Ok, sorry it took me so long to update, but here's the next chapter; it's quite possibly the longest one so far, so, again make sure you have time to read for a while ^__^. I haven't said this in a really, really long while, so: ARIGATO FOR YOUR REVIEWS!!!! *huggles all*
20. The Predecessor Revealed~
Before they started working, Tanurah placed some electrodes on Kinou's temples to monitor her thoughts and brainwaves. Kinou didn't mind them too much; they just felt like they were about to fall off half the time when they were securely stuck on her, something that nearly drove her crazy. As a safety precaution, Kinou was placed in a room by herself with some pillows and stuffed animals, while Tanurah observed her through a window in one of the walls. Standing in the middle of the room, she felt like only half a person without Emily in her pocket. Depression was on the verge of hitting her full-fledge in her mind as she thought of herself without her cat. It was as though she had lost a part of herself; she was incomplete. Tanurah interrupted her misery as he switched on the intercom.
"All right, Kinou, we need to get started. Are you doing ok?"
She glared back at him, as though to say, "What the hell do you think?"
"Kinou, I'm sorry you lost your cat, but we really need to get to work on this; I'm sure we're going to produce some interesting results. And I need you to focus on the task at hand; we'll go looking for it later."
Kinou clenched her teeth. It…. IT! she screamed inside her head. SHE! Emily is a she damnit! …..Okay, calm down… the sooner I get this out of the way, the sooner I can go to find her. She released her fists and took a deep breath to steady herself.
As she stretched out her hands to lift one of the teddy bears, something felt different to her. She couldn't say what it was… it just felt…new. Like she had never tried it this way before. All the same, she focused her mind on moving the bear; with a twinge no different than before, the bear flew towards her, nearly hitting her in the head before she ducked out of its way.
While she held up her hands to the light to stare at them, Tanurah came over on the loudspeaker: "That was great, Kinou; I got some really good readings."
Kinou looked through the window at him. "The last few times I've tried this, the object only moved about an inch or so; it's never moved like that before."
"Don't focus on that now; I really need you to just keep your mind on using your power for now, ok?"
Kinou shrugged and tried again, this time on one of the pillows. Once again it flew towards her with ten times the force as before, and she caught it. She looked back at Tanurah. "Can you teach me how to actually control what I do? I don't think I'll get very far just sitting here and playing catch with myself."
He looked up from his papers and fixed her with a piercing stare. "I want you to stay in there until I have all the readings I need. Things like this take time; I can't simply snap my fingers with the answers. Just keep doing what you've been doing and I'll study my findings to figure a way to manipulate where the objects move, all right?"
Sighing, Kinou repeatedly made the objects fly towards her; after a while, she sat down and slouched until her elbows were nearly touching the floor in front of her knees. After nearly half an hour, she stopped and glared at Tanurah through the glass again. "Are you done yet?" she asked.
Surprisingly, she couldn't see him behind the desk, so she stood up and walked up to it, cupping her hands around her eyes to shield out the glare. Kinou narrowed her eyes and her mouth opened slightly in bewilderment as she saw him: he was crouched on the floor with his fingers at his temples, and he was muttering non-stop to himself. Kinou hesitantly knocked on the glass to get his attention, but he did not look up or even acknowledge she was there anymore. As she watched, he appeared to be getting steadily angrier; his head lurched to one side and he started shouting. She couldn't hear what he was yelling since the microphone in the room was turned off, but she started to worry. Raising her fist again, she hit the glass a little harder, but to no avail; he kept shouting and she could see his fingers pushing harder and harder into his head. Realising that knocking on the window wasn't doing anything, she ripped the electrodes from her temples, threw them down and ran to the door of her room—and found it locked. She began pounding on it, shouting for someone to help. No one came for nearly five minutes, at which time she heard a heart-stopping scream. She ran back to the glass to discover that Tanurah had fallen over, unconscious. Someone threw open her door as she yelled out in fright upon seeing a small trickle of blood seeping out of Tanurah's ear. A guard stepped behind her and demanded to know why she was making so much noise.
"Dr. Tanurah! Dr. Tanurah!" she shouted at him, pounding the glass with her fists again.
