A week had passed, and Phil was still in the hospital, slowly gaining more ability to move and explore on his own.
Everything he saw was a new adventure, from the people to the flying messages and the owls and so much more. Even so, he hadn't found the most important thing; he still hadn't found Dan.
The doctors stealthily deflected any questions he had about other man, and this did little to calm Phil's nerves. He was beginning to feel this flurry of panic inside him, almost like he knew he would loose Dan if he didn't find him soon. This, along with a slight wave of boredom, spurred Phil into leaving his room in exploration once more. This time, it was just past midday, after the hospital had had their lunch break. The sun would soon be setting and dusting the horizon with its golden rays, but even that was pointless if the man couldn't find his other half.
Phil trudged down the hall, occasionally stopping to catch his breath as he dragged behind the IV he longed to rid of. He went down one corridor and then another, venturing in a direction he had yet to search. Soon, the last corridor came to a dead end, with no chalk-written "Daniel Howell" in sight. For a moment, Phil felt defeated. He had stopped to catch his breath, but then slowly sank to the floor with his head in his arms. "What if I never find him?" he whispered to himself, feeling the devastating fear that sank into his chest along with it.
As he sat there in the quiet hall, he started to hear something more and wearily lifted his head to scan the hallway. The sound was a whisper of sorts, seeping in from the walls surrounding him. The whisper he heard began wordless, existent solely as a stream of sound... but it slowly grew clearer. Eventually, he heard his name. As a man out of ideas, he followed the whisper, hoping against hope that it would aid him and lead him to Dan Howell. The whisper led him back a few doors down, to an unmarked door which blended into the wall. Phil cautiously nudged it open, revealing a dimly lit hall. Slowly, the man crept along it, his eyes wide open and searching as he walked all the way down until he reached five doors. He had reached a hidden section of patients. In front of each door, there was a tag with patient's names, unlike the chalkboards which marked all the others. It almost seemed to Phil that these rooms were somehow intended to be permanent... After that small reflection, he quickly checked the tags. On the fourth, he found him. He found Dan.
Phil reached out to twist the knob, finally feeling happiness bubble in his chest at the thought of seeing Dan once more. As his fingers wrapped one by one around the golden doorknob, he was suddenly knocked back by what might have been a blast of magic before he slumped to the floor, unconscious.
Lila Green and Vincent Killigan were two nurses, both on their way to check up on the "special" patients. As they walked, they made light conversation, anything to pass the time.
"...this job is so unpredictable. Yesterday, I hadda help a man who's head had shrunken to the size o' an apple. It took the better half the morning as it apparently involved three different curses combined together," Killigan said with a bit of an Australian accent mixed with something indistinguishable.
"Oh you think that's bad?" Lila Green began, "This morning, I was working with an old woman who was being forced to say everything backwards while her hands kept swelling larger. As it turns out, she had been experimenting with potions when one of her cats altered the mix. She of course was unable to tell us that though... it was a bit stressful really..."
They continued talking as they walked on, eventually coming to the corridor and slipping inside. Only once they reached the end was there a break in their conversation. In this secret room was a man, slumped and unconscious by the final doors.
"What on earth..." Green trailed off, looking to see which door had been tampered with.
"Erm, Green... what do ya think 'appened? He obviously tried to enter one o' the rooms but.. 'ow?"
"How did he even find the room in the first place?" she asked in return, stepping away and pointing to the fourth door. "Dan Howell," she informed Vincent Killigan.
They both crouched before the black haired man, checking his condition.
"Says 'e's Phil Lester. Didn't Howell come in with someone like that?..." worry crossing his dark, freckle-specked face.
Lila Green just made a small grunt in response as she took her wand out from within her white robes. "Rennervate."
Phil abruptly sat up and scrambled to his feet. "What happened? What was that? Where's Dan?" he frantically asked, spitting his questions out in one breath.
"Whoa, there fella. Take a breather. Nothing happened, ya jus' wandered a bit too far from ya room," said Vincent, attempting to calm him while the short Lila Green made sure he was uninjured.
"No, no I know Dan's here. I need to see him, please!," Phil said, attempted to burst through the two nurses who were holding him back. He stopped after a moment, out of energy, and whispered, "...please... I need to see him... I need to know that he's okay..."
The two nurses stood there, glancing at each other to seek out a solution. Vincent Killigan just shrugged, and Green turned back to the patient, knowing Vincent was more more completely useless. After a moment, looking at this man who seemed so broken, so like all his hope had already fled, she made her decision.
"Listen, its against our policies to let you into the room of a wizard in his condition, like all of these wizards here. This room, its a type of intensive care unit, but patients placed here often never wake. Still, don't lose your hope... and I might lose my job for this, but come with me." Lila Green strode over to Dan's door, with Lester stumbling along behind her. Killigan was off to the side and took this as his queue to check up on the other patients as they had been originally intending. Lila whispered a spell and tapped the door with her wand before reaching to open it, giving Phil a wary smile. And, despite the circumstances, her faded blue eyes showed a warmth that comforted the anxious Phil, her mousy brown hair even reminding him of Dan.
Phil took drew in a long, steadying breath. "Dan," he thought, "I'm finally here." And the two strode into the room, neither looking back.
A/N yes I'm an evil person who forgets to post and then leaves you with THIS, right before the good part, but I'm finally writing again so I promise I'll be back soon.