Upon waking up from his ten-month-long slumber, Atticus Bates came face-to-face with an entirely new world.
-----------
Arbor Vitae Sanatorium at Cedarbrook, Montana wasn't quite a hospital, more a sanctuary for those whose hold on the world was weakening, yet whom the world clung to with a fierce, unspoken hope.
Every awakening from a comatose state, however long, was celebrated as a triumph, not just for the patient, but for the sanatorium itself.
Atticus Bates was among the prominent patients whom the sanatorium had the honor of tending to.
On his discharge day, the entire staff gathered before the main building to bid him farewell. A collective gasp rippled through the crowd as Atticus emerged, not on a wheelchair like most recovering patients, but walking on his own two feet.
He looked remarkably lucid, a perfectly healthy alpha through and through.
But once the realization dawned on them, they understood why.
