The night was cold but far from quiet. A brown feathered owl hooted its way across the dark sky scavenging for its next meal. Cricket noises echoed trying to outdo the croak symphony of the frogs that jumped in and out of the pond. The breeze rustled through the reeds spooking some fireflies that in turn rose to color the night with their green abdomen. The nocturnes were at peace with one another, none like the chaos that bustling in one fateful cabin.
Dok stood pocketed next to a window that bathed his ash tone hair in the dense light of the moon. The two shades blended perfectly together making him look like he had a halo floating over him. He might have as well had one. He was one of the few who had attained the honor of being called a saint.
From where he stood a bed crossed across the room. It was wooden with its white sheets slithering around now and then. Beside the bed was a drip pipe, like the ones found in hospital that were injected into patients who had lost a lot of blood. The bag at the top was half full. The fluid inside dripped slowly and flowed down to the patient lying next to him and on the bed.
At first one would see bandages. Lots of bandages. Each of them had a smudge of blood fading out across them trying to paint them red. There were some more bandages on a trolley near some on a desk and lastly a lot on the patient sleeping on the bed. They coiled and turned, covering most of the patient's body under their delicate touch. There was little space left between the coils and no skin to be seen either. The bandages hung loosely on the patient yet didn't let any underneath, not even a hint, escape. That was good.
Well, you see, the skin underneath the bandages had endured a lot. A lot of stress. A lot of heat. And currently even the moonlight soft glimmer would feel like a needle shoved up one's fingernail. Painful is an accurate conclusion.
Dok moved in closer to the patient. His hands shimmered slightly as a dense aura of fluid ash white enveloped his hands. He closed his eyes and felt the bandages.
A moment later he let go and smiled.
"How are you doing, Hinari?"
The sheets on the bed moved on feeling his touch. The patients' eye lids opened revealing the darkish blue eyes underneath. They slow came met those of the haloed saint.
"…"
She could barely talk. She hadn't needed to for a while now. Two months, was it?
"That's good." Dok said fishing his hand back into his pocket.
"You are recovering quite nicely. How's your throat?"
Hinari coughed at first. A rough cough.
"It's good." She answered.
"And how about the bed. It's better than the tank, right?"
Hinari nodded in agreement. "A little noisier…"
As she said that a stream of laughter ran through the hallway. Then a bunch of short shadows scampered by, growing and then shrinking as the laughter faded.
"Don't worry you'll be running around with them soon." Dok assured.
Hinari went quiet. Her eyes drifted to the ceiling where she dazed off blankly.
"He asked for you." Dok started. "Lozo"
Hinari's eyes swayed back to Dok.
"He wants to meet you."
Hinari's lips quiver. She wanted to say something but hesitated at the last second.
"You are all that he talks about, you know. Well that when he is not complaining about the food."
"I could see he really cares for you."
Hinari looked away. Her hand twitched rippling her sheets as she moved it towards her heart.
There was a sudden hoot outside announced the dark shadow of a bird flying by. Sudden as it was nobody was startled. Nobody in this room that is.
A heavier worry pondered the air. It was a question.
"Hinari? Do you want to meet him?"
"Do you want to meet Lozo?" Dok asked.
The owl's shadow floated across the room and for a moment brushed over Hinari's face. Right before she gave her answer…
"No."
***
The janitor's closet is not the best place to spend your night. The floor happily sends shivers across your body and the smell of all those detergents some leaking down in drips and then those drips splashing onto your face, gladly becomes your new cologne. And last and most irritating of them all, the damp mop.
Its insidious smell as it dries up in an enclosed space. Then to its dampness that for one, is not only water but a coagulation of puke, water and whatever the yellow liquid dripping from it was. Trying to sleep under these conditions had taught Lozo three lessons by the following morning.
One and far most stressed was, never take nurses for hostage and if you do, don't go staying at the hospital they work in as a patient or janitor at that. Two, he understood the reason why the nurses seemed so low most the time. Could even justify their unsanitary smoking.
Lastly and most important…
Servitude over slavery.
…
The closet door opened letting in a wave of fresh air. The suffocating air and pressure of the room had gotten to Lozo and he was nearly passing out again in the span of one night. But as the door was pulled opened the pungent smell was sucked out and Lozo hanged on to that cliff between conscious and the unconscious.
"Oh! there you are." A voice said trying to pretend to that it was surprised.
Lozo opened his eyes and immediately felt a haze. His vision was like a misty glass. The form standing before him was hardly visible. But lozo could make him out just by his voice.
"So. Do you have an answer?"
"Yeah fine. I'll join your family."
Kisharu smirked then proceeded to untie Lozo.
"Well then, that's good to hear."
"Follow me."
A few minutes later, thirty or so, Lozo and Kisharu stood at the front of what looked like a pagoda.
It was two layered, one floor at the bottom and another at the top. The bottom one had four eaves spiking out of it. The top one had a flat roof. The entire building was painted in an old cream and greenish coat. It blended with the four surrounding flower gardens and green lawn that stretched towards its perimeter walls. A tiled path paved way into the large home.
"These are going to be your living quarters. There are some fresh pair of clothes in your room." He said looking disgusted at the torn-up clothes Lozo was in.
Kisharu fished into his coat and brandished a key chained to a card. On the card was a number.
"8?"
"That's your room number. Also here…" He answered giving Lozo a sheet of paper.
"For an Harmatia to join a family they need to sign a binding contract. Take your time. This contract is extremely important."
Lozo schemed through the paper. There were mostly a bunch of questions like name, hobbies and other mundane stuff. He flipped the page. The other side was different. It had only one question.
[What are your Conditions?] The question said and below it nothing but white paper.
"Joining a family doesn't mean giving up on your selfish reasons. As you protect the family's interest so does the family. That's why I said its important. "
"Once you are done meet me at the Hearth room…"
"The large room you tried to kill a nurse. Don't be late."
The memory sent shivers through Lozo. He exhaled and turned to the place that was to be his new home for the next foreseeable future.
He looked at the paper in his hands and walked towards the dorm doors.
"Conditions. What are my selfish reasons?"
The question was easy. Or was supposed to be easy.
When some asks you to tell them want you want there are a few things that come in mind. Everybody has one of those. A selfish instinct. But as Lozo walked towards his new living quarters, the question grew more and more complex. Like most of this nonsensical world Lozo hadn't seen enough of it to make the right answer. Or was there even a right answer? What were woes and the yays of somethings. And why be so vague?
[What are your Conditions?] what was even supposed to mean.
Every step he took closer to the pagoda door the more they boiled up. He was so preoccupied with the question that he didn't see the person standing at the top of the stairs looking down on him and his scruffy clothes with disdain.
"And who the hell are you?" a prickly girl voice asked.