Rezin and Niloy didn’t come the next day or the day after that either. On the following day, Niloy sent some messages out of the blue of some mockups she’d made of Yonee’s ad. They texted about it briefly, but the conversation died there.

After not hearing from them for a week afterwards, she’d assumed she’d been forgotten. Still, she clung to hope that she’d see them again soon. They’re just busy, right? She’d read up on the Fiends For Hire during the prolonged silence and all the crazy things they were up to. It was a wonder they’d spent so much time with her in the first place. They’d gone above and beyond their request for her, but strangely enough, they never processed the payment she’d submitted.

Since when did the walls look this bleak? Her loneliness was reaching a level it never had before. Maybe it would have been better if she never made friends to begin with, because losing them sucked way more than not having them in the first place. She wanted to curl up into a ball but couldn’t, so she had to settle for draping her arm across her eyes while trying to hold back tears.

The door slid open, so she looked up in curiosity, but it was just another doctor. Though, it was a new doctor she had never seen before. Had her usual one gone and abandoned her too?

“Greetings, I’m Dr. Farian Graf, and these are my two assistants today. We’re here to cure you.”

That of course got her attention, but just from the spontaneity alone. She didn’t know if she could take it seriously. The doctor looked pretty professional, but she couldn’t say the same about the two with him.

On the right was a tall man dressed in bright pink scrubs from head to toe. She couldn’t make out his face since he was wearing a mask, but there were a few strands of black hair poking out from the bottom of his cap.

The left was a completely different situation. Yonee could see her childish face that matched her pint-sized body. Her scrubs were laughably baggy on her. The sleeves nearly drooped to the floor and the legs were bunched up so much that they were ruffled all the way down.

Before anyone could say anything else, Rezin and Niloy popped out from behind the group and rushed over to Yonee’s bed. “Sorry we haven’t been able to visit!” Rezin immediately apologized.

“Yeah, we had to do so much overtime and volunteer work in order to free up everyone’s schedules enough that they could all come at the same time,” Niloy explained.

“Anyways, this is Dr. Farian,” she started to introduce everyone. “He’s the doctor for our group. If anyone can cure you, he can. Think he already has a good idea how to do it.”

“The one on the right is Drim.” The boy nodded at his introduction. “We dressed him up in pink because he keeps getting confused as a spirit of death at hospitals lately, so we wanted to go with the exact opposite vibe. And we covered his scary face with a mask too so that you don’t get spooked just by looking at him.”

“This one is Ahvra, and no she’s not a child, even if she’s a little cutie!” Niloy poked Ahvra in the face, and the small woman objected to the advance and comments by trying to bite her finger.

“Well let’s get down to it,” Farian took over. “I suspect this will come down to surgery, but these two mentioned your weak constitution and the other doctors' belief that you wouldn’t survive it.” He walked over and kissed her hand. “Yes, that’s an accurate assessment, but don’t worry. That’s why Drim is here. He will keep you alive if it comes down to it.”

“As for Ahvra, first we’ll have her check if you need the surgery to begin with.” The doctor pulled out a tablet and scanned Yonee’s body with it. “Yes, I see the problem. To move forward, we’ll need to know the exact date and time that the accident occurred. I know what the report says, but when do you remember it happening?”

It took Yonee a while to think back to the accident properly since it was something that she spent a great deal of time trying to forget. She gave them the time that she remembered seeing in the car right before the accident. It was a few minutes off from the official report.

“Alright, we’ll try them both and then narrow it down,” Farian noted. “Ahvra will now touch you for a moment and you may feel a change in your body, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Actually, I’ve been working on my range, so I’ll see if I can do it from here.” She held up her arms and focused for a moment. Suddenly, Yonee felt very strange—not bad per se, just strange.

Dr. Graf did another scan with his tablet and then frowned. “Could you please try to move the rest of your body,” he asked suddenly.

Yonee did as asked, trying to wiggle any part of her body other than her right arm and head to life—not that she really remembered what it felt like to move them at this point. Nothing interesting happened. She did notice, however, that her one good arm was observably shorter. What exactly had they done to her?

“Sorry, it’s no good,” she scowled in frustration. Yonee had come to accept her condition over the years, so why exactly were they giving her false hope? Now she was just disappointed all over again.

