Cool breeze… Smell… Warm… Smoke… Hot.
"Gasp!"
A young woman's eyes shoot open and dart around the room. Left - table, right - chart, left - machine, right - small tube. It doesn't take her long, she know she is in a hospital. Her throat is dry, hands are close to numb, and her voice doesn't seem to work.
"Heh… Heelllpah…"
Despite her attempts, her voice is too weak to be heard. She was alone. She was unable to tell how much time has passed until the nurse finally walked in the room. The sound of something plastic hits the concrete wall. 'Maybe a cart?' She thinks.
"D- Doc! S-she woke up!"
The nurse only stares for a couple of seconds before coming back to her senses and kicks into gear, it was as if something clicked in her mind. She didn't say anything else until a doctor came into view.
"I don't know how long she has been awake, it could have been no longer than 3 hours though."
While putting on gloves, the doctor starts examining the young woman.
"That's a relief, if it had been longer than 5 hours she could have gone back like before. Has she tried to move yet?"
"I'm unsure, I haven't seen her move at all except for her eyes. Not even to speak."
"Interesting."
The doctor has short black hair and appears to be younger than the nurse, he spoke in a calm and soothing voice. The nurse on the other hand seemed serious with blonde hair, she speaks in a cold tone but the woman could hear sincerity in her voice. The doctor turns to to his patient.
"My name is Dr. Nilum, can you understand me?"
The young woman nods her head slowly, a massive searing pain crawls up her spine and resides in the back of her skull. She cant help but visibly wince from the pain. A headache forms where the pains resides.
"Good, then we will start treatment immediately."
A few minutes pass when three more doctors walk into the already small room, one casually dressed woman hangs back just outside the room. The three doctors then spend the next hour giving the young woman commands such as: Look up, breathe in, raise your hand, and many others. The young woman made attempts at every single command they gave to her, she only failed the speaking ones.
"Does your throat hurt?"
The young woman nods slowly.
"Can you swallow?"
She nods slowly after demonstrating.
"We will be right back. Mrs. Tefoe, she is responsive, you may speak with her now."
Everyone leaves the room as the woman just outside enters. She has long brownish black hair that curls toward the bottom. She is slender and her skin is without a blemish, many would consider her as beautiful as she is tall. With her head down, she points her eyes in the young woman's direction, grey. She seems familiar to the young woman, she manages to raise her hand to wave at the familiar woman.
"Do you remember your name?"
Her voice is not what the young woman imagined, sad and high pitched. She shakes her head. Now that she thinks about it, she can't really remember anything about herself. she doesn't even know how old she is. The familiar woman begins to tear up.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Fffaaam- Cough fam…ill…ee..are…" Her voice is raspy, making it difficult to speak.
"Familiar? It's not exactly what I wanted to hear, but it's a start." The familiar woman shows hope in her eyes.
Though it hurt, the young woman managed to get the one word out that she wanted to say. The familiar woman smiles, the young woman can tell it's real. Over the next few days many tests are done on her, many medications are given, and lots of physical therapy. They even helped her start talking again. Dr. Nilum turns to her a few days later and prepares to speak.
"Okay, I think you are ready for the memory reader now."
Her eyes grew wide, they mentioned that they haven't told her anything just in case because she could go into shock. That wouldn't be the best for her as she is still recovering.
The young woman gets nervous, "A-are you sure? What if it's too much?"
"Try not to worry, your test results are much better than when we first started. You are talking with minimum stutters now. You got this!"
"Okay… then let's do it."
"But first, I need to show you something. Here, take this.
He hands her a grey rectangular flat tray.
"Turn it around."
Turning the tray around she starts to see a light reflected on the floor, then the wall, then her face. Her… face… dark brown hair, blue eyes, thin eyebrows, her hair is long in a bun, not a blemish to be seen. The only marks are a few freckles near my small nose. She starts to see a tear running down her pasty face.
"Wow, so this is what I look like… But what is that?"
She angles the mirror down to her neck where a massive scar rides down the front of her left shoulder, barely above her heart. It ends just before her arm. 'Ugly.' She deters.
"That is what caused you to be in that coma for over three months."
