Author's Notes: *avoids broken bottles and putrescent fruit* Gomen nasai, I'm sorry, I'm currently in the middle of hell semester. All of a sudden it's 3 months later…what the hell happened?
Thanks to Riley S (I think it'll be a S+S hinting ending), Princess Kayla, lozza-pilgrim, starquestor, Meruru-chan (he's real, in fact he's the killer. *grins*), Adelaide, Ophelia Winters (see? I'm still in the CCS fandom…just really busy), Miya, Rhea (hehe, nope I definitely pinned it on Haruka; I hoped that implication came out clear), jkb (ha thanks for the review. If you're into cutsie, sometimes strangeness, CCS is a pretty good fandom), Ti'ana (hmm…good question…I don't think I'm going to address it in the fic, but my own view is that Sakura's still alive so he can't continue killing, like an obsessive thing or unfinished business…), silvershift, Lakshmi (you just about summed it up. It's not cough syrup; it's rather an obscure smell but it fits into the motif of my chapters, most of them anyway. I'll get to explaining it at the epilogue).
Dark FantasyChapter 8: Time of Death
"Tomoyo, I'm telling you there's nothing physically wrong with me; I'm just exhausted."
Tomoyo frowned thoughtfully. "I can see that; you look like shit. Now lay back or I'll sedate you."
Syaoran huffed and reluctantly laid back on the table, the giant white machine looming in the upper reaches of his vision. "You're not going to find anything."
"I'll be the judge of that when we get the CAT scan back. Now you know the drill."
"Yes, doctor."
"Good. I may be a psychiatrist, but I can diagnose with the best of you." The machine began a low grumbling whir, shaking the table slightly. Tomoyo's face disappeared from Syaoran's view. "I'll be back in a few minutes." The door clicked shut as the table began to move and Syaoran approached the giant plastic tunnel disappearing into the dimness. It was an oppressive experience, the claustrophobic darkness with the laser cross that shines overhead. It held a strange lulling quality mixed with the machine's insides churning. Syaoran almost slept, but stubbornly held onto his wakefulness with an iron grip. He'd had four hours of solid sleep last night before the nightmares; it had to hold him through at least today. He fixed his gaze back on the glass and lasers, counting down the seconds.
It was some indiscriminate time later that Syaoran was slowly pulled out of the machine, reacquainted with the fluorescent lights. Tomoyo was right where she last was, towering over him with that motherly worried look. "Found anything?"
"Haven't looked; besides I'm not an expert in medicine am I?"
Syaoran grinned weakly and commanded his sore limbs to swing his legs over to the ground and get up. He half sidled, half staggered towards the door. The radiologist was looking over the blue green yellow computer scans. Syaoran peered at them over his shoulder. "There's nothing wrong is there?"
The man raised his eyes slowly and shook his head. "Everything seems normal, for the most part."
Tomoyo frowned even deeper. "Then what's wrong? I'm almost certain it's not psychological. There's psychosomatic, but this is ridiculous." She cast a look over Syaoran's haggard features. "God you look like hell. Why don't you get some sleep?"
Syaoran shook his head viciously. There was no way in hell he'd have those dreams again, not with Sakura, not with that man. "No."
"I can get you some sedatives. Some dreamless sleep will do you good…"
"They don't always work. I'll be fine."
Tomoyo snapped at Syaoran and brought her hands to fold over her chest. For a moment she looked frighteningly overbearing. "You're not fine, Syaoran. I'm getting the tranquilizers and you're going to bed. Now."
Syaoran made a move to argue, but found himself up against Tomoyo's rare unbudging moods. He reluctantly gave in. "Fine, but I want to do something first."
"What?"
Syaoran was already halfway out the door. "Just something. I'll meet you at your office in half an hour."
Tomoyo sighed resignedly and nodded, unseen as Syaoran was already making his way toward the elevators.
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Syaoran stepped out into the hall and grimaced. It was so unnaturally quiet, a whole floor where staff shuffled along and patients slept and family members sat deep in thought. He was going to visit Sakura; she'd know what was wrong with him. Perhaps it was the irrationality of lack of sleep, but Syaoran knew Sakura was the key somehow. It was inside her head, trapped.
He entered the room and found her curtain drawn. The whole room was still as remembered it, a few changes, a patient gone, different flowers, newer versions of some of the machines, but the whole atmosphere was exactly the same. He crept cautiously to the curtain and slowly drew the rustling striped fabric, the ball bearings squeaking a little.
