Part 7
Noises.
They were faint, but consistent, like a hive of bees buzzing around his ears, refusing to go away; denying him from slipping back to the comfortable state of oblivious. He wanted quietness, a total silence would be even better, so that he could go back to being completely unaware of his current state and shut out any painful memory. That was his much preferable option. However, these noises were doing a very good job keeping him half awake and partly aware of his surroundings.
"How … … doing?"
"So… blood… die… heart…"
"Bloody… … … injuries… … so bad… …"
The noises made no sense to him. He wanted to yell at the noises to leave him alone. If he was dead now, shouldn't he at least be allowed some peace and quiet? Or was he in hell and this hell was just too noisy for his taste?
"Don't … … loud! The doctor … this…. crucial… whether … make it …"
The buzzing died down a bit after that. Sho was very grateful for that. Finally, he was granted some peace and quiet. He was sure this would be just what every dead man wanted.
"Shit! I think he's awake!" A voice suddenly became all excited, "Kei! Get over here!"
Sho winced at the sharp voice assaulting his sensitive hearings.
He tried to open his eyes. It was unsuccessful, but apparently his effort sparked a stream of chaos in the room. Blurry shadows floated in front of him. Some bodies were pushed out of the way roughly… Somebody fell to the floor and yelled.
With sheer determination, Sho commanded his heavy eyelids to work and opened his eyes.
XXX
"He lost so much blood. It was a miracle that he woke up just now. Even if it was just for a few minutes, it was impressive. A very good sign…" Toshi babbled happily. He and Son were standing outside of the hospital room. Kei had his back against them as he was still staring at the figure inside the room.
"I thought he was surely gone… when Kei carried him to the car, covered in blood, I thought… the worst had happened…"
"Yeah, only Sho is lucky enough to escape death…"
Kei listened to their conversation. His hand involuntarily tightened into ball of fists. Toshi and Son were both idiots. Didn't they see it? Didn't they notice?
Kei closed his eyes. In his mind, the terrible ordeal a few nights ago began replaying itself.
XXX
After killing off Chan's ambush at the torture chamber, and hearing Sho's cry in his head, Kei knew his only way to Sho was to depend on this vampire nature even though he despised it. He closed off all his other senses, and focused on the sense of smell alone, searching for Sho's scent. He needed to follow the trail to trace which way Sho might have been taken to from here.
He nailed it down to a general direction that Chan's men have taken. Calling Son, he found out the hideout places for Chan in that area.
He then started checking out each of the locations Son had informed him. At the 3rd location, the scent of blood caught his attention even from far away. He rushed over there, and the scene he saw nearly froze him on the spot.
Sho was holding a shred of glass, and was grinning like a maniac while stabbing the glass towards his own heart.
"NO!!"
Kei screamed. Without any conscious thoughts, his body flung into action. He closed the distance with his inhuman speed, and stuck out his hand.
He felt a searing pain in his palm. He had placed his palm across Sho's chest, covering and protecting Sho's heart. The shred of glass that was meant to stab right into Sho's heart cut through his sweaty palm, and into Sho's flesh, but it was not a deep wound against Sho since Kei's hand took most of the damage.
Kei retrieved his hand with the piece of glass stuck in his palm. He let out a sigh of relieve as he realized the heart wound would not be fatal; completely ignorant of the pain in his hand.
Sho didn't seem to have a grasp of what just happened. All of his energy spent, Sho began felling backward. Kei reached out with his good hand and caught the falling body. Carefully lying Sho down, Kei stood up slowly, still paying no heed to the piece of glass stuck in his palm or the blood that was dripping down. He took in the men surrounding him. These men would pay dearly for their crime against Sho. He would make sure each one of them paid with their blood. Literally.
It took a mere 10 minutes to kill off all of them, even with his injured hand. He would have killed them more slowly to make them experience the pain, except Sho was still lying unconscious on the floor and needed to be attended to.
With the last man down, Kei pulled free the shred of glass from his hand, wincing at the pain.
Then, he scooped up the limb body and brought the young man to where Toshi and Son were waiting.
The wait at the hospital was the worst part. Sho had lost too much blood. The doctors informed them. He might have been brain dead for a few seconds, which means, Sho could become a vegetable. They were told. Sho might never wake up again.
Kei refused to accept this. He stayed in the room, saying no to give up hope. However, as time passed, fears grabbed him. What if the doctors were right?
He contemplated his choices. A forbidden thought crept into his mind: Make Sho a vampire. Save him. You could do it. You have the power.
Trying all his might, Kei pushed that thought to the back of his mind and concentrated on hoping. Maybe Sho would just open that beautiful emerald eyes of his…
Sho did. Miraculously, 2 days into waiting, Sho opened his eyes.
Kei felt he was about to burst with happiness, until he saw Sho's eyes.
The fire was gone from those beautiful eyes. It was replaced with something lifeless, something that felt … dead, like a fire that had burnt out and became a pile of dull, lifeless ashes.
Kei's smile froze on his face. Just before he could react in anyway, Sho closed his eyes and drifted back to unconsciousness.
TBC
