“Sena stop ignoring meeee!” A whiny voice directs at me. “You’ve been spaced out since Yun had the-, uhh, I mean. Since Friday.” She whispers at the end, realizing that we shouldn’t talk too loudly about the situation in public.
“Sigh, Yuki, I’m just worried about her. And before you say it, yes I know you all are too, I’m still almost too worried to function though.” It’s been rough through the weekend, and especially at school yesterday and today. At least when I was home I had the option to cuddle with my mom and calm myself. Here though, no such luck. So during the time between classes, like now, I space out hard.
“It doesn’t help that the rest of the students are talking about how someone they knew was attacked by their own parent. They keep saying things that… make me so mad I could explode!” I grit my teeth. Some of the ones who watched the news had heard about what happened and linked it to Yun already. Of course no matter how much my parents tried to keep information down, what the police had gathered typically had to be reported.
“Yeah… just last week some of them were chatting about how cool and collected Yun is, and now the same ones keep making theories about what he-sorry, she did to get attacked.” She’s noticed too then, despite how popular and liked someone is, people will turn on them too fast to catch. “...She doesn’t deserve that. But I know if I say anything it’ll just get worse…”
I toss my arm over her shoulder to pull her in for a side hug as we walk to the cafeteria. “Just hold it in for a bit longer, Yuki. When she starts coming back to school, I’ll personally make anyone who says anything to or about her regret living.” I’m determined to guard her, no matter what.
A few minutes later we arrived in the cafeteria where Elias and Takuto were already sitting down and waiting for us. Yuki plops down in her usual spot at the table across from Elias who sits next to the taller boy. I sit down next to her and immediately look over to where Yun would usually sit. The empty seat on Takuto's other side weighs heavily on my mind. I can’t help but give a sigh.
“Like yesterday, Yuki?” Elias asks.
“Yepper. She’s out of it again, not that I don’t blame her though. She’s just super worried and pissed at the other students.”
“I can imagine. If it’s anything like what I’ve heard then she’s probably furious.” The athletic Takuto claims.
“Yeah, she said she’d make anyone who’s mean to Yun regret living.” Yuki giggles, to which she earns a glare. “I-I mean, me and her are going to make their lives hell!”
“Calm down a little, Sena. You don’t have to aim your violence at your friends y'know.” Our martial artist comes to Yuki’s defense.
“Sigh. I’m sorry you guys… I’m just on edge. My bad Yuki.”
“Well with that out of the way! Let's get to eating!” The small one recovers quickly. The power of food holds way too much sway over her.
As I go to take my packaged sandwich out of my bag, I feel my phone vibrate.
“Hm?” Setting down my lunch on the table and my bag on the floor, I quickly pull my smartphone out of my pocket and notice I am, indeed, being called.
“What could mom want right now? Doesn’t she realize I'm in school? Unless it was an emergency…?” I murmur. Suddenly it feels like my stomach has dropped into a pit as the only thing an emergency would mean springs into my head. I feel my face go a little pale as I pick up the phone. The school doesn’t really care who uses their phones or doesn’t during free times so no teacher should bother me.
“Mom? What’s up, you know I’m in school right?” I try to joke to rid myself of the sinking feeling.
“Sena, pack your bag and head to the staff office, we’re coming to pick you up.” With a hurried tone she commands. My face probably betrays my thoughts as my friends are looking at me with worry as I dread the next words out of my mothers mouth. “The hospital called and said they had to put Yun into emergency surgery this morning, she should be out of it by now but Dr. Grey wished to speak with us regardless if she was conscious or not.”
“Sena? What’s wrong, what did your mom need?” Yuki and the others have stopped eating to allow them to focus on me.
“Are you alright, Sena?” Elias asks.
“I’ll b-be ready when you get here mom… I’m p-packing up now.” I stutter while breaking eye contact with the others and shoving my food into my bag and hanging up.
“Sena?! Did something happen?!” Yuki’s starting to freak out so I grab her by the shoulder and stop packing up for a moment.
“C-calm down, something happened to Yun this morning and she was put into emergency surgery but the doctor wants my family there for some reason.” I explain while finishing packing my stuff so I can stand up.