The young woman's eyes go wide, its as if she has seen a ghost.
"Wait, three months! Just what time of the year is it? Did I miss any school?"
School…? That's right, She was in school…
"You'll figure this out with the help of the memory reader, I am afraid that if I say anything else you won't be ready anymore. But the fact that you remembered school is a very good sign."
"Okay…" As skeptical as she was, she held together very well, the doctors and nurses were impressed.
Dr. Nilum leaves the room after the conversation with the promise to be back in just a few minutes. He was kind enough to lend her the mirror until he comes back with the memory reader. Once he returns, she would see who she was. She starts to wonder if she will still think the same… she stared at the mirror until she was startled by that soothing voice.
"Okay, just relax. This is Alix, she is going to be the one who reads your memories back to you. All you need to do is try to not resist. I won't lie to you, this isn't the most comfortable feeling."
Something came racing back to the young woman's mind in that moment, as if something must be true.
"What is her ranking? If I can ask that."
Alix spoke up at the question, "Don't worry, I'm a B+ tier. To be more specific, a B-9.3. I'll make sure to take extra care of you."
Rank is something that just popped in the young woman's head, it was as if I knew it to be real so she just had to ask. Although she had no idea why.
"Shall we get started then?"
Alix smiles at the young woman and then puts her index finger in the middle of her forehead, the young woman starts to blank out while her vision goes dark.
However, the young woman was not ready for her mind to be read, as the doctors would soon find out.
The young woman sees a feint light before losing all of her thought.
Putting the pizza in the oven I hear the front door click, Mom must be home. Seeing as it's only 2pm, something must have happened for her to be off work so early. The front door opens and mom comes through the door carrying grocery bags.
"What's all this mom?"
"Well I thought it was time for a bit of grocery shopping."
"Need any help?"
"If you don't mind, there's only a couple more bags though."
I give my mother a smile and walk out to the car.
Before the memory could be finished, the young woman's head began to get really hot, she could not say what happend next since she was unconcous.
"Gasp"
As she snapped back into reality she found that Alix had fainted onto the floor. There is blood dripping down the young woman's nose. Then she was greeted by Dr. Nilum.
"Sigh… She must have overused her Ability."
A sad look started to take form on the young woman's face.
"Will she be okay?"
"Yeah, she will be okay. Hey Rebecca, can you give me a hand with this?"
The blonde nurse entered the room and together with Dr. Nilum they carried Alix to a safe place to recover. When Dr. Nilum returned, he seemed cautious.
"So what did you see?"
"I saw my mom, the woman who came in to see me the day I woke up. I helped her carry groceries in."
"Interesting… Do you remember if you had an Ability in the past?"
"No, I don't remember. I'm sorry."
"That's okay, we can use an Ability reader."
"Is that a person or a machine?"
"It's a person, quite a rare Ability too. I'll go get one on the floor so don't go anywhere okay."
As he leaves the room he shoots a quick smile toward the young woman. She begins to wonder if she has an ability and if so, how powerful? It only takes a few minutes for Dr. Nilum to return with another man.
"Alright, this time I'm having you meet with Dr. ly, he is also a high tier A-1.6." (Pronounced Dr. Lie)
The young woman can only remain silent with a smile, since this guy sends chills down her spine. With a cold stare, he says nothing while his eyes start to glow a bright green. He then takes her hand and closes his eyes.
"I feel nothing."
"Nothing? Interesting."
"I do not believe this girl has any Ability, or at least, non that my level can detect."
"Alright, thank you for your service Dr. Ly. You are dismissed."
The young woman didn't expect to be so upset to learn that she might not have an Ability, so her eyes tear up involuntarily. Dr. Nilum give a slight smile and adds a bit of reassurance.
"Hey, don't sweat it. Many people in this world don't have Abilities. We can try again in the morning okay?"
"Okay…"
"By the way, did you happen to catch your name?"
"No…"
"Since you haven't gone into shock, you can get as much information as you want. Would you like to know your name?"
The young woman thinks about it for a moment before coming to a decision.
"Can my mother tell me?"
"I'll bring her in, hang tight."
"She's here?"
"She never left."