Andromeda

School had already ended with the end of the week having arrived for the students. Most of them had already gone home or were out spending time with their friends. Saki was visiting a friend, but it was not a happy occasion for her. She was on the twelfth floor of the west wing of the Konomoka General Hospital, the psych ward.

This had been a matter that had been weighing on her and trying her emotions since the time in the warehouse when she found Takako. She had not known Takako as well as Hitomi had, but she felt a connection with her knowing what she had to have gone through. Hitomi visited her every day after she recovered from the trauma, but Takako had not come out of the state that they found her in the warehouse. Hitomi had brought her to the hospital to the emergency room, but when her parents discovered what happened to Takako they got her moved to a private room in the hospital with specialists looking into her case.

Saki was not clear on all of the medical words that were tossed out, but the one thing that was clear was that they were unable to do anything for her. It was all in her mind beyond the physical injuries that they were able to treat. She remained trapped in her mind unwilling to speak or acknowledge anyone’s presence. Saki was not sure if it was an improvement over how she had been where even getting near would send in her into a panic attack.

The nurse in the psych ward looked up from her papers at the desk as Saki’s shadow cast nearby her making her presence announced. “Yes?”

“Uh…excuse me, I’m here to see Takako Yamazaki.”

“Yamazaki…oh she’s been restricted visitors to only specific individuals. What’s your name?”

“Saki Furukawa…”

The wait for Saki seemed to last forever. She knew that she was on the list, because Hitomi had told her that she was given permission by the family. Neither Hitomi nor Saki told them what really happened to their daughter since it was far too unbelievable. It did not really matter much for Hitomi since Ayumi paid a visit to Hitomi during lunch wiping her memory of the events. Ayumi said she could not fix the mental damage, but Hitomi had recovered from the experience quickly so it got passed off as a memory that she rather forget than think about. All the parents knew was that Takako, Hitomi and Saki had been kidnapped by an otherwise unknown criminal that the police caught and released the children them. The mental trauma came from the kidnapper. Being that the family was wealthy and so they did not press too much so that they could keep things private, so there were not too many questions asked around.

“Ah here you are! I’ll show you to her room.” The nurse stood up from her chair and pulled down some keys from the wall before she came around the desk to meet Saki. She smiled pleasantly to Saki waiting for her to catch up to her. The large polish metal doors with wire re-enforced glass and dull echoing of voices created an ominous feeling that permeated through the doors ready to grab at her if she made a step towards.

Chapter 39 – Shattered Thoughts

Saki had a lot of images in her mind of what the place would be like before she got to the hospital that only helped to make her feel like running away. The only thing that kept her going was the sense of guilt in believing that she was responsible for this happening. She was not certain if she could do anything to help her, but it was something that she felt she had to do.

The doors unlocked and opened for her with the nurse following at her side just a step in front of Saki guiding her to Takako’s room. All of the other patients in the ward were in a varied state of insanity or solemn peace, but every single room was filled that she passed. Saki could not help but look to the nurse for an answer. “Um…is there normally this many…um…”

“Hmm? No, not really. This has only happened in the last two weeks. Normally, we only keep a few cases here that require specific medical treatments, but we are actually helping out the local institution. They’ve reached an unusually high number of cases that they were not able to keep them all. So we are helping them.” The nurse looked around through the windows of the rooms as they passed the doors. “I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s been a lot of mass cases of people hallucinating repeatedly. It’s gone largely unreported, but no one knows what’s going on or why it’s affecting so many people. If it keeps up we won’t be able to treat everyone.”

A thud against the door that they were passing with a face appearing in the window of a half mad middle age man that had not shaved for a week. “The end is coming! Save yourself!” shouted the man half muted and toned down by the glass and metal. Regardless, Saki was knocked off her feet slamming her back into the wall behind her getting herself away from man. “It’s coming! I’ve seen it! Hell’s on Earth now!”

