Chapter Fourteen
I woke up to an unfamiliar surroundings. Panicked, I bolted up from the bed and I felt pain assailed my whole body and my surroundings started to spin as I fell right back. After a few shaky, deep breaths that seemed to send more pain in my body, I managed to look around the room.
It looked like a make-shift hospital with only a few equipment. The room didn’t looked like as clean as a hospital should be but it looked like people had cleaned. I saw an IV connected to my wrist and some other devices that I have no knowledge off. But it looked like that one was for my heart.
I sucked in a deep breath that sent fires through my lungs. I felt like my whole body was bandaged. But I wouldn’t blame it, after the war I’ve been through.
Then, everything that has happened flashed before my eyes and I looked around. Where are the others? I removed everything that was connected to me and tried to stand up. And tried was the perfect word for it. Because I fell down to the bed more time than I could count before I managed to sit up.
With a clench teeth, I ignore the protest of my body as pain attacked me. Then, I tried to stand up from the bed but I rolled down straight to the floor where I fell with a thud. My back arched at the pain and I bit my lips to stop myself from screaming.
I heard footsteps outside my door and I tried to crawl away to look for anything I could use to protect myself but there was nothing. Sighing in defeat, I continued to lie down on the floor as I looked up the ceiling. Black dots started to dance on the white ceiling and I was succumbing to the pain.
The door opened but I didn’t had any energy left to even look at the people who entered. I heard a gasped and someone shouted something but it all sounded so far away. Their voices fading as I tried to keep my eyes open but they kept on closing. But before I fully lost the battle of consciousness, I saw Zoi’s worried face as he carried me back to the bed.
I woke up, this time to a beeping sound on my right. I furrowed my brows at the machine that was making a slow beeping sound. I heard something moved from the couch on the corner of the room. I slowly turned towards it to avoid any pain but I still felt a pricking ache.
“You’re awake!” he whispered, more to himself than me, as he made his way towards my bed.
I gave him a weak smile, “what happened?”
“I’ll tell you everything later, right now, you need Carly. I’ll call her.”
I nodded at him meekly but before he could open the door, I asked him: “the others?”
“Alive. We all are.”
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“You’re going to be fine,” Carly breathe in joy and the rest that was listening through the open door cheered.
Since I was far from healed, and some of the wounds still open, Carly and Zoi were the only one allowed inside the make-shift hospital room. I didn’t understood why Zoi was allowed, since like the rest, he was clueless about medicines and all. But maybe since he could heal himself, Carly deemed him knowledgeable enough about wounds.
Tash was smiling at me from the door. If I hadn’t witnessed it, I wouldn’t have believed she was so sick. Carly had managed to save them from the illness that was taking over their body. She suspected that it was the Coldiatis virus that was discovered back in year 2109 when it almost wiped a whole town in Greenland.
And if she was a day late, the others would have succumbed to it.
Apparently, I was asleep for almost four weeks now and everyone was starting to worry. Because Carly said if I didn’t wake up at the second or third week, the chances of me ever-waking up again were slim. But we all knew how hard headed I was to even let statistic decide my future.
Through the course of the weeks, Carly had only managed to heal small wounds with her ability. My body was slow at healing its own because of the lack of nutrients that came with winter. But Carly said that it was normal because I had taken a beating that most people would have died from.
I had the gunshot to my stomach, which thankfully didn’t hit anything important, a gunshot through the shoulder, a few broken ribs. I was also burned from the explosion but Carly had managed to take care of that. I was stabbed with a few shards of the explosive device which was the most dangerous of my wounds. She had to perform a surgery with nothing but a clueless student and a Chem teacher as her assistant because some had managed to get stuck inside of me.
My body was far from healed. And she said that I should expect muscle pains and soreness every morning even when completely healed. Which in my shoes, seemed little compared to the fact that I had survived.
“How did you survived the explosion?” I asked them.
They all turned to look at Griffin before Drew answered, “We were near each other when Jack noticed the soldier with the launcher. We called for your name as we ran towards the main cabin for protection but you were so far away. Jake tried to fly towards you but even before he could leave the porches, the rocket exploded.”
“I know you could do it, Griffin.” I said as I looked at him, gratefulness in my eyes and voice. “And the soldiers?”
The others couldn’t look at me in the eyes and Zoi stepped towards me before he answered, “The few remaining managed to escape; including you father. We didn’t came after them because we couldn’t eliminate the risk of an ambush outside the woods. And we were worn-out ourselves to even fight for another minute.”
I nodded solemnly at him. Then, I smiled at all of them. “You all did great,”
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After another few weeks, I was strong enough to walk around without crutches or support. The group had found an empty two-story house that was hidden enough from sight. Though, precautions were made in case someone would stumble by it by chance; which was what exactly happened to them.
Drew destroyed the army trucks during the war but he rebuilt one to use as transport because it provided more warmth and space than our beat-up truck. Though, they abandoned the army truck the first chance they got. They stumbled along the area when they were hiding from the traveling people. It was old, and creepy that gave the expression no one had lived in it for years, if the tall grasses and weeds outside aren’t a dead giveaway.
They cleaned and renewed the inside but left the outside as it is to give the vibe of it being abandoned. So far, it had worked. Though, as soon as the snow melts off the ground, we were going to turn the backyard into a farm. Sadly, no livestock of us managed to survive.
“I can’t believe that was your father!” Rose cried as we circled around the fire place to talk since I was deemed okay enough to be stress again.
I gave a dry laugh, “We never looked like each other. I take after my mom. Only our eyes were the same.”
“Are you sure that you’re okay to talk about your dad?” Steven asked.
I nodded at him, “You all deserve to know my story if I were to stay with you all,”
They all told me that they never even thought about me leaving the group and that they never wanted me too no matter what I tell them and it made my heart swell to know that these people, who wasn’t even connected to me besides the hell we were going through, would be willing to stay by my side.
“My dad worked for the military ever since I was a child. He was a general.” I started. “When I was eight, my mom revealed to me that she was a Rein, a fact that she have hidden because of her ability,”
“What ability?” Jake asked as he leaned forward to hear more of my story.
I looked at each face before I answered, “The ability to bring the dead back to life,” the room was filled with gasped at my answer. “Reins discover their abilities at the age of nine. If you never did, you’re normal. But mom discovered hers when she was eighteen. It was too late to change her registration and since her ability was powerful, she was introduced to the world as a normal human. She told me everything about it. But- no sooner than that, my mom died. Since I was young, it never occurred to me that dad might have been the one to kill mom. Even though he made it clear that he wasn’t mourning her loss. A few weeks later, when I turned nine, I discovered my speed of light. I was happy about the fact that I was special like mom so I quickly told dad,” I gave a dry laugh, “Now that I think about it, he was frigid when I gave him the news. For weeks he acted strange. But I never given it any thoughts. Until one day, a soldier came to the front door to tell me that my father died. As you could guess, I believed that he was dead until. . . Until that day.”
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