Yay! On Time! Muwahaha.
Chapter 35
They brought her a TV to watch on a portable trolley, even an old, but carefully tended Nintendo 64 with a dozen or so games. She also got a box of horror and mystery novels when she told them the kind of books she liked to read. The food wasn't spectacular, but it tasted all right, and the small nurse with the clean, short brown hair would come by often to ask if she wanted a snack. Yugi was given iron pills and medication to help with their digestion in order to build her blood back up, and she even got a quilt and her favorite stuffed bunny from home along with a letter from her mother and grandpa conveying their general worry and hopes that she'll get better.
But they weren't allowed to visit. 'Too dangerous,' said her clean cut nurse. Yet her only explanation as to why Yugi hadn't been released yet was 'the doctor still has some tests he wants to run.'
Ah yes. The balding, bony man who came in to pinch her skin, take her blood, and peer into all manners of crooks and crannies on her. He tapped her teeth, took samples of her cheek cells, shone lights in her eyes, and even, at one point, gave her a quick cut with his scapel. At Yugi's reproachful look, he just said something in his reedy voice about testing her healing process, though that didn't ease the pain when he strapped her arm beneath some sort of microscope and made her sleep like that for the rest of the night.
Yugi had begun to miss the numbness she had grown use to as fear set in. It got difficult to eat, to sleep, and her hands didn't seem to ever stop shaking. She dove more and more often into the living dream of Joey sitting beside's her. As four days became five, she even imagined her grandpa and mother sitting there, telling her to be grateful that she was being taken care of and kept safe.
Just as she imagined that, though, her mother and grandpa were replaced by Atem, frumpy and lax as he had been in his apartment. He gave her that soft smile that softened the sharp like lines of his face.
"I can't let you leave," he echoed from another time. "But I swear I mean you no harm, and I won't let any harm come to you. I just need your help."
Out of all her imaginary visitors, Atem was the only one nearby. Even only a floor or so beneath her, trapped as she was.
That thought sent her back into the spirals of anxieties that had taken hold when she saw him taken down below. Was he even still alive? What kind of 'tests' had they made him live through? To what end did they intend for him? And why did she even care? Hadn't he kidnapped her? Used her?
And then she'd see him sitting on the toilet seat across from her bed, leaning on his knees, that soft smile on his face again. She could even begin to believe that she could smell the lemon and sage scent off of him.
"I'm sorry, Little One," the image whispered. "I'm so, so sorry. Let me fix what I've done."
Her cell door opened with a clang. She jumped and blinked the images away. Another person accompanied her doctor today, someone just as lean, but younger, with an air like complimentary peppermints on a pile of unpaid receipts.
"Yugi Muto," he said in a voice so clear and resounding it made her reedy doctor sound like a wheeze. "My name is Denno and I just wanted to drop by and visit our most famous patient. How are you feeling?"
Yugi said nothing, afraid she might say something rude.
But he just smiled and nodded, as though he understood, then reached out to pat her hand, which had been resting besides her on the bed. "You're almost ready to go, Yugi, I just have a few more questions I'd like to ask before we take you downstairs for some X-rays and whatnot. First off, is there anything we can get you for being such a good girl?"
Yugi bristled. This again? Why did so many people talk to her like she was eight? She was sixteen, for crying out loud!
"A shower, might be nice," she said instead. "With some shampoo and conditioner."
He bobbed his head again. "Can do, can do. Second, could you tell me anything about your father? His name isn't listed on your birth certificate and your mother can't seem to tell us much about him either."
Yugi shook her head. "He left before I was born. I don't even think he knows I exist."
"She said as much," more bobbing of his head. Even his smile was beginning to remind her of cheap peppermints. She hated peppermint. "Lastly, have you ever noticed anything different about yourself compared to others? Maybe your classmates? Anything you've been bullied over in the past?"
This would be a strange question if she wasn't being asked in a jail full of vampires.
"Other than being short for my age and, well, not particularly outgoing," she shrugged. "I've got purple eyes, that's something."
"As we've noticed. Quite rare, and very pretty. I guess that's all I have. Do you have any questions?"
She jumped forward. "Do you know why I'm still being kept here?"
"Didn't they say? There's still some tests we're waiting on. Also, you're one of the few who didn't get infected, so we've been studying the resistance of your body in hopes of creating a cure for those less fortunate." He bobbed his head again. "Shall we, then?"
