Memory of a Fleeting Lotus

by Rhia's Fortunate One

A harsh reality, and a cruel fate. Perhaps the key lays with those already dead, or perhaps it lays with the living? Thrown together by the plot of something neither understands, the only thing on their minds... is survival. They must find a way to stop the madness, in memories that have gone, like those of a blooming lotus..

The only sounds were the subtle beep of the heart monitor, and the clicking of the IV as it measured each drop of fluid from the bag suspended over the bed of the one pretending to be asleep. Somewhere in the back of his mind he feared this place was a dream, and that if he closed his eyes he'd be back in he same room he had been in for over a year. He shivered, and not from the cold, pulling the white blankets closer to his neck.

Once proud and fearless, now a quivering ball on a hospital bed. They were only keeping him for observation, ready to release him the moment he could stomach solid food; the nurses and doctors had said words to him that were both already known, yet a startling thing to hear all the same. He wasn't really sick, at least not much in the physical sense; broken bones, masses of bruises, burns that would disappear after a time, and scrapes. The latter was mostly from his escape through a broken window. The former had the nurses constantly hovering, even when he simply wanted sleep; his current position should have been painful, as should any position really. Whatever they had given him had erased that, and taken something else...

He slowly moved his hand to touch beneath his left eye.

His power should have been going berserk in a hospital with a morgue below, the voices of the dead should have been giving him a migraine by now. But they weren't, and his ability to speak with and see the dead was blocked. Not that he minded. His dead father was the cause of it anyway. As Yakumo Saitou held power to see and hear the dead, his father was dead yet had the power to seem alive, though his voice always held a tunnel-effect.

Saitou stiffened as the door whispered open and heard his roommate grumble in his sleep. Visiting hours were long over and his nurse had left just minutes ago, making it at least an hour before she should be back. He shifted his position enough to see if anyone would enter, keeping his eyes mostly-closed. The click of heels on the linoleum caused him a faint inward panic though he didn't move, staying frozen in place. The curtain surrounding his area moved and the woman entered. He knew who the tall blond was, just as he knew why she was here; at least, the most probaable reason. Yet still, the panic made the question arise. /Had she come to take him back/? She disappeared from view, her heels clicking to mark her as walking behind the bed. Behind him. He shuddered as she sat on the bed.

"Pretending to sleep, are we?" The voice of his father's lover crooned sweetly, quietly, to him. She brushed hair from his cheek in a motherly fashion, and he fought the urge to jerk away from her touch. "Oh, I'm not taking you back. I'm just here to warn you."

In a sudden change of tone, her nails dug into his cheek as she forced him to face her by slipping her palm slightly under his chin. He twisted awkwardly in the bed to avoid further injury to himself. "If you tell the police anything, you can say goodbye to your niece, your uncle, and that sweet little girlfriend of yours," Her voice was full of venom, and he finally opened his eyes to stare at her face. He was frightened, yes, but he was not broken. Not yet. Her threat made a chilling fire enter his eyes; one a soft green-brown, the other an unbelievably beautiful, carmine red. She let go of him and stood, wasting no time. Her message was delivered, she was free to go. He listened to the sound of her heels fading swiftly away, and closed his eyes to attempt sleep.

"She left the door open," muttered the sleepy voice of his roommate. They were around the same age, and had been held in the same place. Apparently, this gave them the privilege of remaining roomies until private rooms could be arranged. Because whatever horrors these two had seen, they refused to say. They remained silent through an agreement made on escape. It seemed he had been pretending to sleep the entire time. When a knife to the back would have saved both of them.

Saitou heard the faint bemused chuckle of the man whose eerily colored eyes were currently hidden behind bandages; there was no telling what would happen to his sight, as only the two had undergone the treatments of the woman in plain view of each other.