Chapter Warning: Swearing
Oh, how unfortunate. There was no more floating.
Mokuba felt his spirit crawling back into his shell it was so vehemently torn away from. There was a light humming around him as he began to feel the world against him. Piece by piece, bit by bit – the sound and light vibrated into a dim limelight. He wanted so bad to drift away back in unconsciousness, but as the butterfly flutters in his veins withered, Mokuba could feel the stabbing in his chest and a deep knocking against his bones that forced him awake. The stale air and the undertone of bleach made it certain that Mokuba was in the one place that wasn't as perfect on the surface as it wanted to be. The straining fluorescents peered at him through his eyes and sent their waves of good morning.
"Dr. Woods, they broke a federal law flying over the Mountains."
"He barely made it out alive. Isn't that enough punishment for the boy?"
Certain voices slithered across the floor and into Mokuba's ears. Their intrusion made Mokuba open his eyes and just the acknowledgement of being alive, made his body jitter. A tensing of all his insides, felt like exploding out of him and only to crawl back in defeated. Squeezing his eyes shut in protest as the hospital ceiling weren't very enticing for the torture he was enduring; he turned his head to throw his hearing towards the source to ease drop on the conversation that was clearly about him.
"Dr. Woods, please. We have to question him as soon as we can."
"Well I'm his Doctor and I forbid it until he is stable. So leave."
The Police were involved? Great…
"It's fine." Mokuba called out. His voice cracked against the dust that settled in his throat, and he in turn tried to push it all away with a cough. He attempted to pull his body upwards to sit against the metal headboard of the hospital bed, but he was only able to tuck his elbows behind him and lift his upper half because he felt his jagged ribs rub together. It was like fingers on a chalkboard, but in his chest. "I'll talk to them."
The olive dark skinned woman that Mokuba stared at in hope which seemed like seconds ago, threw her head into the room to see him awake. Her face flashed this quick annoyance when there was a light shuffle and a throat cleared in the hallway. Detectives that were attempting to barge their way through finally entered the room with her behind them in a white doctor's coat. Mokuba twisted his lips against the heavy pull in his chest, so he began to set himself off his elbows and back down in bed. In this motion of discomfort, her grace formed beside him and within seconds shifted the mattress under him, making it so that he was sitting up without any strain on him.
"Mr. Kaiba, we have some concerning matters about last night and the plane crash you were in."
Point a gun at my head too while you're at it. Mokuba rolled his eyes slightly at the impatience with his cynical inner monologue. The doctor at that point stood by Mokuba's bed side with arms crossed, glaring at the detectives.
"Naturally…" Mokuba moaned while he shifted his hips into a position comfortable for both his chest and leg, as his sarcasm on the matter was met with straight faces. Mokuba's clown-like nature furrowed his brow and realized his defense mechanism of poking sarcasm wasn't welcome, so he changed his tone. "What can I help you with?"
"We would like to start with an explanation about how you and your brother, a very well-educated pilot, decided to fly over the Mountains protected by a federal law."
Mokuba shook his head against the accusations and he threw his hands up in defense. "Okay, I don't know what the heck happened. We were flying to Denver. Our plane coordinates and flight records from Domino International show we were flying southeast to Denver and then out of Denver, going straight to New York. That's the honest truth."
The detectives shuffled with their straight faces and Mokuba groaned in dissatisfaction. He was now regretting letting them into his space. They would never understand.
"I'm telling the truth… I don't know how we were magically in Wyoming of all places within seconds. I was watching our GPS. I even spoke to Las Vegas air traffic; we entered their perimeter and were about to enter Nevada."
"Mr. Kaiba-."
"Look!" Mokuba wasn't having it, so he snapped. If they weren't going to listen, he'd make them. "I've seen some really weird fucking shit in my life, right? This one, however, robs me blind. Somehow, our plane went from flying to Denver to being in a mountain range within seconds. I'd also like to point out we were 22,000 feet in the air at that point. So somewhere we went from 22,000 to 9,000 in a split fucking second!" His voice was raising, this was making his lungs fill with a toxicity that made it hard to breathe. "I can't explain what happened… but it happened. I'm sorry." Calming himself almost instantly, instead of giving into the rage of their insolence, Mokuba shrugged in a wince as the kerosene in his bones leaked through and he felt like his skin was melting away. "I don't know what else to say…"
The officers sighed and looked at the doctor, who was reaching down for Mokuba clearly seeing the distress in his eyes but she now held a fury that could murder. "We will check air traffic control at Yellowstone International and Las Vegas to see if this story matches. We will be in touch, Mr. Kaiba. Don't try to leave the state in the mean time."
