Monster || among us

t w e n t y t h r e e ;

t w e n t y t h r e e ;

The next morning, Raven's family was the first in line to give blood donations to the boy who was in need in the Garden. His mother, his two brothers, his step father, and his sister in law, all went together. His mother Ebony wrote him a letter, telling him about how much they all missed him and wished him well. She told him about his younger brother, who Raven never got to meet because he was born a year after he was sent to the Garden. She told him about Jet getting married with Sable and their little two year old Jetta. She knew he would be happy for them, and though she would probably not get a response back from him, she asked him how he was doing, and it he had anyone special in his life.

They didn't have any money to bribe any of the nurses into doing them a favor, but Jet was a good looking man. Very much like Raven in appearance--tall, black hair, black eyes, tanned skin, a nice jaw line, strong eyebrows--only slightly taller and not as athletic because his brother had been doing physical training in the garden for eighteen years. But still, he was able to talk one of the nurses on the hospital staff to take the letter and the photograph back to the Garden for Raven. 

The Garden staff were stationed in Province of Mines for two hours, which was the amount of time it took for them to collect blood donations from the people. They collected enough for Raven and then extra to keep on reserves for further incidents. Then they packed up their things and boarded the aircraft that would return them to the other side of the country where Raven was waiting for his new blood which he did not suspect would even come from his family.

Back at the Garden, Raven slept well into the next morning. When he awoke, he looked around the room groggily and a bit full of confusion. It then dawned on him where he was and the memories of the previous day came back to him. He was likely in the hospital after Cedar recklessly chucked axes in their direction. He remembered one had taken course directly towards Roseanne and he stepped in, pushing her behind him and out of the way. He remembered, if his memories were still intact, that the ax had gone straight through his left arm, severing it completely and his heart sank into his chest. He knew that with the advanced technology they had now, there was a chance they could give him a prosthetic. But they would need to ensure that it would work properly in outer space. A part of him did feel bad about losing a limb though, he felt as less than a person for it.

After a few minutes of steeling himself and engraving the thought in his mind of the possibilities, he finally slowly turned his head towards the left. He couldn't simply attempt to move his arm in order to confirm his suspicions. The whole left side of his body had been numbed down to keep him immobile until they could bring the blood donations to him. As his black eyes fell upon the place where his arm should be, he found that part of it was missing from the elbow down. His breath hitched in his throat, but there was nothing he could do about it now. 

He looked to his right now to see Roseanne soundly sleeping by the side of his bed, in a chair that looked very uncomfortable. Her hands were closed around his right hand and he found himself gently tugging on her hands to shake her awake. As she rose from her sleep, she lifted her head, her cotton candy colored hair falling past her shoulders and down her back in messy waves. She sleepily looked up at him and a smile formed on her lips. "Oh, you're awake now. How are you feeling?" She asked him gently and with genuine concern to her words. 

Though she had fallen asleep immediately after going into his room, she had been woken up at least three times during the night by nurses either checking on him or changing his bandages. At one point one had murmured to her colleagues that it was better for the staff to bring in the black blood from his province as soon as possible, since it seemed like his body was rejecting the white blood. Roseanne wasn't sure what they meant exactly by that until that moment she was waking up now. She looked at his eyes--his irises were no longer black. They were a dark grey, as well as the blood that was seeping through his bandages. There were little drips of blood emerging from his eyes, nose, and mouth. All of it a very light grey, almost white, like his body was trying to weed out the blood that wasn't black.