Chapter 133 - Hospital Drama

A pair of eyes, dull with the remnants of the sedative, blinked once, twice. The sheen of drowsiness slowly dissipated and focus returned to them, together with confusion. The man tried to lift his arms, but they were still strapped to the bed.

"Don't try to move yet, please," Ghost said. "Blink once if you can hear me."

The man blinked not just once, but several times. He tried to lift his head to look at the straps on his wrists. A second later, his strength ended and his head dropped back. He looked up at Ghost with wide, confused eyes, then at me.

"Who… who are you? Where am I?" The man's voice was raspy with misuse and barely more than a whisper.

"Is there any water around?" Ghost turned to ask frozen in wonder and hope medics. The helpless one hurriedly nodded and skittered away, returning in a moment with a plastic cup full of water fresh from a cooler that stood in a corner. Without prompting, she lifted it to the patient's lips.

While the man gobbled down his water, Ghost spoke in a gentle voice, "We all here to help you. What is the last thing you remember?"

"I…" He paused, blinked. "Why I'm bound?"

I saw how bit by the memories returned to the man, and each bit increased the terror and grief that reflected inside. It clenched at my heart and I shifted on my feet to fight my uneasiness.

"I remember… the creature. It burned with its eyes… It looked at me, and then, everything became too bright, too loud… Like I blacked out… except, it was white, not black. I think I tried to ask for help." The more the man spoke, the faster his words came out. His breathing became erratic, his face glistened with sweat.

"Breathe slowly. It appears that your memory is as intact as it can get, which means, my pupil, we did an outstanding job!" Ghost patted my shoulder with a victorious grin and turned towards the other two medics, who stared at him in awe. "Why won't you tell Katerina about it, while I see to the others?"

"You are amazing," the eight-limbed patient spoke out. Her stare, dangerously bright, was focused directly on Ghost. I've seen that sort of look before—in Christina's eyes. She wasn't curled on herself anymore—at some point when no one was looking, she turned sitting on the bed. It was an awkward pose with her four legs. "Please, you have to help me now. Now."

She tried to stand up, but her sense of balance betrayed her and she fell back down on the bed. The frustrated medic immediately rushed to her. "You can't move around like this. We have our hands full as it is, and there's an established order of priority for medical help. Your state isn't critical, and it won't be unless you start running around, stumbling and falling and possibly breaking your neck!"

"I… I will go get Katerina," the helpless one whimpered and disappeared from the room before the conflict could escalate further. Which it, of course, did.

"Priority? I'm the priority? Why some weaklings like them," the woman gestured with two right hands at once at the other patients, "should be healed before me? With Tatiana and her brood gone, I'm their next Elder!"

The patient that hid under a blanked lifted it enough that I saw a glimpse of eyes giving the spider-woman a dirty look. Our with Ghost's patient shared it, despite his troubled mental state.

"That bitch… even now…" he murmured to me as I leaned down to unstrap his bindings. They weren't necessary anymore, I decided. "Is Elder really gone?"

"Can't you remember?" I asked.

The man, freed of his hand restraints, shrugged and tried to sit up. "I was in the main hall, just relaxing, when the creature appeared… It came from a side hallway, I think? I… I don't know, I was looking at, talking with… Oh, Lyuba! Is she alright?"

I shrugged helplessly. "I don't know anyone in here, but except for the Elder and her daughters, no one died."

The man sagged in relief. "Thank God."

At the bed of the spider-woman, argument became more and more heated. The only reason the woman didn't jump Ghost yet was because she couldn't stay on her legs for long enough to walk towards him, but she tried.

"I will strap you to the bed if I have to!" the medic threatened. "I will sedate you if you don't calm down! You are disrupting other patients!"

"And doctors. I can't work with all that noise!" Ghost exclaimed. "Fine. Diana, let's go to the main hall, see at the normals there. Would be some good practice for you."

"We shouldn't leave them like that." I gauged the state of the spider-woman and the medic and frowned. The frustrated medic's face turned red with anger, and the woman hissed at him like a snake. "They will kill each other."

Ghost's smile turned helpless. "Don't ask me to do it, Diana. I'm not good with drama, conflicts, all that. People just get angry at me… angry is bad, isn't it? I came to think I'm better off away from them."

I snorted and stomped towards the fighting couple on my own. "Alright. Calm down, you two! What sort of bedside manner is this?" And quieter, to myself, I added, "And where the hell is Katya?.."

I didn't expect an answer to my last question, but it appeared in form of the opening door. The sound was enough to make everyone pause, but the person who entered made them freeze entirely, including myself.

With Katya and her helpless assistant in tow like a tiny angry dog and her lost puppy, a tall man with a raven-coloured mane walked into the hospital room. Black coat, too stuffy for hot summer, draped around him, making his pale skin look even paler. His piercing blue eyes scanned everyone in the room with predatory coldness.

A vampire.