Slinking away without another word, the detectives left Mokuba to his own devices. Mokuba groaned against the growing pain in his chest and he cursed himself for letting the waves of his emotions slightly drown him in the moment.
"How are you feeling?"
Mokuba heard a voice that hovered in the silent manners. It hit his ear drums with a straining echo, that when he turned, he was back staring into eyes that held dark forests with many secrets.
He got lost in those forests once again but when he noticed he was silent for a second to long, he blinked long before speaking, "Uh, better. Now that I don't have a piece of metal in my leg." He made a joke as the clown inside crawled out again.
"It came out easy too." Her smile was so motherly, it was infectious. Seeing her in the better light of day made her look older than Mokuba initially thought, except it made sense to him. Her energy alone made Mokuba feel the need to smile just to match her. Being a doctor fit her so nicely. "It didn't hit any artery. Not even your bones. You're very lucky."
Mokuba nodded but his face fell with an expression that matched his inner worry. He didn't remember her name. He didn't catch it nor register what it was, and now he was feeling guilty.
"We never had any formal introductions, I am Dr. Woods, but you can call me Serena." It was like she read his mind.
The memories started falling back into place. "I remember hearing your name..."
"I didn't expect you to remember much of anything."
Knowing her name made him sigh in relief. Now, he could address her naturally. The little things of the night were jumbled yet bright in his mind. He could still feel the way the plane collided with the ground and the way his body wanted to retreat in fear of death but had nowhere to go.
Mokuba's thought process paused and he opened his mouth to speak but took a second to recollect. "How's my brother?"
"Good, he was lucky too." Serena shuffled on her feet as she reached beside her into her scrub pants. "I used a hand-held body scanner, that all doctors use now." She flipped the small device between her fingers as she pulled it out of her pocket. In her flipping course, it met with the opposite and Serena opened the mechanism quickly with both hands. It made a light dinging, but she closed it shut just as fast as she opened it. Mokuba deduced it was a nervous tick of hers. "All of him looked…perfectly safe. It's why I left him there…" After looking over the device in wonder, she looked up to Mokuba with her smile still intact. "He'll be sore for a couple of days and might catch up on his words, but I'm happy to say that's the extent of it."
Mokuba stared at the device. He wanted to blush in excitement, but he cleared his throat to break away the thoughts. "My brother invented that…"
Mokuba collected the little memories of two years prior. Only months after Seto returned from far off fantasies, did he invent something with the company's new team of engineers and the revised companies' intention. It was so life-changing that the world praised Seto with the grandeur of a King. Though, Mokuba liked to take credit, since it was his doing after all. Forcing Seto into a new way, only made things so much superior.
"And it's changed the medical field entirely…" Serena laughed as she tucked it away back into her scrub pocket. There was a small moment of quiet before Serena faced Mokuba to speak on another subject. "Tell me, do you know the legends of the mountains?"
"Do you mean the Native Rule?" Mokuba squirmed slightly in bed, as his hips gathered a shock of discomfort that was sent from his knee. Serena only nodded to which Mokuba shook his head in response. "My brother mentioned it… I gathered it was just a law made by natives so they aren't disturbed..."
Serena chuckled, clearly at his ignorance. "That law is to protect people from the mountains." Finding the empty armchair beside Mokuba's bed, Serena settled herself quietly into it. She folded her leg over the opposite knee before she continued. "Us Natives believe that the mountains are hands reaching to the heavens. A way for all spirits to roam between the world of the living and the eternal." Serena breathed out repeating a legend that seemed wearisome to her. Mokuba could see her preparing for the ridicule for such fantasies she speaks. "If that is to be interrupted, such as a plane flying over the reaches, we watch time and time again the spirits rip planes from the sky only to throw them into their untimely deaths for disrupting peace."
Mokuba wouldn't ridicule. It wasn't the first time legends interrupted his life and created a whirlwind of bullshit. "That's… pretty fucking brutal…"
"That's why we made the law." Serena beamed through a giggle at his understanding and not having to explain things further. She laced her fingers together and cupped her outer knee. "Too many were dying for not understanding the truth."
Mokuba scowled and his eyebrow flicked into his forehead. "You know… that sounds like it should be public knowledge and not hidden behind a government law."