He stopped as he came upon two sets of eyes watching him. A brown haired man was sitting beside Sakura, apparently reading something; a book was open on his lap. The other man with black hair was sitting on her other side. He watched Syaoran warily, almost dangerously. "Who are you?"
Syaoran looked down at his disheveled clothes and remembered he'd been put on medical leave two months before. "I'm a doctor here. Dr. Syaoran Li." The dark haired man backed down, only slightly.
The other man, also looking slightly strained rose to shake hands with Syaoran. "Nice to meet you, doctor. Kinomoto Fujitaka. Sakura's my daughter; this is my son, Touya." Touya merely inclined his head and said a half hearted 'hello.' "Are you one of Sakura's doctor?"
Syaoran looked taken back a little before he realized he had absent mindedly taken up Sakura's chart from the foot of the bed. "Oh, no. I was the emergency doctor on call when she came in that day."
"Oh, I see. Well…we still owe you thanks for saving Sakura's life. Touya?"
The other man frowned and made some half attempt at speaking. Eventually his face turned bitter, only marginally less so than his words. "I'll give thanks when they find a way to wake her up."
Fujitaka winced. "Touya…"
Syroaran interrupted in hopes of not having to deal with an awkward moment. "No, I understand. Her wound as life threatening as it was shouldn't have produced this kind of comatose state." He began to flip through the thick chart, pages of pages of tests, serological ones, neurological ones, all within in normal parameters. Her condition had absolutely no medical explanation.
All three men fixed their gazes back on Sakura. Syaoran watched her slowly, feeling uncomfortable staring at the pale face, the overgrown hair. Somehow he knew there would be the same green eyes lying behind the closed lids, the same voice in her throat. He absently turned his eyes back down to the chart to avoid starting any longer. Every time he imagined her, he felt his skin prickle with something you'd expect during watching a horror movie. It was a fleeting, sickening, slithering feeling. He pushed the thoughts away and stared harder at the illegible doctor scribbling. The loops unaccountably began to quiver on the page, vibrate and turn upon themselves, thumping, trying to rip themselves off the page. Syaoran dropped the metal clipboard and stumbled backwards. He was only momentarily aware of his state of off balance before the darkness crept through his mind.
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Syaoran opened his eyes to find himself slumped on a plastic chair out in the ER waiting room. He peered myopically through his unadjusted eyes at his surroundings. The lights were off and the nurses' station stood empty among abandoned wheelchairs and gurneys stilled in the middle of the hall. A vending machine flickered erratically to his left and the floor squeaked as he tried to stand up. The low buzzing of the overhead ventilation system seemed wrong, distorted. The sound pulsed, loud then soft, but always constant. This was the ER waiting room, in some form anyway.
He frowned and stared out of the emergency entrance; there was black beyond the glass, no ambulances, no lit restaurants across the street. It was a dream again. He squared his jaw and walked cautiously to the nurse's console. A dim light from somewhere provided enough to see the glowing sheets of papers and scratched metal charts. There was no indication of where he'd be led this time. Sakura would be here, he knew; she'd be somewhere, being infuriatingly vague, then she'd be dead…somehow. He padded warily away from the desk; the sooner he found her body, the sooner the dream would end, and he might get some normal sleep.
The curtains of the trauma room were half drawn. An empty gurney was standing amidst a litter of medical supplies. Syringes, tubing, gauze pads all on the floor or twisted around the side rails of the bed. A solitary machine kept pace noiselessly, weak dim little spikes appearing and disappearing on a plate of green black. He moved on. The second trauma room was the same, and so were the examination rooms. Medical equipment, empty beds, complete stillness.
Syaoran found himself back in the waiting room, growing increasingly frustrated. He had found nothing important. He was walking in circles and something about the emptiness around him, the half forgotteness of the room kept his nerves on edge and skin cold. What was he supposed to do this time? He glared murderously at the chairs, the vending machine, the floor. What was supposed to happen?
The elevator dinged. Syaoran turned his head sharply to look at it. The doors slid slowly open as if opposed by an enormous weight. The inside was dark, unknown. It beckoned him forward and he followed. The darkness stifled him, the kind of blue black that wasn't night, but more than halfway there. The numbered buttons flickered sequentially, dancing across the panel. He aimlessly pressed the button for the third floor, but it had no effect. The doors eventually struggled close and the elevator lurched upward, slowly, languidly.
When Syaoran was again opened up to the sight of an empty expanse of corridors, he stepped out into the waiting area. There was new sound here, a chorus of ventilators taking controlled breaths. This was Sakura's floor. The elevator dinged again and slid shut again. He was trapped again. At least he knew where he had to go this time.
