HOPE

1. Back from the dead

I'm dead.
The second I opened my eyes, I knew I was dead.
My first thought was for Angie. The second was for my brothers. All dead like me I assumed. Glancing around me once the blur has left my eyes, I remember thinking that Heaven really looked Japanese styled.

Wood frame ceiling, thin walls made of paper, through which the light can pass, braided straw-covered floor, like tatamis, a single flat square cushion next to me. No furniture.
I'm lying on my back on some sort of thin mattress, directly set on the floor.

My body is hard as stone, I'm totally unable to move. I'm dead, so it makes sense, though I would have assumed that it would have felt more... light and free.
I may be in Heaven but all my body hurts like hell.
What's sure is I'm seriously wasted.

The door carefully slides to the side, a woman, some kind of Geisha pads silently towards me and kneels next to where I lay. I didn't know Heaven had nurses.
She's quickly followed by a grumpy-looking doc, wrapped in a kimono instead of a white coat, his face as closed of as a stone.

Heaven's medical staff aren't very friendly.
The Geisha is expressionless too but her glance at me is nice and warm.
She wets a cloth in some water filled bowl laying there and starts to gently pat my face, which feels delicious. I feel as dry as the desert, my skin rough, thin as cigarette paper, my lips cracked and bleeding.

Life creeps back through my system as she squeezes the cloth over my mouth.
Water.

How funny it is. The water that killed me is bringing me back to life.

Wait. Life? Am I actually alive?

The woman wets the cloth again and attacks my torso. I startle at the coolness of the water running down my sides and she glances at me before focusing back on her task.

She softly whispers something I can't understand. Heaven's official language sounds like Japanese.

Holy shit.

I've fallen into the hands of the enemy.
I'm not dead but I suddenly wish I was.

As I realize this, the female Yakuza starts to torture my chest, no doubt they want me to spit out some classified information.

An dreadful burn tears up my chest, like I'm branded, stabbed by a red hot iron that slowly dissolves my flesh.

I try to sit up but the sharpest pain comes from my back, my left leg howls as well.
My arms yell from pain and get weak, barely able to support me. They give up and I fall heavily on my back, sending another wave of fire in my lower back.
What the hell?

" Jitto shite!" The doc barks, before he sharply gives orders  and vanishes, leaving me alone with my torturer.

I'm half paralyzed, skinned alive, defenceless before that monstrous punisher... who ... shyly flats her delicate hand on my shoulder, soothing me with Japanese gibberish.

Seeing the panick on my face, she cups my cheek and for once stares fiercely at me.

"Remain still. It's alright."

Her voice is soft, her English hesitant, her accent... exotic.

"Where am I? What happened? Who are you?"
I have so many questions: why the fuck am I unable to move? What's that pain, those pains all over my body? How did they find me? Where is Angie?

" You hurt. Bad leg. Back broken. Cuts infected. Got fever."

Damn that doesn't sound good.

" I'm Mikomi. Japanese for hope. I'll help you."