"Come on, buddy."
Fifteen minutes had passed since I laid him down on the bed of 105, and five since the medics arrived. I had waved them inside when they first arrived and carried in their medical supplies. As of now, they were still slicing through bits of flesh that kept his chain mail grafted to him. Every time they tried to yank it free, they would find another point where it snagged against him. At least they had him on oxygen. His breaths were becoming quite faint after a bit, yet still, he wouldn't wake up.
This was my fault. We could have handled this smartly, strategized, and stuff, but I just had to test him. He was already gaining confidence, but here I was, trying to rush things along.
"You're both part of the strike force, right?"
A short pudgy man plodded up to me. His hair was cropped close to his ears, and done up in spikes with a heavy layer of hardened gel. His hazel eyes dart over me and linger on the scorch marks on my armor, and the bared sections of my forearm that had been burned off.
"Do you need medical attention as well?"
"No," I shake my head, "is that what you're calling us, 'strike force?' No longer just the Chosen?"
"It is, sir. I'm Corporal Garcia." He reaches out a hand. "You must be Oak?"
I nod.
"What's it to you."
"Then this is Lawrence...what exactly happened to him?"
"Honestly? I don't know. He was pushed pretty badly by a Rat mage, and then boom something exploded in him and he started...I don't know," I run my hand through my sweat-soaked hair, "summoning lightning out of nowhere. As if Zeus or Thor had suddenly taken a liking to him."
Garcia chuckled.
"I'm serious." I state, "Even with how far away I was I could feel the power licking at me."
"But you're ultimately the one who closed the door, right? Had to be since you're the one who carried him out, and you're the number 11 in the world."
"I did close it, but I got lucky. I don't know if I would have beaten the mage if he hadn't used so many spells when dealing with Lawrence. He only had enough to do two spells, and, well, you see how that turned out for me."
I make a broad motion over my body, making sure to emphasize the parts of my clothes that were burned. They finally finish removing the chain mail by the time I lower my arms. It falls to pieces just as they pull it past his shoulders. While they worked to brush the few bits of chain out of his face, one of them stopped right below his left eye and forced it open with a pair of his fingers. He waves Garcia over, who comes back to me.
"Were you aware of his injury?" He says lowly.
"Injury? I figured his feet were probably the worst of it."
"Ah, well. No. They're actually not that bad. I'm talking about his eye." Garcia points to his own left. "Apparently melted right out of his skull."
"Ah...so is that why he's unconscious?"
"Could be. Have to imagine the pain would have been pretty intense. We'd like to keep an eye on him. A Healer is set to make land tomorrow. We'll send him here when he does."
"Okay. Should we keep him in this room?"
"Yeah. Don't want to move him too much."
As the two of us were talking, one of the medics approached.
"He seems to be in good health; his eyes are responsive to light. His breathing and heart rate have stabilized at good rates he's just...unconscious. There's a strange heat that we can't identify coming from his stomach and his head. Like a fever that's spread all over his body."
"So he'll wake up?"
The man shrugs.
"At any rate, he's not going to die. He should wake up soon enough. For now, we'll keep someone here to keep an eye on him, also this was in his pocket. You should probably return it to the receptionist."
The man hands over a key card.
"Surprised it wasn't melted, same with his phone."
I hold the keycard in my hand and flip it over in my hand. A thought comes to mind, and I hurry out and hurry up the stairs, and throw open Lawrence's door. His do and cat were laying together in the middle of a mess of tossed blankets and sheets. They both glance up in unison as I come in.
"Hey there guys."
The brown, long-legged dog hops off the bed and approaches, and the cat darts through the open door at speeds that my eyes couldn't keep up with. It vanishes from sight by the time I turned my head. It was nowhere on the roof, and nowhere to be seen darting across the parking lot.
"What the..."
First I get him into a coma, and then I lose his cat? What kind of friend was I turning out to be? I close the door to make sure that the dog didn't do the same, and I kneel down to try to call it to me. It approaches slowly, and my eyes drift off to a spot beneath the bed where an old shoe box lay. I ignore the dog and pull it out, and flip the lid.
Inside of it was a variety of rings pulled from Rat tails, with a note that detailed how much he earned through the doors, to pass to Ortega at some point, I'm sure. Beneath the pile of rings was a locket. Was it his? Ah, curiosity...perhaps my greatest vice. I pick it up and click it open. Inside was a black and white picture of two large, bipedal Cats.
"What is this? Is he going to sell it? It seems like solid gold. Is he one of those furries?" I drop it back into the box and slide it back into the darkness of the bed.
I stand up and bump against the nightstand right by the bed. A piece of paper and a sheathed knife falls onto the carpet. On the paper was a series of lines and marks with a few words above them.
"Thou shades..." Were the only words written above the series of scratches, "Is he trying to decrypt these?" My eyes then rest on the knife.
I draw it from its sheathe. A sinister cold seeps from it. Carved letters crawl up the center of the curvy blade. The marks match the scratches on the lined paper. I'm sure someone on war-efra would be able to read it. I pull my phone from my pocket. It's slightly damp, and the case seems to be melted a bit, it turns on, fortunately. It takes a while for the start-up to finish, and then open the war-efra app.
"Ah, there's already a translation thread. Good."
I open it up. There was a picture of a similar script that was on the knife on bunches of yellow parchment; according to the person responding it was a manifesto of cargo carried by people entering a city. I take a quick shot of the knife — both sides and post it.
"Can you translate this as well?"
I slide the knife back into its sheathe. A loud knock resounds from the door, I push myself off the ground and walk to it. Jenna is standing there, her hands on her hips.
"So, how is he?"
"Still unconscious; though he's apparently stable."
"Is he going to be staying down there?"
"He is."
"Can you carry his stuff down there, then? We got some people waiting for a room. I'll clean it myself."
I nod and begin to collect his stuff as she loitered around the door, leaning against the wall. Her dark hair drank the fluorescence of the bulb above the door as it reflected it back.