Chapter 2: "An Unexpected Awakening"
-" Inside, it rests a crimson princess, a queen of eyes red as blood, hair dark as darkness itself and skin white as marble. To many a friend, to others a sister or a lover, but to some others, a threat. She rests for thirty years, until the time comes for her to wake up . . . or at least that's what it's said."
A strong smell of iron filled the observation room; it was blood, the crimson nectar Chiropterans live on and appreciate so much for them to have fought endless battles for it. As blood packages were being prepared for the "awakening transfusion", doctors, who were covered from head to toe, entered the room; their covered faces did not reflect the excitement they felt inside. Everything was ready for Saya's awakening; they just needed one simple word of approval from Kai's mouth to begin the process. But he stood silent, watching as how the cocoon lay over the cold, metallic laboratory table, ready to be opened and examined. He couldn't bear watching how she was being treated as an experiment, or as if she was the clue to the mystery of evolution, he couldn't.
In his mind he thought: "Doesn't Saya look human? Doesn't she feel as we do? Chiropteran or human, she is alive . . . she is alive!"
These words echoed in his head as long as he watched her, but he closed his eyes and murmured, tears falling down his cheek, "I can't do this, but if I don't, Saya and her babies will die." He was now facing a predicament that made his head and heart ached. He grabbed a chair and sat, remembering all the things they have fought for so long, the places and people they have met, but most important, the new generation that was growing and the one that was about to be born.
He could hear the voices of the doctors and surgeons talking, all of them wondering about what lies inside that cocoon, but two of them interested him the most:
"Sir, do you know what is inside?" said a young and naïve intern.
"Inside," the senior doctor sighed," it rests a crimson princess, a queen of eyes red as blood, hair dark as darkness itself and skin white as marble. To many a friend, to others a sister or a lover, but to some others, a threat. She rests for thirty years, until the time comes for her to wake up . . . or at least that's what it's said." said the most experienced doctor as he passed a scalpel to his pupil.
Without even Kai noticing, David pulled a chair right next to him, silence filled the atmosphere and a cold air was felt; at first it was hard for anybody in the room to talk, but David broke the silence talking softly.
"Kai, are you sure you understand the meaning of the situation?" David said tenderly.
"Yes, I am sure I can understand the meaning of the situation!" Kai yelled scaring the young intern he had heard before. He made him cut, even through the thick gloves he was wearing.
Three blood droplets fell into the cocoon, making it beat faster and faster by the minute as if it needed more blood. It just needed three droplets of the blood from an innocent to make it work. Alarms and sirens, just like the ones you hear during a fire drill, where heard all over the place, and doctors rushed all over the research center, making the hallways look more like a highway in rush hour.
"What's going on Julia?" David asked his wife as she rushed into the observation room.
"Saya," the blond doctor said panting," she's waking up!"
"How come?" Lewis asked, as he was eating some sort of snack.
"We are not sure," said Julia as she stopped for a second," but we think the blood from the intern triggered a chain reaction, which made her somehow 'conscious.'" the doctor said as she caught her breath and entered the observation room.
Chaos and disorder ruled the place, but Kai stood with his eyes closed until a young doctor waked him from his day dreams.
"Sir," the young doctor addressed Kai," we have to ask you to leave the room."
He didn't answer nor he looked at who was talking to him; he just wanted to stay there, to be when Saya woke up, but the doctor insisted on him leaving.
"But what about Saya, will she be ok?" an altered Kai asked Julia.
"Please, Kai leave!!" the blonde doctor yelled as she showed Kai the way out. His eyes widened, he had never seen Julia yell before and neither did he had seen her mad.
He stood outside, doing nothing but waiting and watching where the real action was taking place. The time was running, and fast; but none of the doctors or surgeons knew what to do.
Saya's heartbeat increased, she was more alive than when she was awake; the cocoon had softened, so they proceed to do the only thing they could imagine: cut it open.
"Scalpel", asked the surgeon to his pupil.
"Here it is sir", said the intern as he handed it to his superior.
The surgeon grabbed the scalpel, even though his hand was shaking and he didn't know what could happen, he proceeded. He lowered his hand and in a clean cut, the now soft cocoon was open. He left the blade aside and tried to remove the cocoon, but a hand grabbed his and wouldn't let him go.