"The government doesn't like to acknowledge the Native legends nor its religion, so we hide in formalities." Shaking her head, Serena leaned forward and back again, pulling against her knee. Her body rocked in motion before she narrowed her eyes, "Did you hear voices?"
"Voices?"
"Those that have survived the falls over the decades have said they heard voices before the mountain appeared before them. Did you hear them?"
Mokuba was flabbergasted that other people even survived a plane crash, he was still uncertain himself if he survived. Mokuba tilted his head in question, as to rattle the puzzle pieces back into their respected spots. "My brother said he heard voices right before he passed out… right before the mountains appeared…"
Serena used a small amount of time to think on what Mokuba said. When she came to her own conclusions on the matter, she stood from the chair and straightened her doctors coat. "Rest. You need to heal." She then reached into her white jacket pocket and slowly pulled out a cellphone. His cellphone. "This was the only thing in your possession. Your clothes have been bagged since we cut them away."
Mokuba quickly reached like a child wanting candy. That was the best thing he'd seen all day. "Thank you." Serena placed it into his grabbing hands, and as it made contact, he immediately started inspecting his phone. "I think I'm happier now to see this without a scratch on it."
Serena watched with puzzling intent as he turned it on. With his delighted sigh at the wake up tone, Mokuba heard her move and place a hand on the end corner of his bed. "If you need anything, please call."
"Thank you."
"You will be discharged in the next couple of days. I have to watch out for any infection, tetanus shock or so on." Mokuba nodded to her doctorly duties. "Sleep as much as you can."
Mokuba smiled at his phone as she swept away. Then something that had been bothering him hit him in the back of the head with a sledgehammer, so he gasped as he threw his head up to catch her. "Hey, Serena?"
Serena whipped her body towards him as she was making her way for the door. The shock of his call did read on her face. Her lips pierced together in question and her eyes peeled wide in response to his sudden outburst.
"Can I ask you a favor?" His voice fell into tones of a child's.
"Of course." He could tell she was preparing for whatever he had to ask.
Mokuba bit his bottom lip and breathed so deep, it made his lungs buckle without the usual support of intact ribs that created a seething exit. "Can you… not put that stuff back into me?" Serena blinked in curiosity, clearly not understanding what he was insinuating. Having to explain further made his heart leap and he closed his eyes in a long blink. "I have an addictive personality… you know as well as anyone how opiates can effect someone like me." Mokuba chuckled nervously as the embarrassed blush clawed it's way around his eyes and the tip of his nose.
Serena's face made Mokuba hurt. There was regret as well as a deep swallow that subsided her sigh. "Of course. I will make sure you leave with prescription Ibuprofen and ask the nurses to not give you any Morphine."
Mokuba's eyes fell to his phone. He wanted to get away from the situation now. "Thanks…"
Once Serena finally floated away and out of the room, he rubbed his fists over tired eyes. They stung against the dry air that he was confined in. There was a grip against his heart that he had to ignore. He couldn't let the experience of almost dying get to him. He was not about to subject himself to losing his footing on life and fuck up everything he fought to obtain. So he turned to his phone… except what greeted him only made the squeeze in his chest choke him and he mouthed a singular 'Fuck' to what he saw.
My Love [11:35 PM]: Did you make it to Denver?
My Love [1:17 AM]: Where are you?
My Love [2:52 AM]: Why didn't you land in JFK ... your flight number isn't on the arrivals?
My Love [6:41 AM]: Mokuba, call me.
My Love [9:33 AM]: Jesus fucking Christ, answer me. You're scaring me…
5 haunting texts and 6 missed calls from Holland were blowing a terrified void in his head and the ringing a rushing blood to his ears only brought defeat closer. He had to tell the love of his life he almost just died. She was going to drill him for specific details; not to mention, chew him out for jinxing it when he forced her to say she loved him. He could hear her panic screaming and crying insults already. He was really wishing for an actual grave now and an underground death to hide from her wrath.
Mokuba held his thumb over the call button as he puffed out his cheeks, when his phone chimed.
Jenny [11:26 AM]: Did you make it to New York okay? I didn't see your airline on the JFK arrivals... Are you stuck in Denver?
Oh, Jenny. Good, sweet, Jenny.
Mokuba breathed a relieving groan as he chose to call Jenny over Holland – which was a first. He needed all the time in the world to handle Holland's mind-numbing dread and make sure she wasn't crying all by herself. Let alone, the time to process everything perfectly.