It wasn't like she had much of a choice. She was, more or less, their prisoner, no matter what pretty words they used to say otherwise.
Still, she all but ran from the cell, her heart skipping as she found herself being led towards the middle staircase, the same Atem had been taken down. She was even able to push aside the uncomfortable feeling of having both her doctor and the peppermint man keeping step with her so closely, their arms frequently brushed.
There wasn't much different with the layout of this floor compared to the one upstairs. The biggest difference had to be the lack of tiny windows near the much lower ceiling. Other than that, there were cells of beds, sinks, and toilets, each filled with an occupant. Most wore the same scrubs that she wore, some even the empty, back sided hospital gowns. A few paced, others slept, and a few curled up near the back much as she had.
As her feet hit the cement floor, however, the heads that were visible snapped in her direction, eyes dark and wide.
Yugi stalled, breath catching.
"Don't mind them," said peppermint man. "They can't hurt you. It isn't like you're the only non-infected in the building."
Vampires? She wondered, daring to look closer. But there wasn't much she could see from her distance that could differentiate one from a human.
Still, she thought the air had become just a little bit colder.
They went down yet another level to a narrow hallway of the same bleaching, white painted cinderblock walls. Her bare feet had gone numb from cold and she could feel the prickled hairs on her legs bristling against each other as she walked. Some turns later, past two security gates she thought only existed in movies, and then she was down another cold, bleaching hall, this one with metal doors on each side. They had little viewing windows in each one, but they had been taped over with black tape.
As though reading her thoughts, the peppermint doctor tapped one of the taped over windows.
"To ensure our guest's comfort," he said.
Yugi shivered. "What's the difference between these vampires and the ones upstairs?"
"Vampire isn't correct. They are simply sick. Very sick."
She refrained from rolling her eyes and waited for him to answer.
"The one's down here are rather…high profile? They have differentiated themselves from those upstairs by exhibiting traits that make them more dangerous or rather unique traits. For example, there's one young lady with the strength to tear open the bars of the average cell like warm rubber. Another fellow wouldn't stop screaming that he couldn't see, despite all the lights being off. Like any disease—"
The doctor stopped abruptly. Yugi didn't have to ask why.
They had turned a corner, and near the end of the hallway a pair of guards were just opening a door.
"Stop!" the doctor shouted. "We have a non infected—"
A blurr of flesh and black collided into a guard, smashing him against the wall. Red splashed up the bleaching white.
Yugi was running before she knew why.
A gun fired, the thunder bursting her ears with pain. The vampire had his hands bound by the metal box behind his back, but it didn't stop him as he tore loose from the man beneath him and hissed at the guard that had shot him, fangs wide and exposed like a venomous snakes and red eyes bulbously wide.
She almost stopped then, never having seen Atem so…monstrous before. A wild scream of horror inflated her chest as she wondered how she had ever seen anything remotely human in him.
But, strangely, just like when she was jump scared by a video game, she pushed through it, almost mechanically so. She flew between the guard and him and lifted up an arm.
Atem had his teeth in it before she had even drawn breath.
And before her eyes, the monster melted away. Long, dark lashes closed over the popping eyes, the coiled muscles beneath his pale skin softened, his shoulders went lax. The hands that had snatched at her like dragon claws loosened and gently wrapped about her waist.
And over his slumped back she could see the first guard he had attacked pushing himself up, trembling like crazy and covered with his own blood, but alive.
"You idiots deserved that for not listening to me," said a familiar dry voice.
The second guard, still stunned from being saved by a girl half his size, could only manage to gargle a protest as shirtless Seto Kaiba stepped out from the darkness, his hands bound behind him with the same metal contraption as Atem. A flash of alarm crossed his blue eyes at the sight of Yugi.
Before anyone could do anything to save her, however, Atem gave a soft, almost inaudible moan, followed by a sudden stiffening and snapping back from Yugi's arm so quick, she let out a cry of pain only to find her vision had clouded and her knees gone weak.
"Yugi?!" His lips were dyed red and blood splashed down his chin and neck. Light headed, she could only register how wonderfully warm his body was pressed up against hers. Mean doctors. Making her come down here without even socks or pants. So cold.
She found her arms heavy as she reached out to trace his face, just to verify to herself that the monster was gone.
The next thing she knew, she was crushed against his chest (not unhappily so), and said chest burst her eardrums again with a roar.
"WHY THE HELL IS SHE DOWN HERE?!"