I have to keep running.
If I stop running, then the fire will catch me. Catch us.
The heat is on my back, sweltering up my body like a harsh breeze. The smoke filling my lungs makes every breath labored and painful as if I were being gut punched with every step I take.
My foot catches on a tree root sticking out of the ground and I quickly see the earth approaching my field of vision. Just before I hit the ground, something catches my arm, preventing my inevitable face plant for even a little longer. What caught me though?
Something…blue? Something… with a spike on its chest? Something… close to me.
Odd, those colors feel oddly familiar to me, I just don’t know why.
On my opposing side something else picks up the slack from my slurred steps. This one was green and white I think… the smoke makes it hard to tell.
I’m not sure when it started, but the blue thing started carrying me at some point. We were running so much faster that the wind could be felt flowing through my hair. It was really nice how the air felt on my face. It stung a bit, I think, because of the burns, I guess.
It was hard to tell.
There was a massive prism shaped tower close by. Closer than I remember it ever being. Being this close made me feel tiny, like an ant. Like a bug. It looked as if the tower rode the stars, as if I could climb the tower and reach for them with my bare hands. That would be nice.
My vision was assaulted by blinding bright red and blue colors, making me wince. I couldn’t see the night sky anymore, no matter how much I wished it would return. They blinded me only for a moment, until I went from being carried to being placed on what felt like the softest mobile bed in the world. It rocked back and forth a bit, like what I read a boat would feel like. Not that I really know, that’s just how it feels.
Curly hair appeared above me; it was black like soot from the fire. It was from a man… I don’t think I’ve seen another person in like, forever. His hand reached for my head and my forehead, which had been burning like an inferno cooled drastically at the gentle touch. “No need to worry, we’ll get you help soon.” The voice assured me.
As if responding to the assurance, like my body believed him. I fell asleep, once again.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
‘Beep—Beep’
“She’s not registered in any of our database professor, it’s as if she appeared out of thin air. No family or close matches are listed from DNA either.” A feminine voice stated distantly.
“Did you run it twice?” A familiar male voice asked back, one that I felt as if I heard not too long ago.
‘Beep—Beep’
The woman scoffed; I imagine from her tone. “Twice? I ran it thrice, no, my assistant is running it a fourth time! That girl doesn’t exist.”
Are they talking about…me? ‘Beep–Beep–Beep’
“Cassandra!” The male voice shouts, startling me inwardly. “How could you talk like that? She’s clearly alive and breathing, we’ll just have to talk to her when she wakes up.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry professor. I just hope she wakes up sooner rather than later, we have no idea what to do with her with no adults in her life around.”
They’re going to do something with me? I need to leave... I need to wake up…
“NOW!” I shout, sitting up abruptly from a bed I could only describe as a cloud. It may well have been the comfiest thing I’ve laid on in my entire life. Surely beats whatever I had been laying on back in the cabin, the bed was practically hand made at that point considering how many times I needed to fix it.
‘BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.’
I was interrupted by an irritating beeping sound from a machine that looked as if it were hooked up to me, several long wires pouring out from it and attached to my body. To which I grabbed them in a handful and ripped them off of me. There was a powerful stinging sensation in my arm, but that was the least of my concerns at the moment. All I could think about was getting away from whatever place I had been taken to.
A quick dart of my eyes and I noticed that neither Lucario nor Gardevoir were with me. Panic set in shortly after that revelation and I tossed my legs over the side of the bed in order to get up.
Moments before I could, the door slammed open with a thud as it hit the wall, and two women dressed in light blue outfits with coats came bolting through. I think I’ll just call them ‘pink hair’ and ‘green hair’. It matches well enough.
Nonetheless, I froze in place after locking eyes. Behind the two women was a tall man with a light blue button up shirt and black curly hair, he had a small beard going but nothing too wild.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Young lady.” The green haired woman addressed me for the first time, snapping me from my observations. “You’re not ready to get up yet, you need to lie down and regain your strength.” Her words registered with me, but I couldn’t help but be wary. For all I knew she was working with those freaks in the forest.
“Here, allow me-.” The pink hair approached me, and I shot up onto my feet, my back to the corner of the room. It took everything I had in me to stand up, my legs must’ve wobbled like an infant who could barely walk because I could tell I was being looked at with pity. Pity is never a good feeling.
My hand balled up into a fist and as intimidating as I might have looked back in my cabin, standing in this… gown while shaking wasn’t very good for my image. I didn’t have much strength in me to fight with anyways. “Stay away from me…where am I?” My eyes widened as I hardly recognized my voice which rasped. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was, had I been out long?
Pink hair put her hands up and backed off from me, despite being hesitant to do so with how slow she moved. “You’re in Lumiose General Hospital dear, you were treated for burns and smoke inhalation. You were in danger when they brought you in.”
One question answered, now the most important one. “Where… are my friends? They wouldn’t just leave.”
Both of the women seemed to pause in thought. “Friends? You didn’t come here with anybody.”
