Too warm. Issac grumbled, kicking out his blanket as a sharp pain shot up his side. That was enough to make his eyes fly open and his body began to convulse as he writhes in pain.
Grunting, he turned to the side, falling from the bed to the floor, still very disoriented.
Why is the afterlife so painful? He thought, laying on the floor while staring up at the ceiling blankly.
He heard footsteps rushing to him but he could not summon up the strength to sit or even move. Whatever, I am already done with the afterlife.
"What happened?" A very familiar voice filled his ears as he made another attempt to sit up but his body only screamed in protest.
"Issac!" A familiar gentle face appeared in front of him, wearing an apron and a ladle in her hands.
"Araya?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. "How did you die?"
"What?" She asked, tucking her bleached strawberry blonde hair behind her ears, very confused. "What are you talking about, Issac?"
"Are you not dead?" he asked, staring at her as she placed the ladle down and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"No, and neither are you, you better thank your stars for that otherwise I would have killed you myself." She said, pulling him up and onto the bed.
"I am not dead?" Issac asked, flopping onto the bed like a rag doll. "That would explain why everything hurts."
"Don't act so nonchalantly." She said, poking his side as sharp pains shot through his body again. "I am still very VERY mad at you."
"Why?" He asked, hardly able to summon up the strength to even show that he is in pain.
"Reckless idiot." She grumbled while fixing the pillow and the blankets around him. "Don't go doing something like that again."
"Don't be like that," Issac said propping himself into a seating position with the help of Araya. "What will father say if he heard how selfish you sounded?"
"Don't bring that old man up." She sneered as though just the thought of him filled her with disgust. "I do not want to ruin my mood further."
"I will keep my mouth shut then." He said, leaning back into the pillows, trying to get in a position that is least painful. "What happened anyway?"
"You will have to ask Haiti yourself." She said, rolling her eyes at him as she walked to the side of the room and opened the windows. "You should consider yourself lucky dear brother."
"And why should I?" He asked, raising an eyebrow without moving his head.
"I would not treat anyone as well as I am treating you know, not even my husband. Better enjoy it while it lasts."
"If you say so." He said, looking at his gloveless hands with disgust. "Where are my gloves, Araya?"
"You want to wear them eve-"
"Please." He said softly, not looking up at her. "You know how I need them."
She sighed at him, annoyed, but still opened the drawers and pulled out a fresh pair of gloves, handing them to him, "Take it."
"Thank y-" Issac paused when his fingers brushed her hands and memories for her entire life up to that point flashed in his mind, almost throwing him back.
He fell onto the pillows with a grunt of pain, clenching his teeth tight.
"Issac?" Araya shouted when he laid there, eyes wide with pain while his hands shook. "Are you ok?"
"Fine. I am fine." He managed to hiss out while his blurred vision continued to spin.
"Are you sure?" She asked, concern written all over her face.
"Yes, don't worry about me." He said, trying to sound as nonchalant as he possibly could. "I want to rest for a little while more, is that alright?"
"Of course." She said, standing back up, slightly relieved. "Call me if you need anything. Your phone is on the table."
"Thank you." He said, watching her as walked out of the room cautiously.
With a sigh of relief, he leaned back against the pillows.
What was that just now? He stared at his hands, as the memories he saw came back to him in a flash. I saw her life flash before me. No, wait. That isn't right.
He balled his hands into fists. All I saw were her negative memories, not her entire life. But why?
Before he had the chance to think more about this, a knock came on the door and a floof of brown hair peeked first before someone pocked their head in.
"Issac!" Haiti cried, running to the man but stopping inches from him and gave him a pat on the back instead of a hug like she always did. "Good job staying alive."
"How did you even do it?" Orion asked, walking into the room with a plain, white shirt and cargo pants. "This is the first I have heard of anyone surviving this kind of attack a second time."
"I don't … know," Issac said, still very confused. "What even happened? I remember them attacking me and then … I woke up here."
"How are you feeling?" Haiti asked, waving her hands in front of his face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
Issac looked at her with a raised eyebrow before turning away from her to Orion.
"What happened?"
"Just like you to get straight to the point." The man chuckled, sitting on the edge of Issac's bed. "Well, we don't know much either. We managed to pull the boy up and then we saw the creatures swarming you. Next thing we knew, the wave began again and we were back in our world.
"And we found you laying on the ground, injured, but alive. That's all we know."
"Not just that," Haiti added. "We noticed how their behaviour changed once they realised that the kid was gone. They were … aggressive."
"That too." Orion tapped his chin. "They only ever slug to any person they see but for them to screech like that and start attacking you like they were really upset. In all the years I have been observing them, I have never seen something like that before."
"Nothing could agitate them before," Issac said, remembering how frantically they tried to climb the rope to get to the two. "This really has to be looked into."
"My team and I managed to replicate their behavioural patterns in a computer-generated … thing. What was it called again? Never mind." She shook her head and continued. "But nothing we added to the stimulation caused them to behave in that way."
"This clearly has something to do with the kid," Orion said, still deep in his thought.
"How-"
"AI!" Haiti clapped her hands together happily, "They are known as AI! How could I forget?"
"That is great, Hai," Orion said blankly while Issac stared at the two for a second before clearing his throat.
"What have you found about the boy?"
"Right, about that," Orion said, looking everywhere else but at Issac. "There might be a problem."
"And that is?"
"Well, he … may have … disappeared with the wave." He said, looking at Issac while pursuing his lips.
"What do you mean, disappeared?" Issac asked, frowning. "How is that possible? Did you lose him?"
"Nope. I had him in my arms." Orion held his hands out like he was carrying a baby. "Just like this and then poof. Gone."
"I thought he lost the kid too." Haiti laughed. "I was ready to kill him right that second if other people did not disappear as well."
"Other people?"
"Yes, do you remember those students?" She asked, pointing at him.
The kids in their blurred uniforms and faces appeared in his memories, bawling and fighting. "They are hard to forget. So, they disappeared as well?"
"Yes, along with a couple of others." Orion nodded. "We don't understand why though."
Issac sighed, trying to look back at his memories but after that fall, his head does not seem to be functioning properly. Not like it did before though, it is just worse now.
It did not help that he would not be able to make out their faces even if he met them at that moment.
"Who was the last person to talk to them?" He asked, putting on his gloves at last. "Chester?"
"It might have been Chester," Orion said turning to Haiti for confirmation.
"Yes, but he left once we all found that you are alive." She shrugged, "I do not know where he lives or how to contact him. No one does."
"You don't need to worry about that," Issac said, staring up at the ceiling. "I will handle finding him. Well, more like, I will find someone to look for him."
"For now, just relax," Issac said, turning to the two. "We survived another wave didn't we?"
"For how long?" Haiti said, fiddling with Issac's blanket. "How long will we have to keep doing this? Until we die? There is not much progress in terms of research.
"It doesn't help that these waves do not have a pattern we can observe. Not only that, we can only bring the things we strapped to ourselves.
"There is no way we can bring heavy machinery with us. Bullets do not work on them either and we can't bring nukes. H-how much longer?"
Issac and Orion exchanged looks before turning to Haiti.
"We are making progress though," Orion said. "It is not much but it is something. Not only that, remember the boy? If we just find him, we will be even one step further. Right, Issac?"
"Leave that to me," Issac said, nodding. "Focus on one minute at a time for now."
Haiti looked at Issac and Orion before breaking into a smile, "Ok."
"Good. You can't be hopeless now. There are still a lot of things to look forward to." Orion said brightly. "Ok!"
"Yeah!"
Issac looked at the two before turning to face the painting on the wall of a garden, a frown coming over his face.
I guess it is about time to look into that.