the more likely you are to just shake it off, so to speak.  It doesn't make a whole pile of physiological sense," sighed the doctor, scratching his head.

He looked down at his bandaged hands.

"I see..." he murmured, unsure of what to make of this information.

"There is a downside, though.  According to what I have here, while an Incubus' wounds can heal very quickly, they scars they leave, um... don't."

Cobalt's eyes widened.

"What?!" he gasped.

Before Elliott could stop him, the Incubus bit into the bandages swathing his hands and tore them away, much to his doctor's alarm.  True enough, the grievous wounds he sustained after breaking through the ice were gone, but in their place was a series of very noticeable scars all along his knuckles.  Anybody that didn't know him would think he was a brawler.

"Oh, this isn't good..." he mumbled miserably, thinking of his already poor reputation amongst B.I.D.'s staff and students.

"I suppose so... but think of it this way," Doctor Elliott said, approaching the Incubus' bed.

He laid a hand on Cobalt's shoulder.

"They're reminders that you did a good thing.  If it weren't for you, that girl probably would have succumbed to hypothermia before the rescue teams managed to cut her out of that mess of ice.  You should be proud of yourself," the doctor said with a smile, patting the Incubus' shoulder.