My pulse quickened like an automatic response to her words and my fingers gently kneaded at the window behind me. Perhaps I was looking for a way out, perhaps I just needed to grab on to something. I couldn’t tell, I just needed to know where they were.
“I definitely came here with them. I remember… I think, being brought here!” My voice raised at the end to which the ladies recoiled a bit at my aggressiveness.
I felt like I was nearly moments away from exploding or perhaps becoming a pile of push on the floor when the man finally spoke up for the first time, having been silent since he answered. “I’m assuming you’re talking about Gardevoir and Lucario, your pokemon, right? I assure you they’re completely fine.”
“...Then why aren’t they here?” I pressed him, to which he smiled lightly.
“Because when you got here, Lucario picked a fight with everyone who tried helping you. Gardevoir calmed him down, but when the needles came out she wasn’t very different.” The man explained, chuckling to himself as if remembering something funny. “When we finally got them to understand that no one would harm you, I brought them to an enclosure at my lab where they could stay. It was very difficult to get your pokemon away from you. Your friends are very loyal.”
That…actually sounds incredibly reasonable. Lucario is the type to pick fights so I don’t believe he’s lying about that much. What’s funnier is how they could still be so loyal to me… even though I raised my voice at them not too long ago.
“Speaking of needles.” The man continued and pointed down at my arm, which was bleeding around my wrist area. “It would seem you tore yours out earlier, how about I help you clean that up and I’ll have your pokemon brought here to see you?”
I hadn’t even noticed the blood, though I do remember having felt that stinging sensation earlier. I suppose in my adrenaline filled rush, I must’ve taken one out of me or something. My heart calmed down significantly ever since the man started talking, his voice was so calm and reasonable, I just felt like I’d been soothed by a Clefairy.
The three people in front of me were looking at me expectantly, still awaiting an answer before I nodded my head. “That’s fine then.” I relented. “I want to see my friends now.”
There was a visible sigh in everyone’s shoulders throughout the room, like all the tension I’d built up in them had popped.
The man turned to the green-haired lady before speaking to her. “Could you go let one of my assistants know to send them over, Jess?” Green hair, or Jess, as he called her, excused herself from the room. I already felt leaps and bounds better with just one less person in the room.
Pink hair introduced herself as nurse Elena before waving her hand at the man beside her. “And this is Professor Sycamore. He’s one of this region’s most renowned researchers and a very gifted doctor. I’m sure he’d be happy to take a look at your wrist while you answer some of my questions.”
Great, an interrogation.
I didn’t want to keep causing problems… but I also didn’t fully trust them either. “I’ll answer some of your questions, but I’ll take care of my arm myself. I don’t want any of you touching me.”
Even with my partial rejection, Elena seemed elated that I was finally being more cooperative and grabbed one of the clipboards on the desk beside her. She wrote something down while I moved back to sit down, feeling like I wasn’t in danger anymore.
While Elena started pestering me about nonsensical body topics, Sycamore handed me a small kit with a wrapping bandage and gauze, to which I readily began using to clean and wrap around my wrist. I was used to cleaning up my own injuries, so something like this was a breeze, to which I noticed that the whole time Sycamore was watching. It was kinda odd.
The ‘Professor Sycamore’ as I keep hearing him get called, stood silently at the far side of the room quietly while Elena asked me questions about my body and health overall. I didn’t know a lot, like when she asked if I knew my blood type or whatever. It didn’t seem all that important. Things kinda slowed down though, once we moved off of me.
“Now that’s all for personal health.” Elena spoke, scribbling something else that felt like nonsense to have asked. “Family, do you have any way to get in contact with your parents or guardians? Maybe your name, so we can use that?”
Wow, I can’t believe I sat through this many questions for her to finally ask my name. Then again, I’ve been answering half her questions sarcastically and not hiding my annoyance. “My name is Silvia, that’s it.”
Elena finally paused and even Sycamore looked as if he was paying more attention now than he was before. “No last name? What about your family?”
I shrugged my shoulders, trying to look nonchalant even though I could feel that pit welling up inside of me again. I hated whenever I even thought about this topic, let alone actually talking about this with someone. Outside of Lucario and Gardevoir, I’ve always kept my mouth shut.
Taking my silence as an answer and writing something, she moves on after a minute. “I suppose that can wait. What about the forest you were in? Why were you in the forest in the first place? Did you run away?”
The barrage of questions hit me like a peppering of thunderbolts, each one hitting a different part of me. Now however, it felt like she was getting too personal and I had no obligation to answer all her questions. “That’s none of your business, that’s private.” I cut Elena off before she could keep going.
“You’re in a hospital young lady, for us to best take care of you we need to know these things.” Elena quipped back, looking at me like she was supposed to be frustrated or something.
Who is she to be frustrated? I’m the one being interrogated like I did something wrong.
“I didn’t ask to be here. If you’re saying I have to answer in order to stay, I’ll be leaving instead.” I made to get up off the bed, preparing myself to push my way out of this hospital.
That was until Sycamore moved between us.