The Floaters [cake au] ✔

⌛ ➊➏ : liz. ⌛

Chapter 16: liz.

"Erm, hi, I'm looking for my cousin. His name is Luke Hemmings."

The nurse gave me a shifty look before typing in the name to her computer. "Sorry, no Luke Hemmings here. Are you sure he'd be here? This is the obs and gynae unit."

I mentally facepalmed. I'd been so tired that I hadn't realised. "Sorry... thanks."

I wandered off to find the main hospital, but was so thrown by how much of a maze it was that I ended up having to sit down and take a breather. Hospitals had never really been my thing, to be honest – it was in one of these places that my grandparents passed away, who I'd been close to.

Ten minutes later, the place was swarming with people – doctors, nurses, other staff members, patients, families – you name it. I could barely make it to the children's ward.

I asked them the same question as I'd asked the nurse at obs and gynae and struck gold.

"Yes, he's staying in room 81. Do you need directions?" this nurse asked kindly. I shook my head, thanking her and rushing towards the sign post 'ROOMS 80 – 90'.

This was it. More than ten hours of travel later, I was finally here, standing in front of Luke's room. I'd searched three hospitals in total, at least twenty departments within them, and now I was here. Nervous wouldn't be the right word to describe my feelings – it'd be more like nauseous, mixed with a whole lot of excitement.

I entered, but had to silence myself because there was a woman sitting next to the bed with her back facing me, a book in her hands. She was reading it out loud to a crippled, tired looking teenager who looked as good as dead. His eyes were sunken, and his lips were pale, a sheet of white the colour of his skin. His hair was long and fell clumsily around his face.

Gulping, I turned away. That couldn't be Luke. Luke was so full of life and smiles. He had a bright looking face and his arms were always swinging back and forth, dangling at his sides. To see him like that, lying in bed, hopeless, I just didn't know if I could deal with it.

"Oh Luke, when will you wake up? I don't want to lose everyone. You're all I have left..." the woman cried, closing the book and clasping Luke's hands. She must've been his mum then. He'd been wrong... his family did visit him... "Hello? Who's there?"

I cleared my throat, unware of the fact that I was sobbing heavily at the doorway. "S-sorry for disturbing you, uh... um... can I come in?"

The woman looked perturbed but kept a kind smile on her wrinkled face. "Of course dear. Do you know our Luke?"

My hand reached for the back of my neck and I nodded slightly. "I... it's a strange story how we met but... will you hear me out? Everyone else thinks I'm crazy."

She smiled and took my hand. "You can talk to me. Any friend of Luke's is a friend of mine."

"Well uh, I fell in to a coma after a car accident. It was stupid – my friends and I were out celebrating and before I knew it I'd driven us off a cliff. Anyway, when I woke up, Luke was the first person I saw. He let me have a shower at his place, and he showed me a whole other way of looking at the world. He painted the most exquisite paintings – in fact, in his bedroom, there's a huge one of your whole family, Molly included! He... he's still stuck up there, in that place, wherever it is, but I need him to wake up. I can't let go of him now!"

Luke's mum had a little tear at the corner of her eye. "Oh, honey. So... you're saying you met Luke in... this other place?"

"Yeah. It was so strange there – it was always summer, but some places were very cold, and others very hot. Just like on earth. And you couldn't feel pain! And, and there was this gate called Death's Gate, and I visited it with my other friends, and... well we watched one of our friends get sucked away. There was also this lab, where Luke would go, and meet up with his professor and they'd look after animals, go on field trips – everything."