Bound By You

||Chapter 5||

"Wake up dammit," I demanded in a deathly tone, willing Uncle to wake up from his medically induced coma.

I had been informed by a doctor and several medical staff that he would be waking up anytime during the next few days, yet I was met with the same result. A comatose sack of potatoes.

I knew I would see Uncle in this state one way or another, but never out of my own doing. His tanned wrinkled skin was a stark comparison against the pristine white sheets of the hospital bed. With tubes penetrating his nostrils, and an IV strip lodged into his veins. It was a sickening sight, seeing Uncle more feeble than ever. But it was my doing. A controlled environment that I created. I was the one who had come to live with Uncle when I was ten, I was the one he had to stick by for seven years, I was one he had to pull through school instead of paying due attention to his poor health; me, me all me.

I couldn't do this to Uncle anymore. As much I wanted to brush the external messes I made under a firm and heavy rug, I simply couldn't. I had crossed a line, and left a trail of repercussions. Uncle was hurt, badly. There was no way to sugar coat the situation, my actions had lead to Uncle in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of his body, while a machine and few annoying beeps notified me that he was in fact still alive.

My fault. All my fault.

I had to leave. Leave Uncle for good. He didn't need me anymore, he never needed me in the first place. A burden, that's what I was, a heavy deep seated burden.I could have left sooner, but the undeniable desire to see Uncle open his eyes kept me deep rooted to the uncomfortable seat adjacent his bedside. Furthermore, the mass of questions that left me stupefied was something I felt I needed to address. Like how it was possible that I had only mere fragments of the memories in relation to what happened in the warehouse, how I could place memories of myself being stronger-having skin that actual sliced through bullets. I could only assume these memories were a hallucination. A mere figment of my imagination. If everyone keeps calling you a monster, you're bound to see yourself as one.

In addition, how I woke up in a hospital bed without cuffs attaching me to the metal bed railing was something of utter shock.I made it a way of life to not believe in miracles, and so one would assume my involvement in a shootout at a drug lord's warehouse would raise some eyebrows. I should be questioned by police officers, charges of the multitude should be discussed.

Yet nothing of the kind was what I was met with. Waking up in a private hospital room, with nurses and staff attending to my every need was definitely something I found hard to fathom. I was more accustomed to being tended to in a murky ICU with a hundred other poor saps waiting to be cured with all forms of ailments, yet I was met with four walls of expensive decor-with scents other than blood.

And then there was the occasional men in black suits that I found circulating the perimeter. Every now and then I would find a random man dressed in noteworthy black suit, tie and shiny shoes walking around my room and Uncles', speaking through headpieces. I knew something was off, if that was the only way I could put. But I felt it deep seated within my gut, that it had everything to do with Uncle. I needed answers, fast.

One of those men dressed in their usual penguin uniforms passed by Uncle's room, almost blending in with the multitude of busy on goers. I noted the man's receding hairline and scar above his upper lip. My answers, I needed them.

I hopped out of my seat , fulfilling my need to get out of the room that seemed to suffocate my conscience.

"Hey!" I called out to receding hairline.

The suited stranger immediately turned around, his attention firmly placed on me as I walked urgently to him.

"Mr Satoh," the man greeted with a slight bow.