“Is she alright?” The athlete asks while moving to get up.
“I don’t know.” I admit.
“We’ll come with yo-!” Yuki starts to demand before getting cut off by Elias.
“Sena, I’ll come with.” He stands up and pushes his tray of food to Takuto. “You two stay here, more people will be annoying for the staff. I’ll call you guys when we find out what’s going on, okay?” He smiles reassuringly.
“But-” Yuki and Takuto say at the same time.
“No means no. Besides, we can afford to miss school. You two need all the studying you can get. If Mr. and Mrs. Meyer wants me to leave when I get there, I’ll understand. This way it’ll be easier for everyone.”
“Hmph.” Yuki humphs but doesn’t rebut him. “Fine. But make sure to keep us updated!”
“What she said.” Takuto agrees.
“Will do, let’s go.” The one joining me ushers me out of the room.
Within minutes we’re in the staff room and have gotten approval from the one member currently here. He doesn’t ask too many questions but when we say a friend in the hospital had an emergency, he tries to finish the paperwork faster for us. Having Elias here definitely made things easier, now that I think about it. He’s related to a few of the staff and even some past and current board members too. All in all we’re out of the office once again within a few minutes and walking out the door when my dad’s SUV pulls up.
“Good timing you guys… Wait, why's Elias here?” My dad starts before questioning my partner.
“I’m coming on behalf of the others, and also a faster way to move through the school Mr. Meyer.” He politely answers.
“I see… Well it shouldn’t be an issue, and if Sena thinks it’s fine then I trust her. Also drop the ‘Mr. Meyer,’ haven’t I told you before to just call me Sam?”
As we drive off and get on course, Elias explains that he was raised to be as respectful as possible, and that he’ll try to be more casual but it typically takes a while to kick in. I’m sure they’ve had this conversation more than a few times.
“Sweety, stop being so pensive back there. The hospital said she was fine when she came out of surgery. I’m worried too, but focusing on it like that will only hurt you. I’m sure she’s alright.” Looking back at me from the passenger seat, mom tries her best to assure me.
“...I hope so…” Is all I can get out as I stare out the window at the approaching building.
Without much conversation we successfully park and quickly enter the main entrance to approach the desk.
“We’re here for a ‘Yun Everlock’ in room one twenty.” My dad states to the woman behind the desk.
“Ahh yes. Dr. Grey asked us to notify her when you arrived, Mr. Meyer. I’m sure you know the way by now, head on up and I’ll page her. She should be in the room already.” Looking relieved that she had one less thing to remember now, the woman pages Yun’s doctor and sends us on our way.
The click clocking of our shoes on the tile as we walk towards her room on the upper floors seriously doesn’t help my anxiety. The closer we get, the darker the lights seem. The walls look ashy instead of clinical white, and I swear I could see blood splatters. Flashes of scenes speed through my mind as I imagine scenario after scenario. The knife in her stomach, the lifeless eyes she had, a woman standing above her bed strangling her. The blood flowing out of her stomach after being stabbed time after time, after time, after time, after time. I quicken my pace to reach the room faster, face contorting in fear and worry. Elias suddenly grips my hand and pulls me back to match his walking speed.
“Calm down.” He looks me in the eye. “Take a deep breath, and let it out. Yun’s alright, they would’ve told us if she wasn’t.”
Puhf. I breathe out. The walls return to normal and my mind clears up.
“Thanks. I’m not sure what got into me… It’s like I was seeing something that wasn’t real.” I tell him. We’d hung back a bit behind my parents so I could calm down a little more, I was glad for that right now. The last thing they needed was another kid to worry about.
“I don’t think it’s just you, for a moment I could almost feel a breeze in here. I think all of us are just on edge, look at your parents.
It’s true, I do as he says and notice they’re gripping each other's hands so hard the fingers have turned white. As bad as it is to say, I’m glad it isn’t just me feeling like this.
Remaining in tense silence, we reach room one twenty and knock on the door. A voice calls out indicating to wait there for a moment. We hear the rustle of curtains and the owner of the voice approaching the door before sliding it open.
