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I'm A Freak, I Know

It's been a few days since the incident. Luckily, the kind nurse had come back not long after Kokichi had passed out to deliver food to him. Let's just say, it was quite frightening to see the sickly looking boy collapse twice in the span of a few days. Fortunately, it seemed the cause was the sudden intake of the new memories. It had been too much of a strain on poor Kokichi, causing his brain to shut down so to speak. To the relief of the staff taking care of the boy, Kokichi managed to wake up before the day's end, and everyone was able to move on from the crisis. Things returned back to normal, well, as normal as this situation could be. Although, a new problem formed from this normality.

Kokichi was quickly becoming extremely bored.

The only thing he was allowed to do was sit in his hospital room and heal, and the boy was not a fan of sitting around and doing nothing. It was especially hard to sit still knowing his thought-to-be-dead friends, were alive and roaming around the building. He had considered on a few occasions asking the nurse if he could see someone, anyone, but then he figured the probability that none of them wanted to see him was very high. So there he sat. Doing nothing but letting his body heal and grow stronger once again.

To keep himself busy, Kokichi tried going through his old memories in his head, re-watching them as if they were a movie. He had hoped to find something interesting or important, but all he managed to discover was that he was a coward. Kokichi found himself cringing at every action the old him did, to the point he almost wanted to forget the memories once again. While this managed to pass some time, it didn't last him long before he was back to having nothing to do.

The only plus side to his situation was that Kokichi's voice was slowly returning. At the beginning, he had been convinced he would be mute for the rest of his life, but by now he was at the point where he could make short sentences. Mind you he was still quiet as a mouse, and his voice was extremely scratchy, but it was progress. Not only that, but he was now able to make it to the washroom by himself without stumbling every 10 seconds. Physically, Kokichi was improving at a steady pace.

Mentally, things were going a little worse. Going from an intense killing game, not knowing if each day was your last, to a peaceful and safe building was a shaky transition. Kokichi found himself having a very difficult time actually relaxing, despite there being absolutely no one or thing out to kill him. And while he knew nobody was going to try to poison him, the boy still remained very cautious around the food given, making sure not to eat much of it on the off case it was deadly. Kokichi still flinched at every knock to his room door, and he remained alert at every moment of the day. One time he even became so paranoid that the boy shut himself up in the bathroom for hours to protect himself from the nonexistent threat. Due to none of the hospital ward bathroom having any locks, he had blocked the door with a chair, and only came out after what felt like hours of reassurance from the kind nurse that nothing was planning to kill him. Through all the worrying, sleeping, and memory diving, Kokichi had completely forgotten about what the nurse had told him a few days prior.

That is, until there was a knock to his door that sounded completely different from all the others.

Kokichi had took it upon himself to memorize the patterns and noise levels of all the regular staff that came to check up on him. He noticed that all of the hospital staff tended to have a lighter knock, which he assumed was to not startle any of the patients. So, when out of the blue Kokichi heard a loud knock to his door with no familiar patterns, the boy immediately went on guard. Even though Kokichi was still too weak to defend himself, and too quiet to yell for help, he'd still try to put up a fight.

The boy looked around for anything he could use to defend himself, but the only thing he could find was a pen. It wasn't much, but at least it was something. The room fell deathly quiet, not a peep escaped Kokichi's mouth, and same went for the stranger at the other side of the door. In that moment, it felt like each second became an eternity. Kokichi's heart beat rapidly, waiting for whatever oncoming attack he'd have to face. The air in the room became thick, as the boy brought his weapon closer to his body, prepared to attack. It was a showdown of whatever side would make the first move, and Kokichi knew that it wasn't going to be him. That was when he heard it.