The nurse rushed over to Saki immediately checking to see if she was hurt. “Miss are you alright?” Saki was quiet unable to speak to the woman as she pulled her away from the wall. “Are you hurt anywhere?” As Saki started to come back to her senses, she could hear the nurse speaking to her. She shook her head not able to speak yet. “You want to go back?”

It was all a little too much at once for Saki. She could not be certain, but the unexplained increased could probably be explained by what she knew. ‘I knew people had to know, but I didn’t know it was like this. Yuki’s…he doesn’t know…’ Saki swallowed poorly getting back to her balance stepping away from the nurse. The woman looked a little unconvinced that Saki was alright even with her smiling. “It’s alright. I just got surprised.”

The nurse was still concerned that Saki needed to go back from the reaction that she had, but she continued on as Saki insisted. They managed to make it to the room for Takako without further incident. Saki looked through the glass into the room finding Takako in the corner of the room balled up wearing a hospital gown in a padded cell. Saki looked over to the nurse. “I thought she stopped having outbursts.”

“She did, but the rooms are all the same. Don’t be upset if she doesn’t acknowledge you. She’s been like that for the last few days.” The nurse unlocked the door not opening it just yet. “Not even her parents.” The woman turned on a smile and happy voice as she entered the room looking over at Takako. “Good afternoon, Miss Yamazaki! You have a visitor!” She turned her head and nodded over to Saki signaling her to enter the room.

“Hey, Takako! It’s Saki from track.” Saki took a few cautious steps forward to Takako not wanting to set her off or startle her, but it was as she had been told. Takako remained still holding her head down against her knees with her legs pulled up and her arms wrapped around. “Takako?”

The nurse placed a hand on Saki’s shoulder to comfort her. “Well I have some rounds to make, but there’s a camera monitoring the room and an emergency button at the door. Just push the button if anything happens or when you’re done. I’ll check back on you in a few minutes.” The woman turned and left the room locking the door behind her as she disappeared out of sight leaving Saki alone with Takako.

Saki made the bold move to walk over to Takako and sat down next to her against the wall. She did not know what to do or what to say. If she brought up the kidnapping and torture she might relapse and Saki did not want to make her remember the experience if she had forgotten. She put her arm around Takako’s back leaning against her and resting her head on her shoulder hoping to provide some comfort for her. “…it’s alright, Takako…”

Nothing happened for Saki or Takako in the way of words, but Saki came out of the visitor feeling heavier. She looked back at Takako one last time before the nurse escorted her back down the hall. Saki kept her mind focused and forward away from all of the other patients in the ward. Her mind was still sifting through questions and thoughts from her time with Takako that it was not too hard. “Thank you,” said Saki politely bowing to the woman before heading to elevator to leave the hospital.

‘…I wonder if there are others from the warehouse with the same problem…’ She stepped into the elevator alone barely hearing it ding away the floors. ‘…I know what she went through, but that doesn’t seem to help me… Why was I able to recover and Hitomi too? She didn’t even know Yuki…’ The elevator opened letting her walk into the main lobby. ‘…could it be because she didn’t know? Did he torture her even more trying to find something that wasn’t there? But Hitomi didn’t know anything either…’

Saki did not even know that she had left the hospital when the sun hit her in the face interrupting her train of thought. However, a loud noise from across the street in a park kept her in reality. She tried to look over to park through the traffic to see what had happened, but it was behind the brick wall that surrounded the park. She would have ignored it like a lot of other people were doing, but there was another loud noise. This time she was listening and it sounded like something metal and heavy being knocked over hitting the cement. ‘What’s going on in the park? Could it be an assassin?! Is Yuki fighting?’

Those thoughts were enough to get Saki into gear looking at the street for a way to cross. Both of the intersections were too far away that she would lose time and the street was busy. However, she knew that she could not ignore what was happening if her fears were justified in the end. Saki saw the gap in the cars making it her opportunity to sprint across the street making cars honk at her and slow down in her reckless move. ‘...please be safe…’

The scene that was developing outside of the park became focused on Saki as she burst onto the sidewalk and through the small crowd. ‘…this is a public place, why here?’ Saki did not know what was going on, but the noises that she was hearing were getting louder. They began to be coupled with voices that she was starting to hear. It came from deeper into the park, but soon Saki could clearly hear a young girl’s voice shouting and yelling out to another person that was assumed to be Yuki.

