Pursuit Chapter 5

These days Gino spends his time wandering the hospital. After some time, he found the same doll he encountered on his first day there. He didn’t know what it was doing here, but it was interesting. He had never seen anything else that gave off the same sinister aura that the doll had. So of course, he picked it up. It was oddly cold to the touch, and it made the little hairs on the back of his neck stand up just like his circuits and the flowers did. It was a rather funny feeling and he decided that he liked the doll.

It was the first time that he smiled since he stayed in the hospital. He didn’t want to worry his parents and maids, so he hadn’t told them about how resigned he felt now that his body was deteriorating faster even with the bloodletting. Maybe it was because of it that he started to chatter with the doll. Even though the doll gave off an aura, it wasn’t scary to him anymore. Far from it actually, it was...comforting. He started to have nightmares ever since he was charged to stay in the hospital, and he always woke up screaming.

Much to his dismay, he would find soon after that he had wet the bed. The last time it happened his mother had smacked and yelled at him while his sister called him a baby. He started to feel months of bottled-up sadness well up in his eyes. He hated it. He hated this hospital. But most of all he hated himself. He was too old for this and yet he had added another burden to his maid and the people working in the hospital. His parents would never consider him an heir at this rate. ‘Not that I would live long enough to see that.’

A thought crept into his head. This hospital was getting to him, and he didn’t know how much longer he could take it. He spent his nights dreading sleep because all it promised him was nightmares and shame. He struggled to keep his eyes open but every time it felt like he was fighting a losing battle against the increasing weight in his eyelids and before he knew it, he was asleep, returning to the same cycle that happened every single day, rinse and repeat. He hugged the doll tightly in those moments, like a lifeline grounding him into a reality that kept everything away.

“I want… to be able to… eat food again. Doctor Allen… said I can’t because it would… upset my stomach but I can’t help… but feel hungry. When I’m able to eat… again I’ll eat whatever I want! Like tuna, omelets… and candy!” he told the doll.

And so the days passed by with Gino bringing the doll everywhere with him. Chattering to it whenever anyone wasn’t looking. His condition turned for the worse. He couldn’t feel his fingers and they were turning red. He couldn’t stop shaking and if he wasn’t shaking then he was chattering his teeth. He had to say his words one by one as it was becoming difficult to speak for him. He slept most of the time nowadays as he couldn’t think straight enough to play chess with Ana anymore. It hit the peak of its intensity that night.

He couldn’t breathe, every inhale of air did not get rid of the feeling of breathlessness in him, and yet he inhaled and exhaled anyway in vain. His skin was red and puffy. It hurt everywhere and especially so when he moved so he stayed still like a statue except when he breathed, even though that was painful, he kept going. He was going to die. The fact sank into him unlike when Doctor Allen or his sister told him. If not now then it would be tomorrow, if not tomorrow then the day after that.

One of these nights he will close his eyes and never open them again. These thoughts terrified him. He had been alive for barely even a decade, and it was going to end right here and now. He was too young to even know what he wanted to be, and he would never have a chance to choose. He wanted to sob but no tears left his eyes. He wanted to cry out, but he didn’t want to burden those around him any longer. The money, effort, and time everyone spent on him will be worthless as he will die and it will only be increased the longer he lives.

But he did not want to die either. And so he could only sob and sob to himself as he started fading into a deep and heavy sleep for the last time.

‘Someone please help me, someone please hear my cries.' he thought and thought, over and over again.

“Do you want it to end here?” He snapped open his eyes and they darted around the room, looking for the origin of the voice. The room was empty as Anastasio was moved into another room in the facility while Josephine was fetching the painkillers that he desperately needed nowadays. Did he only imagine it? Was he starting to hallucinate?

“Who’s there? Show yourself!” He let out a raspy and painful cough. No one responded. He was starting to hallucinate. A horrible turn of events as he can only imagine the horrors his mind can conjure up to torture him before he died. And then suddenly he felt quite a funny feeling. Not within his arms but by his bedside. He shivered, pain running up and down his body like an electric pulse.

“I could save you from your fate.” It was obvious now where the voice originated from as he saw what he thought was an inanimate doll, standing and talking by the side of his bed. Her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. She sounded lonely. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know how to.

‘Wait a minute, really?’ her offer finally registered in his slowing and deteriorating mind.

“Make a contract with me and I will be able to save you.”

“C-contract?”

“I am not this doll you see. I simply live inside it. By making a contract, I will live inside you.”

“Will you save me?”

“Yes. Do you accept it?”

“I... don’t want to die here!”

She held his hand and coldness rose from her fingers into his own, flooding his circuits. He didn’t feel funny, he felt like he was freezing to death faster than he did earlier if that was even possible. But he held on, she was his lifeline, and he wouldn’t–couldn’t let go. The coldness was overflowing as if she was a vessel to an impossibly deep well, nay, an ocean of coldness that threatened to break his small body. He was in unbearable pain and then he felt nothing.