The guard looked over her shoulder through the glass and immediately ran from the room, shouting for more guards and hospital personnel. Kinou remained at the window, watching in horror as the door to Tanurah's room began to rattle; it seemed to be locked from the inside. She heard at least four other guards arrive and they all began to slam against the door. As the door gave way and swung to the side on one unbroken hinge, Lonu rushed up to Kinou's side. Other doctors and nurses swarmed in and picked up Tanurah to carry him away; Lonu pried Kinou away from the glass, leaving two sweaty palm prints from Kinou's hands on it. She gently led Kinou away from the shouts and commotion and into her room, shutting the door behind them.
Handing her a cup of hot chocolate, Lonu sat beside Kinou, looking extremely concerned. "Are you all right, miss?"
Kinou nodded vaguely. "I… I don't know what happened… We were just going through, him taking notes on my power while I tried it out."
Lonu looked concernedly at her. "Do you have any idea as to what happened?"
Shaking her head, she swallowed hard as the disturbing images flooded her mind, forcing her unwillingly to relive it. "I just looked through the glass and… I have no idea what he was doing. At first I thought his head was hurting him because he was crouched down and massaging his temples or something… Then he started shouting and looked like he was convulsing a little bit, too." She shuddered. "I was really scared; I thought of him as one of the most sensible people I'd ever met."
"So did we all, dear," said Lonu, patting her hand. "So did we all."
"I mean, he was so nice and I felt so safe around him. He knew exactly how to calm me down when he had to take a blood sample from me—"
"Oh, I was wondering what that band-aid on your arm was."
"My arm?" Kinou looked down at her right arm in surprise. "He took it from the inside of my elbow, not there…" She prodded at the new affected area and gasped out in pain.
Lonu immediately went to her right side and lifted Kinou's arm up slightly. "May I?" she asked, gently starting to lift the corner of the band-aid. Kinou nodded, and Lonu slowly pulled it off to reveal that Kinou's skin underneath was a grey-green colour.
"Ah!" yelled Kinou, holding her arm out like it was a diseased piece of road kill. "What the hell?"
Surprisingly, Lonu looked suddenly furious. She fixed Kinou with a cold stare and whispered dangerously, "Did you ask him for this?"
"For what? I don't know what the hell that is! I don't remember any shots or anything!" Kinou yelled.
"Were you ever alone with him when you weren't paying attention?"
Kinou made a noise of contempt. "No! I had only seen him in his office for the first appointment we had, and a couple times in the piano hall—" She stopped, remembering the first time she had seen him there. He had carried me back to my room and I fell asleep on the way…. She looked back at Lonu, who still looked angry and rather intimidating. "So what if he was there when I wasn't paying attention? What difference would it make if he gave me another shot—"
Lonu cursed loudly and turned away to walk to a cabinet across the room muttering to herself. "Of all the stupid…. exactly what he did the last time… he didn't learn from the other one?"
Kinou blinked, confused slightly. "What is it?" she asked, a little afraid of the answer.
The nurse turned back to her with some gauze and antibacterial ointment in her hands. Kinou was startled to see that she no longer looked angry; she was now staring at her with the utmost pity and despair in her eyes. She came and sat down next to Kinou, placed the things in her hands delicately on the table beside the bed, and took Kinou's hands in hers.
"I really hate to be the one to tell you this, miss, but," She took a deep breath, and paused, as though she wished that neither of them were there. "A few months ago, before you were brought here, there was another boy who was brought to us. None of us knew about him at first because Dr. Tanurah hid him away when he came, but eventually Mr. Kaiba found him out. The boy had the same type of rare virus within his body, though it was a weaker variation of it, so his power was not as strong. Dr. Tanurah almost went mad trying to get the boy to strengthen his power, but I think he pushed him too hard, because the boy eventually gave up at trying to live up to the doctor's standards. So, Dr. Tanurah developed a liquid that, when injected into the bloodstream of someone like you or the boy, would help the reinoty virus regenerate into stronger cells, thus strengthening your telekinetic powers." She sighed and shook her head and her voice wavered ever so slightly as she continued. "Unfortunately, the doctor did not even think about the possible side effects before injecting some into the boy. It seemed to be a miracle at first—before the boy began to act extremely strange. He started having sudden outbursts that he did not seem to be able to control, and he attacked the medical staff several times while working on controlling his power. We all finally figured out that it was some sort of an alter ego that was surfacing and causing him to act out violently. And with further blood tests, we linked it to the solution Dr. Tanurah had given him. Before we could come up with a remedy, he attacked the doctor while they were alone together, injuring both of them severely. When we asked the boy about what happened, he started shouting delirious things about conspiracies and betrayals and fainted right then and there. So… we decided the best thing we could do was—was—" she choked slightly and dabbed at her eyes with a corner of her apron. "—lock him up in a cage and keep him there until we could figure out a cure for it. But then we were told to focus on you, for you had been discovered shortly after he was injected, and he was forgotten down in that cage. The staff and I still bring him food in there to keep him alive, but until you figure out how to use your power effectively, we have to ignore the fact that we just ruined someone's life when they were perfectly happy where they were…"
Kinou remained silent, shocked. "What…. What was the boy's name?" she asked in a barely audible whisper.