“Get back here!” Saki followed the voice that was shouting starting to get close. “Stop your running! Are you just a coward?”

She was starting to feel like she was correct that Yuki was the one that was involved. ‘I’ll be there soon, Yuki…’

“I’m really getting tired of your attitude! Fight me!”

The path that was left behind by Yuki and the girl became more present as there was a trash bin over turned. There was glass broken and spread across the area along with trampled flowers and broken branches. Saki no longer needed the voices with the path of destruction being enough to follow. All the voices did was giving her an indication of how far she was away from them. She was almost on them she could tell as the last bush between them was being reached.

Her legs carried her through the bush breaking through with twigs and leaves attached as she shouted out, “Yuki!” An extended leg intended for Yuki just after Saki came through forced her to bring up her arms to block and push away the attack protecting Yuki.

The attacker, as Saki discovered, was a young girl from a local middle school by the uniform that she was wearing. ‘Why is a middle schooler attacking Yuki?’ She did not look like an assassin, but Yuki had told her about the child that attacked Ayumi yesterday that turned out to be an adult woman in disguise. So she was not going to take any chances with this girl. She pushed the leg off of her making the girl jump back to reassess her position. “Yuki…” Saki said turning around to face him. However, her voice was cut off when she found that it was not Yuki behind her, but a stranger wearing her high school’s uniform. “You’re not…”

Saki jumped back taking a position away from the both of them looking questioningly at him. ‘What’s going on here? This isn’t an assassin… So why is a middle schooler picking a fight with someone that is three times her size…’ When she looked at the two students it was immediately clear the difference between the two. The girl was significantly shorter than either of them about average for someone her age and very thin, though surprisingly strong and agile from the kick that Saki blocked. The boy looked to be about Saki’s age and just a little taller than her, but the difference came to his build. The student was very solidly built filling out a large uniform with a very muscular build. It was not overly developed, but it would be an understatement to say that he had some muscles.

The male student had been running away from the girl from the sounds that Saki had heard, but it was clear that the way he was built that it would not have been an issue the girl attacking him. ‘Is the girl stronger than she looks or is it the guy?’ Saki did not have much time to ask herself anymore questions as the girl launched into another attack on the boy seeing that Saki was not going to be doing anything.

However, Saki could not let the fight continue seeing that the boy was just getting out of the way of the girl not interested in fighting. He was not making any sounds, but it was clear enough that he was not going to indulge the girl in her wish. “Stop it! Stop fighting!” Saki hoped that it would get the girl’s attention, but it was only brief and in the middle of her next attempt.

“Don’t get in my way! He’s mine!” the girl said refusing to back down.

Saki was also not going to take ‘no’ for an answer and stepped in between the two taking the high kick pulled down and blocking it with her arms crossed. The girl jumped back seeing that she was interrupted again. Saki was off balanced by the blow, but kept her footing. ‘The girl’s got strength and speed…’

“What’re you trying doing?” the girl shouted venomously at Saki becoming angry that her fight had been stopped once more by an outsider.

Saki lowered her arms still feeling the sting from the kick. “Why are you picking a fight with someone that doesn’t want to fight with you?”

“ ‘Cause he’s strong!”

Saki blinked and took a moment to repeat it in her head. ‘Unbelievable, she’s picking a fight with a stranger based on looks.’ She was not going to let some bully going around attacking people for such a ridiculous reason. “What?! You can’t be serious!”

The look changed in the girl’s eye like something in her mind had just switched tracks. She took an offensive stance staring down Saki with a serious glare that had its intent clearly painted across them. “You look like someone that’s strong! Let’s see how strong you are!” The girl leapt into the air with her leg already in motion bearing forward on the surprised Saki.

To be continued…