An Unfamiliar Ceiling
"Where were you last night, onii-chan?" I woke up to the sound of a voice I recognized, a light female soprano. Opening my eyes groggily, I stared at a ceiling I'd never seen before. That first thing I recognized was the IV sprouting from my right arm, a thin tube filled with red liquid. As I looked down at myself, covered in bandages and sensors, and I noticed something was missing – my left leg was gone. Damn, I thought, No more sports for me, I guess.
"Onii-chan?Onii-chan! Can you hear Ami?" The same familiar voice, now filled with alarm, called to me again, bringing me back to reality. I slowly turned my head towards the sound. Standing before me was a young girl, probably in second grade. Her head and right eye were wrapped in bandages, but her silky black hair still managed to trail to her waist. Her remaining eye shone with tears.
"Onii-chan, why are you here? Why are you hurt? What happened, onii-chan?" The voice was filled with worry. Hearing her, the memories rushed back to me – piloting the EVA, fighting, and, finally, Shinji's EVA crushing my entry plug like squishing a bug. But that was past. Right now, I had to comfort her.
"Ami…it's okay, Ami. I'm not in any pain. I'm going to be fine, so don't cry any more, all right?" I tried to reach up to brush her tears away, but then I realized that my other arm wasn't there any more either. I tried to stay calm, but the monitor over my bed began beeping faster and faster. I bit back a scream of frustration. I can't let Ami know that anything is wrong…I can't make her any more scared than she is right now. She's already experienced enough terror.
"But, onii-chan, your arm…your leg…what happened?" My sister's eyes widened from shock as her gaze swept my body.
"Don't worry, Ami, i-it's nothing. I…I just got in an accident is all. Everything I fine." At that moment, a nurse walked into the room.
"Aha! There you are, Miss Ami! You know you're not supposed to leave your room without me, don't you?" She seemed pretty upset. Grabbing Ami by the arm, she attempted to pull her away.
"No," Ami shrieked, "Ami doesn't wanna go! Ami wanna stay here with onii-chan!" She pulled herself free and ran over to my side, hugging me tightly. I slowly reached over and hugged her with my good arm, looking up at the nurse silently. She nodded, seeming to understand our wish to be together.
"All right then. You may stay here for a while longer, but you must come back before the doctor makes his rounds." She left the room, sliding the door quietly shut behind her. I looked down at my little sister, who still had her tiny arms wrapped around my torso. I patted her head, an overwhelming sense of protectiveness inside me.
"Ami, are you feeling better? The last time I visited you, the doctor said you were making a strong recovery. Are you being a good girl and taking your medicine like the doctor told you to?" She looked up at me, frowning.
"Onii-chan, the medicine tastes horrible, Ami doesn't want to take it!"
"Ami, you know you have to take the medicine to feel better, don't you? You wanna feel better, right?" She nodded. "Then you have to take your medicine, or you're gonna have to stay in the hospital for a long time." We chatted back and forth like this for a long time, her sitting in my lap while we talked. Eventually her eyes started to close, and her head nodded. She fell asleep against my chest with a small thud, snoring quietly.
I smiled.
Ami had been in the hospital much longer than I, who had just arrived a couple days ago (according to the medical chart beside my bed. When the first monsters, ironically called "angels" attacked Tokyo-3, she was injured. Her school building was knocked over in the fight between the EVA and the angel. Ever since then I had visited her in the hospital every couple days, making sure that she was progressing healthily. The doctors said she would be fine, but they needed to keep her in the hospital in order to make sure her fractured skull plate healed correctly.
Still, the house had become cold since she was first rushed into the emergency room. Father and I barely spoke to each other any more, each of us going about our daily lives. We kept Ami's drawings on the refrigerator, and her picture took the space where the real thing used to sit at the table during meals.
Even when I visited her in the hospital, she was usually asleep because of her medication. When she was awake, she cried, sobbing that she wanted to go home. Now that I finally had my real, living, breathing little sister in my arms – well, arm – a piece of my heart had healed, even though my body was still broken. We were finally together again, under this unfamiliar ceiling.