Syaoran stood unmoving before Sakura's curtain. It was drawn across the bed and he feared what lay beyond it. The lights overhead were off like the rest of the hospital but the machines around him echoed with artificial breathing. He steeled himself and yanked at the curtain, almost ripping the cheap fabric from the chains.
A creaseless bedspread, puffed pillow. The bed was empty; he had half expected it to be so. In here, in wherever here was, Sakura was awake…in some form. The bareness disturbed him. Even the table normally overflowing with cards and flowers was wiped bare with only a sickly mustard yellow plastic cup reposing on it. The scene was unlived in.
Where was she? He shuddered as he felt something blow against his neck. But there was nothing there. It was unaccountably strange, the cool watery feeling of something brushing against his skin, his hands, his face, under his hair. He turned around the room, only to meet the striped curtains. His nerves were on their screaming at him and he escaped the room back into the hallway, away from the maddening shiver inducing touches.
The hallway was like before, dim, empty. Where was she?
A low sound echoed around him, something that steadily developed into a low hum, a song. Like some childish song sung melancholy. He looked down the corridor and found girl standing in front of a blacked out window. She glowed with a ghostly gray and she looked straight at him.
"Who are you?" His words were foreign in the silence.
The girl didn't seem to hear him, still absorbed with her humming.
Syaoran took a few steps closer but still found himself separated by the hallway. He walked a little faster but seemed to be making no progress. The girl began to sing, her voice wavering. It was strange sound, more like an instrument than a human voice. Like a cello or a reedy wind instrument. Syaoran began to jog, doors and chairs moving past him. And yet he got no closer.
The girl at the end of the hall was different now. Here ponytails had disappeared and she had grown willowy and filled out a high school uniform. Her voice remained low and slow, if only slightly more musical.
Syaoran stopped for a moment to stare at her. There was no doubt it was Sakura, only younger. As he watched her still form, he registered a familiar acrid smell. He stared down at his feet and grimaced as the floor had turned a pinkish hue. The smell increased, a kind of sickening oily vinegary stench. Soon the floor was red, wet looking. Blood seeped through the tiles, darkening the cracks and spilling over the white surface. The smell had begun to intensify, thickening.
He ran, trying to expel the smell in his lungs that rose thick lumps in his throat, that hung in his chest and squeezed his stomach and stung his vision. Even his footsteps had become uncomfortable, as if running through syrup, low gurgling squishing sounds with every foot he slammed into the gathering purplish blood. He pushed himself faster, focusing solely on Sakura who stood waiting for him. The end of hall suddenly began to approach.
Syaoran slipped to a stop. There was something blocking his way, like glass. He banged against the surface. Sakura was only a few feet beyond. She had stopped singing and was watching him dead-eyed as he tried to break through the barrier.
Syaoran swallowed and coughed, anything to stop the involuntary urge to throw up. The smell, it was unbearable. It invaded him, filled him with a gnawing discomfort that he couldn't soothe. He beat again against the glass futilely. He needed to get out. He needed to escape. The blood had now risen to his ankles and he could feel it sticking between his toes and soaking his socks through, a sickly thick lukewarm gelatiny feeling. He spied a potted plant to his side and hauled it up over his head. He needed to break the glass. He needed release.
The plastic base of the plant slammed against the glass, shattering it. A blast of cold air burned across Syaoran's face and his mind lifted and faded out.
Syaoran fell back into himself and found himself staring at the red blinking lights of Tomoeda's skyline. A familiar helicopter patch to his right confirmed he was on the roof of the hospital. He spotted Sakura almost immediately as he scanned the concrete ground. She was beyond the fenced in smoking area, standing statuesque on the ledge. The dark cloaked her face and half of her body. Syaoran approached slowly, undoing the gate of the break area. The wind blew cold and fresh and he never took his eyes of Sakura.
Sakura's face fell into view, dim in the near dark. Only the overhead blinking red light shone across her skin, wrapped her in a gauzy film. She slowly raised her hands outward, a strange discomforting impression of a slow dive.
Syaoran felt his stomach drop. He rushed towards her. Just as she fell backwards, he managed to grab onto an outstretched hand. Her feet slipped over the edge and the force or her weight dragged him half over the edge, precarious from following over the precipice. Only his legs were able to grip hard against the ledge. He groaned as his arms felt like they were being ripped out of their sockets. "Sakura! Hold on!" His voice sounded strange in the air, disused and disharmonious in the silence that was all bathed him.
