Bodanen: Cobalt War

Chapter 25: A Familiar Face

Siegfried quickly grabbed Arthur's shoulder to stop him. "You're in no shape to fight, so if there are any stragglers in there, you shouldn't be the first to go in. let us; it'd be a bit of a waste to patch you up just to watch you die by an ambush." Siegfried gave Arthur a small grin as he passed him by and approached the door to the house. He braced himself on the door and tried to turn the doorknob. It was locked; Siegfried turned to the others and mouthed a countdown from five. The other three readied for a fight, and when Siegfried reached one, he forced the door open by slamming it with his shoulder, shattering the wooden door.

The four rushed in, weapons drawn, ready to take on anything. They, however, found themselves in a dishevelled living room that had a faint smell of unknown chemicals. "This is most definitely a doctor's home." Talib took a few curious sniffs of the air in the house. They then moved through the house slowly, looking for any signs of movement. One by one, they enter the various rooms in the house only to find nothing. Finally, after finishing the ground floor, they headed to the cellar, finding nothing. "Hmm, this may be a pointless endeavour. Shall we finish up here and head next door?"

"There is still the first floor." Arthur pointed to a set of stairs in a room that looked like a waiting room. "He had a few spare bedrooms upstairs for patients that needed constant attention or didn't have a home of their own."

"Wait here, Arthur; we'll check it out." Talib motioned for the young man to stay in the doorway of the room as the others began to climb the stairs ahead of him.

As Talib reached the stairs, a call came down to him. "Sage, I think we found our 'life sign'," Sayen yelled down the stairs as Talib began to climb.

At the top of the stairs was a short hallway with three doors on the right-hand side; each going into a small bedroom with a small bed, a small counter space, a few cabinets for miscellaneous medical equipment, and a toilet attached. Sayen was at the beginning of the hallway to lead Talib down to the final door, where Siegfried and Boris stood outside. "What seems to be the problem?"

"We think it may be a familiar face, Tal." Siegfried pointed to the bed in the final room. "Either way, we found our mysterious Raaksha woman."

Lying in bed was a thin, pale blue woman; she had a thin face with wispy, white hair, grown long and a tad wild. The sky elf woman had very familiar facial features; she was eerily familiar, though Siegfried, Boris, and Sayen couldn't place it. Talib, however, rushed to the bedside, practically sliding along the floor as he got on his knees to be closer to the woman. "Garele! Garele, that is you, right? Please open your eyes." He tightly gripped her hand as he pleaded with the unconscious woman. "Please open your eyes, Garele; it's Uncle Talib. Please open your eyes."

As he slowly climbed the stairs, Arthur could hear the commotion coming from above but couldn't quite make out what was being said. Once he reached the top of the stairs, he found Siegfried and Boris at the end of the hall looking into a room, confused and unsure what they should do. Arthur hobbled his way down the hall, and upon reaching them, peered into the room to find Talib and Sayen standing over the young woman that had fled the forest and collapsed. "She's still here? I know the doctor left, so why didn't he take her with him?" The silence in there was deafening; the young woman held greater significance than Arthur had first imagined.

With Talib creating such a fuss over the girl, the others were unsure what to say. "Talib, do...do you know her?" Siegfried voiced everyone's shared questions.

"I wonder, Sieg, does this woman seem familiar to you? Or you, Boris? Or perhaps you, Sayen?" Talib stood from the bedside to look toward his companions.

"She does look familiar, though I cannot place as to why she looks familiar." Boris stepped into the room and peered down at the woman sleeping soundly on the bed.