I spent the next few days and possibly weeks mostly sleeping. I had a heavier and more painful than usual menstrual period that left me feeling extremely unwell and even weaker. Sleeping helped me hide from the pain and discomfort. And anyway, I had very little energy.
I'd be woken up to eat, do personal hygiene or take short walks, but I hardly ever made it out of my bedroom. Every few days, Mr Borges had lunch or dinner with me to see how I was going. He was a busy man, I knew. Our meals were often interrupted by his assistants due to unforseen events or circumstances requiring his attention or decision. I appreciated his efforts to try and stay in touch with me.
His butler, Colborn, made every attempt to ensure I felt safe and comfortable. During the day, when Mr Borges was at the office, Colborn was the one who arranged all the matters of the house. Sometimes, his nephew, Lance, would accompany him, learning to be as good and efficient a butler as Colborn. When there was no one else around, Colborn would sit with me to gush about Mr Borges, talking nonstop about him and how good he was. He was a neverending praise machine for his master. A rainbow fart spouting fountain, I remembered the internet sometimes called extreme fanatics of their idols like him. He seemed to feel that I was definitely going to marry Mr Borges. Why should I? I barely knew the workaholic.
"The Master has never taken interest in a woman before," Colborn told me with a fond uncle like smile, patting the back of my hand. "He's only ever really interacted with a few females in the past, because he has always been so focussed on his studies or work. He's never wanted to get into a relationship before, but it looks like he intends to have a serious conversation about his intentions with you when you are well. He's not concerned about what has happened to you in the past. He just wants to treasure you and protect you. For that, you need to get better quickly. When you're well enough, you'll be trained, so that when it's time, you will be able to stand beside the Master without fear of bringing him any shame."
"But I'm not romantically interested," I protested. "I don't want to get into a relationship with anybody.I don't want to get married."
"Tsk," Colborn shook his head at me. "You don't understand. You can't hide from the inevitable. You needn't be worried in the slightest. If it's the Master's will, then you will fall in love with him by and by when you see for yourself what an amazing man he is and how much effort he's putting in for your recovery. All he wants is to make you happy, so you have to give him a chance. He's been so delirious with joy that you're staying with him that he's having trouble concentrating at work. You need not do anything besides get better. Try to eat a little more and get out of bed more often. I'm organising some medical staff and therapists to visit us here at home to help with your recovery. Do your best to keep up with the rehab and obey them."
The nurse had left when I no longer needed such close monitoring and was able to get around with the assistance of only one person. The carer who had worked under her instruction stayed on.
A doctor, Psychologist and other therapists visited me on different days. The doctor came less and less often when he saw that I was able to stay awake and get up. The Physical Therapist kept piling new daily exercises on me every time she saw me. The Psychologist came every few days to help manage my moods that sometimes swung from one extreme to another, but I found interacting with her tiring and tedious. There was so much I couldn't share with her, as a result, I didn't say much.
Information regarding the City Agents and talent or ability users was classified information. Although the general public knew they existed, they didn't have much information. I couldn't give any details and couldn't discuss with them my main concern regarding my head. I wished I still had Shigure around to discuss when or whether my mental or other abilities would ever come back.
Come to think of it, the fact that I had awoken such strong mental abilities after contact with Shigure was unprecedented. Before that, I was only a jumping leaper - not unlike a big rabbit. High agility stats, low attack and defence stats. And then I met Shigure. When he searched my memories, my mental abilities seemed to have awoken alongside my auto-interpret/translate ability. Unless the language ability had already been in force before and I just hadn't noticed it.
Come to think of it, whenever I had visited the Nihon shops or any other foreign grocery shop, for that matter, everything had looked normal to me. That is, everything had been in English. Perhaps that explained the shocked facial expressions of some of the shopkeepers when I asked for the discounted things on their signs.
Having such a big mental capacity and strong talent for telepathy had been great while it had lasted. Then discovering my mental abilities leaned more toward being a receiver that could tune what was heard to improve the understanding of all parties involved while they convened in my mental space had given me something more to be pleased about, because I was no longer a useless barrel scraper. Suddenly, I had become useful and in demand. My work had become meaningful.
"Excuse me, Kimmi," the Psychologist clapped her hands to bring me back from where my mind had wandered, "if I might get your attention?"
I refocused on the Psychologist. That's right. While I was outside of the agency, I was going by the name Shigure made up for me. Kimmi Ginnan. I thought it was a weird name, but Shigure had seemed quite proud of himself for thinking up something so 'ordinary'. Whatever. It was just a fake name.
The Psychologist was doing her best, but my heart wasn't in the session. She had in previous sessions managed to extract some details of my kidnapping, the drugging and abuse until we had hit a wall. I couldn't and wouldn't give her any more information. Partly because I had stopped making sense to her and partly because sometimes all the words came out wrong. Like today. It wasn't worth trying on days like this where spoken words were a muddle of confusion.
She had tried then to delve into my childhood and had convinced me to try recall something from that time. The more recent event of having my name ripped from me, the shattering of my identity and the removing of my name from the family stones of the tribe, was still zooming around in my memory like a large, cloudy mammoth that was lost. Although I had mostly recovered from the event, I suspected I had also lost a lot of memories from that time. It was as if someone had helped me put many of the memories into booby trapped files. I wished that it was a prank, but it wasn't.
It was most likely that I had unconsciously done the filing myself in an attempt to protect myself. So when I had tried to forcefully remember something during our last session, I had dropped to the floor with convulsions and fallen unconscious for two days. Now, the Psychologist was trying to figure out where my boundaries were, so we didn't step on another memory landmine.