“It’s as you suspected, Ahvra,” Farian did another scan but he didn’t seem as hopeless as the bedridden girl did. “Her body has forgotten the connection to the rest of it out of preservation. Everything beyond the injury point is running on the bare minimum functions, so we’ll need to restore the connection manually. Niloy, please go make sure that the operating room is prepared for surgery, and Rezin, go show the staff whatever papers they think they need to see so that we won’t be disturbed.

The doctor must have noticed the confusion and uncertainty on Yonee’s face because he glanced back over to her with a smile. “Don’t worry, this is what we expected to happen, and we’ve planned for it. I’m going to give you a brief overview of the surgery and then we’ll get started. My little friend here can change your age. If your injury was recent or not too severe, just turning back the clock on your body to before the accident would fix you.”

“But in your case, your mind doesn’t think it can talk to the rest of your body anymore, so it won’t even try to repair the connection, regardless of your condition. What we have to do then is play a little trick on your brain.”

“Ahvra here is going to change your age back to the moment that you had the accident. Truthfully, your condition would have been easy to fix by any skilled surgeon had they gotten you to one in time, but the window is very short before it becomes infinitely more difficult.”

“What we’ll be doing is giving you the treatment that you should have had right after the accident. From there, Ahvra will age you forward one day at a time until your body has fully recovered so that your brain will register the repair. This is what will take the most time, but otherwise, it’s a fairly short procedure.”

“Drim, if you’d please sedate the patient.” Some portals appeared in front of the pink-man’s hands and a weird fruit popped out of one and a big, scary thorn drifted out of the other.

“Don’t look at him, look at me,” Farian grabbed her hand and her attention with it. He stroked the back of her hand gently. “Now I’m going to count down from 10. When I get to 1, this will be all over. “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4—”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

◆◆◆

The next… however long, was a bit of a blur. Yonee drifted in and out of consciousness several times, forgetting most of what happened between each fleeting moment of lucidity. When she finally reached stable consciousness, she found herself staring at her lap while she was sitting in a wheelchair.

That was odd—there were no machines hooked up to her. And what's more, her chest felt heavy. It didn’t really bother her, but it was mind blowing that she was feeling it at all. She watched her chest raise and lower as she breathed, able to feel the subtle movement.

From there, she focused on other parts of her body. She couldn’t feel all of them, but guessed that was normal if they weren’t moving, but damn did a lot of it ache. She wasn’t sure if it was pain from the surgery or just jitters from it not being moved for so long.

She’d been so enthralled with her own body that only now did she realize that the wheelchair was actually moving. Her neck still worked like she expected, so she whirled her head around to find Rezin behind her giving her a push.

“Hey, I was told to give this to you when you woke up!” Yonee spun her head back forward and found a cup being shoved into her hands by Niloy. It had the same disgusting color as most medicines, so she had to assume she was about to consume some bitter bile. But she’d gotten used to it at this point and took a sip without much thought.

What she didn’t expect was for it to be pleasantly sweet like she was drinking some juice. The rest of the liquid quickly poured down her gullet as she chugged it in just a few big gulps. She hadn’t been ready for the tingling sensation down her throat that ended with a sloshing in the pit of her stomach causing her to belch the biggest burp of her life.

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Niloy took the cup back from her while the girl tried to hide her face in embarrassment. “I made it extra sweet just for you.”

Once she could deal with looking up again, she tried to figure out where they were going. Her first guess was back to her room, but she’d forgotten where that was. It had been so long since she’d actually left it that she couldn’t quite recall the layout of the hospital. Were they headed for the entrance?

The sun bore down on her like a blast of light the moment they stepped outside. It wasn’t like Rezin’s illusion. She’d felt the warmth of the sun from those, but now she felt attacked by it.

They wheeled her chair to the edge of the pavement outside, and she looked down at the grass, taking in a big whiff of a nostalgic smell she’d long since forgotten. Up until now, she hadn’t paid much attention to her feet, but she guessed she felt the footrests on the wheelchair since her feet were bare—only having worn a hospital gown and underwear the past several years.

But now she really wanted to remember how the grass felt. Using all of her might and focus, she tried to move her feet. And voila! They moved… a fraction of an inch. Now that she had proof that she could do it, that was all the motivation she needed to keep going. Her feet slid further and further up towards the edge of the footrest. It probably took several minutes, or it at least felt like it, but eventually gravity took over, and her feet slipped onto the ground.

