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"AAUUUGHHH!" Aelita writhed relentlessly in agony upon the stiff stretcher that rushed through the doors. The blinding lights above flashed by so quickly that they became swift blurs, stabbing at her pupils. The solid white sheets quickly began to fade to shades of dark pink and maroon beneath her, and her fists clenched her abdomen as she cried and screamed. "MAKE IT STOP!" She begged, tossing her head back and forth.
"We have to get her to the O.R., stat!" The man in the sharp, white coat urgently ordered as he grasped the stretcher's side and wheeled it along. All of Aelita's friends had graciously followed, and were speeding down the hallway by her side. Heads turned as the dozens of rushing footsteps crowded around this one stretcher that was desperately being shoved through the corridors.
"She's bleeding out!" The nurse aside from the doctor bellowed, adjusting the IV bag that hovered over her.
"Wait, O.R.? Why!?" Jeremie cried with wide-eyes, struggling to keep up with their quick pace.
"What's happening to her?" Yumi asked the doctor, her expression pleading for an answer, but they merely ignored her requests, disappearing behind the double doors that sealed away the restricted area. The glistening sorrow that resided in the eyes of the medical staff left their hearts sinking in a pool of fear and pessimism within their chests. The squeaking sound of the wheels rolling against the linoleum floor gradually disappeared into the darkness of the hallway, the flaps of the door swinging back and forth as they stopped in their tracks and stared ahead. Heads hung low and tears of worry snuck out of angry eyes.
"I don't understand," Jeremie quietly whispered as he fought back the enlarging lump in his throat. "She was fine a minute ago…"
"No, she wasn't." Yumi coldly stated, with Ulrich and Odd raising their heads in surprise, yet also wonder. Yumi turned to Jeremie with a blank look in her eyes, as if invisible drops were pooling in her tear ducts. She wiped her sleeve across her eyes, avoiding any sign of despair. "She hasn't been fine in a long time. We all know that, Jeremie. You know that."
"Yeah," Jeremie's voice cracked and he cleared his throat. "I know." He removed his glasses and let them hang by his side.
An hour or so passed. The waiting room was spacious, but felt small and cramped with the amount of anxiety and distress that overwhelmed each square foot. It sat somewhat isolated at the end of the hallway near the intensive care unit. There was a large aquarium that sat in the middle of the room, producing a soft glow that illuminated the darkness as little golden fish peacefully swam through mechanical currents. Three couches lined the barren walls, cornered with little end tables that held a boring selection of magazines. A coffee machine rested on a countertop, perched next to a fair sized television. The lights were off, along with the TV. The only sound came from the humming of the aquarium's filter, the distant beeping from the I.C.U., and the slight crinkling of magazine pages as Yumi flipped through them.
Odd laid back on one of the couches, his right arm dangling off of the side. He let out a heavy sigh and traced the ridges of the ceiling with his finger in the air. The other couch was occupied by Yumi and Ulrich. Ulrich slipped in and out of slumber, leaning his face against his clenched fist, his elbow balanced on the arm of the aloof, leather couch. Yumi lay sprawled across the couch with her legs across Ulrich's lap. She licked her fingertips as she lazily skimmed through an expired issue of Cosmopolitan. Jeremie had taken throne of the final couch, sitting cross legged and staring at the empty door, waiting for the doctor to come and say that Aelita was alright. That everything would be okay. Waiting for the moment where there would be no more waiting.
A gentle tapping scraped against the walls and the light flicked on suddenly, grabbing the attention of the four Lyoko warriors.
"Awfully dark in here, isn't it?" A comedic voice echoed from the door frame. "You're here with Ms. Stones?"
"Yes," Jeremie hastily replied as he stood up from the sofa and brushed the wrinkles out of his sweatshirt. "Is she okay?"
"She's fine," he replied. Grins spread across the faces of all four and they gasped with relief.
"What happened?" Yumi anxiously asked, stretching her limbs as she raised herself from the couch.
"Ectopic pregnancy," the doctor confirmed as he flipped through her charts. "The pain and bleeding was caused by the fallopian tube rupturing. We did surgery to stop the bleeding and remove the affected tube, we'll keep her overnight for recovery but she should be just fine."
"Wait, what? Pregnancy? But, she took a test…" Yumi scratched her head.
"Well, the hormone levels from ectopic pregnancies are significantly lower, and can sometimes produce false negatives."
Odd opened his mouth to speak and paused. He thought for a moment, and then re-opened his mouth to speak. "And exactly what is an… ecowhatta whatever?"