“Right on time.” Dr. Grey greets us with a tired smile. She then looks over to me and Elias. “Sorry to drag you out of school Sena. And it’s nice to see you again Elias, but why have you come along?”
“I helped get Sena out earlier than she would've without me, I’m also here on behalf of the others as we didn’t want to be a crowd.”
“Yeah, he was a big help with the staff and managed to convince the others to stay at school with a promise to keep them in the loop.” I help him out a little.
“That’s fine then, as long as you and your parents allow him to stay, I won’t have him leave.” Her smile then falls a little. “Alright let's get to the reason I called.”
Noticing the change in atmosphere and seriousness of the topic, all of us remain quiet and nod at Dr. Grey.
“Come on in then and get a seat, this’ll be easier sitting down.” She motions for us to fully enter the room. When we get a good look around us, Yun’s bed has curtains drawn around it as if to block our vision or her hearing. Noticing my confused gaze towards the curtains, Dr. Grey speaks up after everyone claims a seat.
“I closed her curtains to give her a little privacy and rest. I’m aware you all are practically her family now, but at this moment I think it’s best like this.”
“Can you tell us what you mean by that, doctor?” Sam questions with a neutral tone.
She sighs and takes a moment to think before answering. “When my nurse and I were walking towards her room this morning to do our morning checkup, and the few things we missed yesterday, we heard concerning sounds coming from this room. When we took a closer look we found her crying and writhing on her bed in pain and, what looked like, fear.”
I hear my mom gasp but no one speaks up so Dr. Grey can finish telling us what happened.
“When I got to her bedside I immediately sent the nurse to get assistance as I noticed she had been clawing at her stitched wound. She managed to get it open again and was ripping it further before I was able to take her by the shoulders and pin her down a little. If that wasn’t bad enough, it managed to get worse when I tried to roust her. While I was holding her arms, she screamed a few times before saying the word ‘please’ and then screaming one final time and going limp. The vital monitor then indicated she was going into cardiac arrest. At first I thought she was having a seizure again, but this time it was a heart attack. Thankfully we managed to use the defib and restart her heart before taking her in for emergency surgery. Had we been even a moment later, she could have died. This is not cause for celebration though as her wound has increased in size by five percent just from her fingers.”
“Oh my god.” My parents say in unison.
“...” Elias stays quiet and I feel tears running down my face for who knows what time now.
“Do we know what caused it?” My mom quietly asks while looking towards the curtained off portion of the room.
“Currently, all we know is that she was unconscious throughout the entire ordeal. Given the ‘please’ we heard her say, we can confirm that she was most likely having a nightmare. Previously this week Yun told me that she hadn’t had nightmares or dreams in a few years, so this could be the buildup finally exploding. We aren’t too sure why she had a heart attack though. It could be from the blood loss as she still hasn’t recovered from the initial injury. She could have had a seizure at the same time and got unlucky too. We haven’t had enough time to figure it out, and it doesn’t help that the last time she’s been in a hospital at all was over a decade ago.” She finishes with a deep breath. “And then there's the fact that, while not completely proven, we have reason to believe she was being poisoned with growth suppressants.”
“What?!” I shoot up immediately. “W-what do you mean?! Why wasn’t that reported earlier?!”
“Sena calm down, I’m sure the doctor is about to tell us.” Mom commands. As I return to my seat reluctantly, Dr. Grey continues.
“Simply put, we had no idea. There had been a few minor appearances of some foreign body in a couple of her scans, but we weren’t sure they were harmful or even of note. What makes me believe she has been poisoned, is what Yun told me yesterday before you all showed up.” She pauses to prepare herself, so we do the same. “She asked me what kind of damage would show up on her chest, with it being wrapped for years. This sparked a conversation of how she has a remarkably smaller chest than average for both her age, and size. I then brought up the tests I mentioned before and the possible use of some kind of inhibitor. This led to me asking when her first period was, as I was curious how she went about that with her situation being what it was. She admitted to me with difficulty that she hasn’t had a period yet. At all. This set off a number of alarms for me as you can imagine.”
My mom and dad are shocked, as are Elias and I. I don’t think any of us thought about that. How could something so important be overlooked by us? Maybe the general urgency got the better of us…
Thank you for the chapter