Sakura dangled, limp form, limbs hanging like wind beaten branches. She was silent, darkened eyes fixed beyond Syaoran's straining shoulder. If Syaoran's death grip on her wrist hurt her, she showed no signs.
Syaoran grit his teeth and strained his muscles to bring Sakura up. He couldn't get leverage with his body bent over. His knees burned pushing futilely against the ledge; his fingers were white and slippery with effort and he couldn't help fearing that the slightest movement could bring him over too. The wind blew serenely up his shirt, numbing his neck, spiraling down his arms, caressing his fingers. It felt hot, humid…wrong.
Something touched his ankle, circled around them. Syaoran wrenched his head back toward the dark. A red tinted taught wiry face smiled at him.
The hands jerked, pulling Syaoran's legs off the ground. The action was fast, the off balance, the off-centeredness. He slid off the edge, the feeling of being out of control as his body left the roof. His heart thundered in his chest and all he could focus on was Sakura's eyes, half dead, half inquisitive. And the ground rushing up to him at a frighteningly fast pace.
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Tomoyo left the elevator. Syaoran had not shown up at her office as he promised he would. She knew he'd be here, and she'd give him a good lecture. She walked down the hall, noting abstracted that some orderlies and nurses and doctors were running past her. They turned sharply into Sakura's room. Tomoyo frown and walked a little faster.
The scene that met her was a chaotic mess of people, machines and noise. Doctors were shouting orders, nurses scrambling around. And on the floor was Syaoran… She rushed over towards to the doctor and nurse tending to him. "What happened?!"
The doctor put down Syoaran's wrist. "Don't know; they said he passed out. His heart's erratic; we need to get him to a room. Where's that gurney?"
A nurse rushed into the room with two orderlies wheeling in a bed. They hastily lifted Syaoran's prone form onto the mattress. They were about to rush away when a frantic beeping sounded across the room.
Tomoyo turned towards the sound. Two people she hadn't noticed before were rushing towards the sound. The brown haired man yelled for a doctor and Tomoyo felt like she had entered a nightmare.
She found herself running down the hall at Syaoran's side while the nurses pushed the gurney. The other doctor had to rushed to attend Sakura. Tomoyo frowned worriedly down at Syaoran. They burst into an empty room where the nurses quickly began to get to work and Tomoyo stood silent feeling useless. Sure she had the training, but she was only a psychiatrist afterall. "What can I do?"
One of the nurses looked up from attaching the heart monitor. "Find him a doctor. His rate's getting more erratic." The nurse turned back to Syaoran and stared somberly at the jumping spikes on the black screen. "It's still rising."
Tomoyo nodded faintly and commanded her feet to move. There was no time to waste. She ran out into the hall and collided with another nurse. "Nurse, we need a doctor."
"I'm sorry, I can't help you. The Kinomoto girl just coded."
Tomoyo watched her go with a sense of tension, something knotting up in her throat. It wasn't a coincidence was it? She ran down to the nurses station and found no one there. She snatched up the phone and dialed down to the ER. "We need a doctor up here now. Dr. Syaoran Li is experiencing heart trouble."
The voice on the other end of the line paused. "Tomoyo?"
Tomoyo sighed in relief. "Terada! Syaoran passed out a few minutes ago and we can't get his heart rate down."
There was a minute pause. "Damn. We're swamped down here too Tomoyo. A pile up on the highway. There's another on the way, painter who they think had a heart attack."
"We need help up here. He's really bad. I don't know what to do."
Another tense silence. "Okay, I'm going right now. Where are you?"
Tomoyo breathed in relief and looked towards Syaoran's room. "331. Hurry." She slammed down the phone and ran back to Syaoran's room.
A bare minute later, Terada rushed through the door and began to dictate orders. The nurses injected various things and Terada kept a firm gaze on the heart monitor. He turned a worried look to Tomoyo. "His pulse is still going up. If we can't get it down, he's going to crash."
Tomoyo nodded dumbly and caught the two men who were at Sakura's side out of the side of her eye. There were standing in the hall, watching the nurses and doctors rush sided around Sakura. Their postures said it all, the slumped defeated shoulders. Syaoran's monitor began to scream. Loud. Urgent.
This really was a nightmare…
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Author's Notes: Sorry about the cliffhanger. This has already been a long chapter (I'm making amends) and its finally spring break. No promises, but I'm going to really try to get up the next chapter next week.