What she immediately noticed was how cool and crisp it felt. Then she wiggled her toes, gripping a few blades between them with all of her strength and then releasing, repeating it a few times.

“Ah, c’mon, you’re taking too long!” Niloy suddenly grabbed one of her arms, Rezin grabbed the other, and together they hoisted her out of the chair. Great, now she was going to faceplant, or so she thought. She looked down and her legs had spread apart, holding her up, though barely.

They felt like jelly, and were wobbling like crazy. Was this what it was like to feel drunk? Her balance started to shift, and she felt like she was going to fall again, so she took a step. It ached, it really ached so much to move her stagnant muscles that had lied dormant all this time. But it felt even worse to stop, her momentum begging her to keep going.

Another step and then another, she was gradually gaining speed. But she guessed it was too slow for the Fiends' tastes, and they started moving ahead on their own, dragging her behind. Her legs struggled at first to keep up with them, but this was the jump start she needed. Soon she was walking steadily. No, now she was walking in a hurry. Now she was jogging. Now she was running. Now she was spriting faster than she’d ever moved before.

She’d broken away from Rezin and Niloy, racing ahead of them. Every aspect of the world around her, she took it all in—the sights, the smells, the sensations she hadn’t felt in years. It all combined into one mega sensory overload, but she didn’t care. Even though it was too much, she was exhilarated to experience it all as she ran. All because she could run. She could run forever.

Through the blur of stimulation, something protruded dead ahead. A brick wall was suddenly in front of her, like it had popped out of nowhere. At this rate, she was going to careen right into it, and she’d end right back into the hospital. Yonee dropped to her butt and slid across the ground. It stung and scraped the skin that was exposed on through the back of her hospital gown, but she stopped just an inch short of the wall.

A second later, both Rezin and Niloy went flying right over her. It looked like the two of them were trying to grab her but missed by mere inches since she’d dropped low. Both Fiends went soaring through the brick wall, breaking the illusion, allowing Yonee to finally see what was actually on the other side.

It was a highway that she was moments away from running straight into because of her carelessness. Obvious to her now, Rezin had placed that brick wall illusion to try and get her to stop, and they were trying to grab her if that failed.

The reason why came speeding into view: a truck plowing into her peripheral vision. She had been a single step away from being run over by it, and these two Fiends had saved her life once more. And to top that off, they both put their lives on the line.

Rezin and Niloy didn’t get run over by the truck since they had been a moment behind. Instead, they both went flying into the side of it, slamming into the metal, and sent them spinning down the road. Fortunately, no other cars came and no more accidents were caused, but both of them were pretty battered.

Help rushed out from the hospital immediately, those inside having witnessed the whole event. Yonee’s legs had stopped working again, but out of panic and guilt rather something physically wrong. Farian came out shortly and informed her what was going on: Rezin and Niloy were fine and just needed time for their Fiend regeneration to fix them up—that or they needed one of the other two Fiends to cure them quicker who were both currently unconscious after the straining surgery.

Yonee hurried over to the room where they were resting and watched over them just like they’d watched over her. At one point, her father came to pick her up and the two shared a tearful embrace over the miracle she’d been gifted. But still, she refused to leave with him right then. If she was going to finally leave this hospital, it was going to be with her friends.

Fiends For Hire Job Report

Job No. 011112

Status:

Completed

Date Received:

5/5/2078

Date Accepted:

5/6/2078

Date Completed:

5/19/2078

Client: Yonee

Reward:

Original Request: Hello. My name is Yonee. I am a 14 year old girl who has been stuck in the hospital for the past 3 years. I can only move my head and one arm, so I don’t know how much fun I’d be to hang out with, but I’d really like to hire some friends!

Requirements for Completion:

* Be the best friend to her that you can be

* Find a way to cure her if possible

Job accepted by:

* Rezin Anish

* Niloy Spatzel

Additional Notes:

(Rezin) Friend for life! Just because the job is over, it doesn’t mean we’ll stop being friends.

(Niloy) I’ve also offered for her to continue being a model for me during her free time. It seems she really wants to help her father since he’s been struggling to support their family this whole time. He gave his blessing as long as it doesn’t interfere with the mountain of school work that she has to catch up on.

(Rezin) We can help with that too!