The doctor smirked slightly. "An ectopic pregnancy," he explained, putting emphasis on the word as he looked over towards Odd, "is when a child is conceived but the egg never makes it to the uterus. It is fertilized inside a woman's fallopian tube and begins to grow. Now, no child can be carried to term inside the fallopian tube. If not found early enough and treated, it will rupture and cause what we just saw in little Aelita."
Odd blinked in response. "Well what's a fall—" Ulrich cut the boy off, cupping his hand over his mouth.
"Okay, cat-boy. We can discuss female anatomy later. Can we go see her, doctor?"
"Well," He tapped his pen against the clipboard in his grasp. "I guess I don't see why not. Right this way." He held out his arm, leading the way towards her hospital room. Their feet trailed along in step across the shining tiled floor, dark hallways becoming vibrant with glowing white lights. A nurse walked by and waved, and moans could be silently heard from the rooms behind them. A three minute walk that seemed like hours quickly came to a close and the solid door slowly creaked open, the doctor disappearing behind them to leave them be with the pink-haired girl.
"Hey, Aelita," Jeremie immediately said as he skipped to her bedside.
"Hello," she quietly said as she rubbed her tired eyes.
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay." She smiled, and then scratched at the needle inside the crease of her elbow. "This is uncomfortable, though."
"But it will keep you feeling better," Jeremie reassured as he brushed some of her fragile strands out of her pale eyes.
"So, Aelita…" Ulrich nervously approached her, scratching his frayed brown locks. "Did the doctor tell you what happened?"
"Yes," she replied, twiddling her thumbs. "It's a scary thought. But I feel almost… empty. As if I've lost a part of me, if that makes sense."
Yumi pulled up a chair by her bed, opposite of Jeremie. "It makes perfect sense," she said, leaning her elbows on the snow white sheets.
Ulrich continued. "So, Aelita… before it happened, you were about to tell us something. You said that…"
Aelita raised her palm, signaling for him to stop talking. She closed her eyes and nodded. "Yeah, I know." She looked towards Jeremie and leaned by his neck, speaking something so softly others couldn't hear.
"Are you sure?" he whispered back, before she nodded at him. "Okay." He turned towards Yumi, and then the two boys. "Come on," he gestured, walking over to the door. "We should probably discuss this outside."
Ulrich and Odd looked at each other and shrugged. "Well… okay."
The door clicked shut, leaving Yumi and Aelita behind. "The reason I wanted to talk about this out here," Jeremie started as he wiped off the blurred glass of his bifocals," was because I didn't want to make Aelita think about it too much as she heard me explain."
"Think about what?" Odd inquisitively asked.
Jeremie cleared his throat, and placed his glasses back on his face. "Aelita wasn't lying when she said the pregnancy test was hers. Obviously, since now we know she was pregnant. What she was lying about, was the fact that the kid was mine."
"So then… who's was it?" Ulrich questioned. "I honestly never expected Aelita to be doing—"
"It wasn't her choice," Jeremie interrupted, causing Odd and Ulrich to share with each other a puzzled glance. The blonde lowered his head for a moment, leaving the two to ponder as he stared at the bland patterns of the floor beneath him. Again, he cleared his throat, fighting back the lump of tears that was quietly brewing. He raised his attention to them. "She was raped."
The young men gasped with disbelief, wide eyes glossing over with horror. Jeremie took a deep breath and continued the story.
"About two months ago, she was confronted by someone who knows about her past. He knows about Lyoko, her parents, and the supercomputer. He wanted more knowledge, and Aelita refused to tell. So I guess that was his way of punishing her. It's why she has been acting strange. Why she's always quiet, and why she won't let anyone leave her alone."
"Wow…" Odd exhaled through his shaking breath.
"I don't believe this."
"The trouble doesn't end there," Jeremie carried on. "He's not done. He knows about all of us, and his goal is to finish what he started. And he's not going down without a fight."
"What do you mean?"
"Aelita thinks he is stalking her. Now, I don't know if maybe they're just hallucinations from the trauma or what, but I'm not taking any risks."
Odd sank down onto the floor. "This is too much to take in at one," he whined.
"You're telling me." Ulrich bit his lip. "Has she told anyone else?"
"Just me and Yumi. Now, us five are the only ones that know."
"Don't you think it'd be a good idea for her to tell like, a doctor? Or Mr. Delmas?"
"Yeah, I do. But I don't think she's ready to do that. This guy… he already knows that she told us. And he's not happy."
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