Many thanks to crossfire145 who made some wonderful suggestions and also to my other reviewers who gave me some wonderful ideas. Hopefully this chapter will do those ideas and suggestions justice. If it doesn't, please don't hunt me down with pitch forks!
Chapter 8
Takato heard voices drifting in and out of the darkness around him. Once he heard a girl crying. Did he recognise the sound? He didn't know. Mainly he just felt numb. What happened to him?
The tamers took it in turns to visit the hospital and to watch over Takato's unconscious form. Rika was there most days and today was no different. His parents had asked her to sit with him while they went back to their bakery where they had to carry on business as usual. Didn't they notice how uncomfortable she felt? She hated hospitals. If they did, they ignored it well. They didn't even seem to blame her even though this was clearly her fault.
"I'm sorry you got hurt Takato. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I didn't mean to shout at you for trying to help. It actually felt good to have someone care what happened to me. Part of me felt kind of… well… never mind. I'll never be good at this kind of talk. I'm gonna go now. I'll see you soon. Get better, okay?"
Maybe she could just leave and pretend she had thought someone else was with him.
Takato felt the darkness turning lighter. What was going on?
Rika walked out of the hospital trying not to feel incredibly guilty about the fact she wasn't keeping an eye on Takato when it was her fault he was hurt. No one could deny that it had been Damien and his clones that had done this to Takato and it was probably because he had tried to help her. Well… the fact no one else knew Damien was capable of this sort of thing did make it easier to deny that he had hurt Takato.
"Stupid goggle head," Rika growled to herself. "He shouldn't have interfered. This is his own stupid fault."
Yes! The darkness around Takato was lightening. He could actually see. This wasn't where he had been before. What had happened? He'd argued with Rika, and then wandered home only to get beaten up by Damien and his friends before he got there. He should be in hospital. Where he was looked like a hospital, it smelled like a hospital but it didn't sound like a hospital. Hospitals were usually noisy and full of doctors wanting to give you horrible medicine and worried mothers pretending everything was alright and nothing was wrong. There was nobody in the place Takato was. Not one person. Not even another patient. Takato swivelled round in his bed and stood. He was going to find a doctor or something to ask what was going on. He frowned. Hadn't he gotten badly hurt? He felt slight pain on his ribs and on one of his legs but nothing seemed to be broken. Either this place had miracle cures or he'd been asleep for a very long time.
Rika groaned as her mobile phone rang just as she had been about to take a bite of her chocolate muffin.
"Hello?" she answered.
"Rika, you've got to come to the hospital!" Henry's voice ordered out of her phone. She flinched realising that she'd been caught not taking care of Takato.
"Ok, I'm on my way." She murmured lazily.
"This is serious Rika. Hurry up and get here!"
"What's wrong?" she asked suddenly. Henry sounded panicked.
"Just get here Rika. I'll explain when you do." He hung up and Rika rushed out of the café. She didn't want her muffin so much any more.
Minutes later she arrived at the hospital to find all the tamers and Takato's parents there looking worried.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"He's gone. He's not there." His mother murmured obviously in shock. Rika's heart went cold.
"H-he's dead."
"No. He isn't there."
"Someone's taken him." Rika barged past the group and went into the room Takato had been in. Sure enough it was empty. All that was left were Takato's beloved goggles lying innocently on the pillow.
So what did you think of that? Thanks for all the ideas. Again a special thanks to crossfire145 for the new plan. Sorry to those of you I didn't take the ideas of but hopefully this was satisfying enough to keep you wanting more. If any of you have an ideas feel free to tell me them. It is always good to know what people reading my stories think.
Those who review get as many muffins as you want. Hope you liked it!