It took Lonu a moment before she responded, for she was crying a little bit. "I believe it was Terry, the poor dear…"
Her heart began to race. That must have been what he was talking about… No wonder he freaked out so much when he saw the doctor…And I called him a liar, she thought as her stomach gave a horrible wrench. Lonu looked overt at her and put her hand on her shoulder.
"Is everything all right, miss? I do hope I haven't frightened you; I just wanted you to—"
"No, it's not that…" Kinou murmured. She looked at the nurse, guilt and despair clouding her mind. "I…. I found Terry a couple of days ago. When he saw Dr. Tanurah…. he tried to convince me that he was a bad man, and I didn't believe him." She put her hands to her face. "I kicked him out and called him a liar." A dry sob escaped her lips as she began to pour out her feelings. "I—I didn't want him talking about Dr. Tanurah that way; especially after he came to clean up my cheek. And… I was really starting to like him, but now…" She began to get angry. "This isn't fair! Nothing is going how it's supposed to anymore! People are messing with my head, hurting me in my dreams, I'm being scared to death by everything that happens… and… and… Emily is missing. Without Emily, I don't feel like anything. I'm worthless." At that phrase, she could have sworn she heard something in the back of her mind… like an echo of a strange voice, but is was so faint she barely noticed it. "I… I feel…" She was shocked to hear the next words come out of her mouth. "…like dying." And the scary thing was, she really meant it. The echo in her mind became slightly louder.
Lonu wrapped her arms around Kinou and squeezed her tightly. "Shhh, hush, dear, hush. Don't ever say that. You have your whole life ahead of you; we're going to get through this, you hear?"
Kinou almost felt like laughing at Lonu. Kinou had always told other people these exact words and thought that she was helping. With another jolt in her stomach, she remembered one of her good friends had tried to commit suicide and she had said that to him. I should have tried harder… she thought. She sat up slightly to look at Lonu, who was close to tears again.
"Please, miss…" she whispered. "Don't let yourself go that easily… It was hard enough to watch this happen to Terry; someone I barely knew. If you really do…." she didn't finish her sentence, breaking down.
Kinou watched as Lonu put her face in her hands and began to sob uncontrollably. Her heart gave a little twinge and she snapped out of her self-pity. She gently put her arm around Lonu and rocked her from side to side, tears welling up in her eyes as well. Lonu buried her face in Kinou's shoulder and held her tightly.
"Don't say things like that, miss, please… I don't know what I would do if you—"
"Shh," whispered Kinou. She leaned over and spoke gently into Lonu's ear. "I promise I won't do anything like that. If I had my choice, I would rather die than stay here in this state, but I will stay here with you. I swear I won't do anything to harm myself. …" She hardly felt like promising anything, but, as though to reassure herself that she was being truthful, she added, "…I'll do it for you."
Lonu simply held her tighter and continued to sob, though slightly more subdued. They sat for nearly ten minutes, not saying anything at all, and both felt somewhat relieved that they were with each other. Finally, Lonu sat up and looked Kinou right in the eyes with determination. "We'll need to fight this together. I have a proposition for you: we'll work on controlling your power until you can properly work it; then we'll work on getting to the bottom of everything. Agreed?"
Kinou sat for a moment, hesitant, but Lonu's determined tone and facial expression swayed her beyond a doubt. She grinned. "Let's do it."
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Hope you all keep reading and reviewing!! Especially since I'm currently working on a sequel to this story! ^^