'What's going on?" the surgeon asked," Why doesn't she lets me go?!"
The doctors tried to free the surgeon's hand, but it was useless, the strength she was using to hold the surgeon's hand was not human; you could have said it was literally crushing.
While the interns carefully removed the cocoon, they found the Chiropteran Queen awake. Her brown eyes were glowing red with anger and she was ready to fight. She stands up in the middle of an unknown place to her, full of surgeons and doctors, scared but at the same time angered. Kai, lost in his thoughts, reacts when he hears Saya's screams; without thinking it twice; he enters the room and calls, "Saya!!"
She hears her name and looks around; she has freed the surgeon's hand but was now crushing Kai's. Her glowing red eyes look deep into Kai's eyes, everything turns blurry to her and she faints, falling into her brother's arms.
As she opens her eyes in the middle of the cold night, she founds herself lying in a soft bed, not the warm and cozy cocoon she used to sleep in during her hibernation. A thousand thoughts running through her mind keeps her from sleeping again, she stands up from her bed, and sees herself in a mirror; her short raven hair has grown long, and so did her belly. Tears felled from her brown eyes as she puts her hand in her stomach, feeling the beat of the new life inside her.
"How did this happen?" she asked her own reflection, "Has the thirty years gone so fast?"
"Oh, dear, what a lovely picture!" a queer and familiar voice said.
She wiped the tears from her face and looked around, she had heard that voice before, but still it was just her in the room, and nobody else.
"I might be hallucinating, he's dead," she repeated to herself," I killed him with my own hands."
"Darling, I can assure you I am not dead," the queer voice called behind her, and yet again she turned around, but as before nobody was there. She opened the faucet and washed her face to calm her nerves; she watches herself once again in the mirror, and sees the reflection of the Chevalier she thought was dead.
"Nathan Mahler", said Saya as she turned around to found Nathan sitting in her bed.
"In the flesh," said the queer Chevalier with a sarcastic tone.
"How can you be alive?" the queen asked.
"How can you be awake so early?" said Nathan laughing.
Touché, it was true that he was alive, but she still didn't know how she could be awake so early. With this in her mind, she carefully approached the bed and sat in the nearest chair.
"What do you mean early?" the queen asked, but the Chevalier laughed at her question and did not answer,"What are you doing here anyways?"
"Can't I say hello to the mother of the babies of one of my dear, departed and beloved brothers?" said Nathan as he stands up, taking the cup of blood that was placed in the night table for Saya to drink.
"What do you know about this?" Saya asked ferociously.
"More than what you could ever imagine, my dear queen." Nathan said as he drinks a sip of the blood in the cup.
Saya's eyes started glowing red once again, but this time the cup that Nathan was holding in his hand cracked.
"I can see you have learned a trick or two during your short sleep," Nathan said laughing, "but still is nothing compared to what your late mother could do when she was pregnant."
Nathan's commentary made her stop for a second, but still she asked her self how Nathan could have ever met her late mother, a mummified Chiropteran that lived about two or maybe even three centuries ago.
"What is that supposed to mean?" she said confused," Did you met my mother?"
He smirked but, but no answer came out from his lips, making Saya even more irritated.
The white opal moon that could be seen from the window in her room made her glowing red eyes brighter and as Saya's eyes glowed more, the cup in Nathan's hand broke, making it shatter in a rain of more than a thousand pieces of glass.
"You surprise me dear," Nathan said as he shook off the tiny pieces of glass from his shirt, "I really was not expecting that."
"What do you know about my mother and about the Chevalier that impregnated me?" she asked once again, but as before the former Chevalier laughed, but this time his laugh was louder and harder.
"Darling, I don't expect you to remember your beloved mother," he said trying not to laugh, "but, how could you forget the Chevalier that impregnated you? That is an offense to the father of your children."
Suddenly the door started to open and the usual Red Shield members entered the room, but this time the former Chevalier disappeared leaving a small puddle of blood and a floor covered in tiny pieces of glass.
"Saya are you ok?" her worried brother asked as he saw her sitting in a chair near her bead.
"Yes," she said as she breathes deeply.
"Saya," Joel said," welcome back."
"Thank you very much sir" she said.
That night, Saya Otonashi had experienced the most strange and unexpected awakening of her life as a Chiropteran Queen.