"What were you thinking about, Kimmi?" the Psychologist asked after a moment of silence where I had stared at her, wondering about all the stuff mentioned earlier.
"I was thinking," I replied, thinking about my problems, "why people keep getting attracted to bullying a nobody, good-for-nothing like me. No one was interested before I was found except to find ways to hurt me. No one was interested after I was found except to find ways to hurt me," I said in a confusing allusion for the Psychologist who didn't know my story, relating to how Mr Holt had found me and my subsequent barrel scraping as a member of his team, "In a way, life hasn't changed that much. It's never really been about me. More about what can be squeezed out of me until I've been wrung dry. It was alright while I had something of value, but now that I've lost it all, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and kick me in the backside. No one is ever excessively nice for no reason. I am useless now. It's only a matter of time before someone tries to take advantage of my weakened state again. I don't know why I am still here and haven't made a move yet. Sometimes, just thinking is really difficult."
The Psychologist blinked a few times, trying to make sense of what I was really trying to say and to choose a conversational thread to follow when I had dropped so many loose ends at her feet.
Before she could say anything, the doctor arrived to check up on me after those two days I had been unconscious. Colborn had informed him late last night when I had finally woken up again, much to a certain slacker's chagrin. That slacker had enjoyed not having to do anything for me and only needing to look busy.
"How are you feeling, Kimmi?" the doctor asked me cheerfully, while checking the latest blood and urine test reports, not bothering to wait for my answer. The Psychologist made way for her. "Making any progress?" the doctor glanced at the Psychologist who shook her head.
"Just because I don't say anything doesn't mean I don't have feelings," I said suddenly, making both women cock their heads to one side, thinking I was talking to them when I was actually talking to the slacker standing outside the room, listening in. Namely, my live-in carer. Well, I supposed, I could be talking to them as well. After all, I was feeling frustrated and I wanted to tell them without telling them, which wasn't helping when my word finding abilities and logic weren't all completely there. "Just because I don't tell the story or answer, doesn't mean that it's not there, hidden out of sight under all the superficiality. I can talk now. You don't have to ignore me. I'm the type of person who won't speak up until I can't bear it anymore. You can't trust everything I say either. It'll all come out eventually to bite you."
"Kimmi, what are you trying to say? Are you perhaps, feeling unsafe? Threatened?" the doctor asked with concern, but the carer came bustling in to stop me from talking.
"Kimmi's tired," the uncaring slacker gave a fake smile. "If you ladies could quickly finish up so that she can rest, it would be greatly appreciated. She goes all cryptic, mixes things up and doesn't make sense when she's out of energy."
I wanted very much to let my feelings out and express my frustration, but I was so used to keeping things in that I didn't know how to express myself any better than I was doing. The times I had let things out was when I almost couldn't stand it anymore.
Sometimes I wished that I too could yell and rail at the world. Explode. Let it out. Unfortunately, I had been trained by my experiences to shut my mouth and stay as unnoticed as possible or be squished like a bug. I hadn't been able to kick the habit, although I had tried.
The doctor asked a few more pointed questions that I couldn't answer with someone standing over me. She then tried a few routine questions and then left after announcing that my blood work had come back all clear. I just needed to slowly work on regaining my strength and health. She said she was sure my brain would slowly start working again given a bit of time. She and the Psychologist left, putting their heads together as they went, sounding puzzled. I heard Colborn's voice when he escorted them out and their discussion with him over whether anything had happened recently.
In the meantime, my carer made a show of tucking me back into bed and covertly pinching me. I winced.
"Don't think I don't know what you were trying to do there," she scowled and I closed my eyes to shut her out. "Just you wait," she hissed in a soft threat.
The carer left the room to make sure that the Psychologist and doctor had left. Then she went off to do something else, while Colborm entered to check if I needed anything before he went to cook dinner. Although polite, Colborn was not the kind of person I could confide in. While he was cooking, the carer forced me up and made me do my exercise homework in the house gym.
By the time dinner was ready, I was feeling hot, exhausted and somewhat faint. I knew my face was flushed red and that I must look slightly disheveled. Mr Colborn had actually given a double take when he had seen the carer pushing me in a wheelchair back to the bedroom to shower and change in preparation for dinner with Mr Borges. He stared at me with intense eyes and slightly parted lips. The carer had batted her eyelashes at him when he paused in the kitchen door to watch us pass. The carer paused in front of him to watch the crotch of his pants tent up. She winked at him, reaching a hand out to touch his arm and he had adjusted his trousers, purposely turning away.
Was the carer pretty? I wasn't sure. I didn't think so. It couldn't have been me that he was looking at. My red and tired face would definitely not have looked any good. The carer definitely didn't look good while she roughly handled me during my cold shower and pinched me in places where nobody else would see the bruises in irritation at having to care for me. She was an ugly and mean person who hated the fact that I wasn't fully functional so that she could live a life of luxury and minimal work. Rushing through my personal needs, she had carefully redone her makeup in the mirror, using all the things that Mr Borges had given me. I pretended to doze off as if I hadn't seen so as not to get myself into anymore trouble.
The last time I had gone against her, she had taken the opportunity to teach me a harsh lesson complete with chest stabbing words, a targeted beating in my sensitive areas that had left no marks and a tortuous ice bath, when nobody else had been home and Colborn had gone out to do some grocery shopping. Another time, she had eaten all my food, forcing me to eat the off leftovers from the previous day. When I had thrown up, she had twisted my ear and given me a lecture on how there were people out there in third world countries who would fight for a chance to eat the sour slops in front of me. I hadn't been able to eat for two days until Mr Borges next had a meal with me. No one had noticed anything. I had dreaded being left alone with her since.