"... What?" Layla asked, incredulous.
"When I woke up, the nurse told me there were 37 survivors, but that only 15 were at that hospital, and the others were, and I quote, 'in a separate facility'."
"... Shoot, Alesha, I think you probably shouldn't have told me that. The official news says only 15 individuals survived that event."
Sitting up straight, Alesha looked at her younger sister with a worried expression. "But, we've been talking about banned subjects this whole time, I don't see what the big deal is."
"Right, but literally no one outside that hospital knows that the Alliance lied about the number of survivors. That means that they're treating the actual number of survivors as a bigger secret than what happened in Faxton and to the other cities."
Alesha finally caught onto the implications of that. "Ah crap, I'm sorry Layla. That probably means the nurse wasn't supposed to tell me that either. Come to think of it, if everything around this is such a big deal, why wasn't I, like, interrogated or something by the Alliance before they let me leave the hospital?"
Layla facepalmed. "Sister, you are incredibly book smart and very quick to catch on to a lot of things, but you can be strangely naive and randomly slow at times. If they had interviewed you after waking up, that would have clued you into how big of secrets they were dealing with. As for what you saw before being rescued, it was obvious you'd talk to someone about it and that they'd inform you about how tight-lipped the government has chosen to be about all this. No matter what you saw before being rescued, it couldn't have been different from what was on the streams. Since they are being so lax with those who saw the streams, they'd be lax with those who survived as well.
"Except, perhaps, for the other 22 survivors who, for some reason, are being treated differently. I can only guess at why. I suppose the government decided that they'd seen more, or more likely, these are individuals who remained alive after being changed by the fire. Since your change was just your eye color and even I, your sister, didn't notice that until I really looked for it, you probably got grouped with the unchanged survivors.
"How on Elantris did I miss your gorgeous new eyes, though? They're so vibrant it's enchanting," she added, leaning in to get a closer look at Alesha's new rainbow-hued irises.
"No idea," Alesha replied. "Somehow, even I didn't notice my eyes had changed until--, until I really looked at them." The fact that she had to lie to her sister about this still irked her.
"Regardless, what you said makes sense. I would have indeed been a lot more alarmed had the Alliance decided to interrogate me about what happened before I was knocked out. I definitely thought everything was normal until you told me about the strange effects of that bizarre fire."
"Yeah, well, I'm just going to pretend you didn't tell me what the nurse told you. Hopefully I'll forget it before long."
Getting up from the bed, Layla held out her hand for Alesha to grab, which she did. "Now, I've got homework to do as well, so you get on outta here and take care of yourself, alright?"
Alesha laughed. "Will do, Layla, love you lots."
"Love you too, sis. I'm glad you're alright."
----
Alesha went to the living room, finding it completely Dennis-free. She gathered up the coloring supplies and put them away. Down at the end of the hall, Alesha peeked her head around the corner, finding Dennis's door closed; she opened it quietly. Inside, Dennis was resting in an inclined position on his gaming chair. The egg-shaped contraption was quite large and filled entirely with Hi-Comfort Gamer's Gel (Trademarked). The stuff was essentially the same as the Hi-Comfort Antibacterial Gel (Trademarked) found in hospitals, except instead of maximizing firmness and cleanliness, it emphasized coziness and support. This made it the perfect material for gaming in VR. VR had been popular for quite a long time, a few thousand years in fact, but it wasn't until a couple hundred years ago that the consciousness-transferring kind had been developed. When it was introduced, gamers everywhere were beyond enthused about the fact. Every gamer's dream was to be completely immersed in the virtual world. They were so thrilled about no longer having to deal with the practicality problems of traditional VR that no one really worried about the potential physical problems of consciousness-transferral VR. They were super cautious about the potential issues involving the brain and consciousness, but completely overlooked the rest of the body. That only took a few weeks after its release to change, however.
Professional gamers and others that liked to play for long periods at a time began experiencing something that many people didn't even realize existed beforehand: bedsores. Whether they sat in the most exquisitely crafted chairs or laid down on their beds, gamers using consciousness-transferral VR found themselves waking up from the game world to stiffness and pain. In just a few weeks of steady gaming, this progressed to visible bruising. After all, even the most dedicated gamers using traditional VR would shift position if it began to grow uncomfortable. But this simply wasn't possible while using consciousness-transferral VR. One's consciousness was completely disconnected from their physical body while in the game.
Of course, the bedsore problem was very bad for business. If consciousness-transferral gaming was determined to be unfit for professional and other serious gamers, the herculean amount of investment that had developed the technology would never be repaid. They needed those markets!!
In response, the company that had developed consciousness-transferral VR, My World Gaming, put out a desperate call for help, promising a huge chunk of their shares to anyone who could invent a chair or other furniture item that would solve the bedsore problem. Long story short, that ended with the invention of Hi-Comfort Gamer's Gel (Trademarked), and the gaming chair that was still used today. Copyright expiration meant that off-brand versions were plentiful but the original was still known as the Gamer's Favorite.