"There's been another anima attack, patient is in critical condition! Where the hell is Jonathan?!" The assistant loudly shouted these words, almost the whole department got up to see what was happening. Other doctors got out of their office and walked with the group of nurses towards the operating theater, discussing the injuries of the woman. A tall, heavy built, dark-skinned man with a bald head and a full beard came out of his office. He was wearing a blue and black doctor's uniform, stethoscope around his neck and speedily started cleaning his glasses.
"Status, now." The doctor said as he helped them pull the patient into the room. He put his glasses and gloves on as he lifted her head up and turned it to the side carefully so the blood wouldn't clog up her windpipe. Tyrell and Tyler looked at each other before marching towards the stairs that led to the chairs looking into the operating theater. Tyrell sat down, looking through the window, following the doctor's every move but twitching slightly at the sight of all the woman's blood. He stitched a few wounds up, cleaned out the woman's throat with a machine, put bandages over the smaller less serious wounds and a bigger bandage around her head. The patient ended up with an IV drip, the nurses and assistant brought the patient back into another hospital room. Tyrell and Tyler walked back towards the hallway. The main doctor opened the doors and threw away his gloves, stopping as soon as he saw Tyrell and Tyler standing a little further down the hall.
"Hey, Dad." Tyrell said with an awkward smile. His father sincerely smiled back, walking towards Tyrell and opening his arms. He pulled him in and tightly hugged him, his heartbeat could be felt, the warmth of his body gave Tyrell a welcoming feeling.
"Hey Ty. I hope Gledis was kind to you guys. How are mom and Nila?" his father asked, caressing his head.
"They're fine. I haven't been home after school today but, I'm sure they still miss you like always." The three of them walked into his father's office and Tyrell closed the door. Pictures of their family were sitting on his desk and the flowers next to the windows were nicely cared for as the petals were brightly colored. He sat down and started typing a report about the patient he had just operated on, the two boys sat down as well. A red card saying 'Happy Valentine's day dear, Naomi' was put open next to the computer.
"You kept mom's card? I thought you'd have thrown it away by now."
"Nah, it helps me get through the day sometimes. You, your mother and your little sister give me strength when I need it most. And believe me, with these double shifts, I'm going to need it badly." He continued typing, not breaking contact with the computer screen for even one second.
"I guess I'm glad we can help you in at least one way then. I mean it's not like you accept our help with a lot of other stuff in the first place." Tyrell said this while scooting over his chair Josiah kept typing, every single click got louder the longer his father didn't actively partake in the conversation.
"I might be hard-headed, but I do let you guys help me every so often." The ticking on the keyboard became faster, with every single click Tyrell heard his face got gloomier.
"With what? Waking you up early in the morning if your alarm doesn't do it for you.?" Tyrell said. Josiah sighed and closed his eyes for a single moment, afterwards he kept on ticking away, the echo of the keyboard would haunt Tyrell's head as he shook it.
"Helping is still helping, even if it's to a smaller extent. We talked about this before. There has been an increase in anima attacks for a good while now, all that gang related crime going on really put a dent in the WMC." Josiah's fingers moved around the keyboard faster, he grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from the drawer and wrote key information about the attack down. Tyrell started to tap anxiously on his leg as he felt irritation brimming in his body. Tyler noticed the change in atmosphere, he hid his wounded fist and slowly slid a few feet away from the conversation on the rolling chair.
"Listen we just need-" Tyrell got cut off by his father getting upset with the pen, it stopped working. Josiah stood up to get another one, walking past Tyrell. He also stood up and walked right behind him. "Dad, all we need is bandages. When we were outside just now Tyler got hurt, his fist got messed up." His father stopped and looked back.
"What happened?" He looked at both of them. Tyrell gave Tyler a side eye and kept a calm composure.
"We were practicing jiu jitsu, he just hit the ground by accident." Tyrell gave Tyler a stern stare and looked back at his father.
"You? Practicing jiu jitsu? You wouldn't even hurt a fly. We've tried to put you on a self-defense sport for years now. Why did you start now all of a sudden?" His father gave him a confused look, but also intriguingly crossed his arms.
"There's no particular reason so don't worry about it."
"Wait, does this have something to do with Carmen? You finally made it official and now you want to learn martial arts so you can protect her huh?"
"No that's not- Wait, we're off topic. Dad, we need bandages for Tyler." As Tyrell said it, Tyler showed him his fist. Josiah walked over to him and inspected the wound from up close.
"Hmm, alright I see. Ty, could you grab some bandages out of the medical cabinet in the corner there?" He pointed to a large medical cabinet in the corner of the room, next to one of the windows.
"Sure, I'll get it." As Tyrell walked over to the cabinet and grabbed the knob, a few droplets of water fell on his shoes. He looked down and saw it coming out of the cabinet. As he opened it more, more water came out of it, making his shoes wet. That whole side of the door got soaked in water and so did his hand. "What's going on?" Tyrell took a step back and felt water underneath his feet. He looked around and realized the room was slowly filling up. He took another step back and the cabinet's door opened more, releasing an unhinged amount of water. Tyrell had a shortness of breath, his eyes widened with fear as the door opened even more. The water reached up to his waist and it felt cold, he felt his clothes becoming submerged in the cold odorless substance. In less than a minute, the whole room was filled to the brim, he looked around the room in the hope of finding his father and friend, but they were nowhere to be seen. Tyrell's heart began racing, his eyes darted around the room in a panic. The pressure of the water started cracking the window, everything in the room floated around him. He looked at the medical cabinet once more, this time it was fully open but there was nothing inside of it. The only thing inside of the cabinet was a dark body of water. The family picture his dad had was now floating in front of him. He stretched out his hand in an attempt to grab the picture, just then the cabinet started rumbling. The amount of aggresive shaking rose by the second. The family picture got sucked into the cabinet, Tyrell swam after it. He swiftly swam into the cabinet and managed to grab the picture, bringing it to his face and exclaiming a sound of relief. As he put the picture away a large sea creature surrounded by darkness in the distance looked at him, he desperately tried to swim backwards. It rapidly swam towards him, he looked behind him but the cabinet that was once there had disappeared. The creature got close and opened its huge mouth revealing its rows of sharp teeth covered in blood. It bit off Tyrell's lower body as the water around him became red and he let out a crazed and demented scream of terror. It then ripped through his waistline, exposing his internal organs and chowing down on the rest of his body. His ripped intestines were slowly floating upwards, his spine was bitten cleanly through, half of his liver was left and his mouth filled with blood. The creature shook its head while eating, as to rip through more of the flesh it already had in its mouth. As he was about to spit the blood out, his eyes closed and opened again due to his father shaking him awake.
"Tyrell?! Are you okay? You just passed out. Have you eaten enough today?"
"What...What happened?"
"You opened the cabinet and just passed out immediately after. What's going on with you?"
"I-I don't know. Lately I-I've just been having these weird kind of hallucinations."
"Are these like the dreams you've been having?"
"Yeah, but..." Tyrell stood up shakily, almost falling over as he grabbed his father's desk as to not fall down again. "Don't worry about it. I can handle it." He grabbed the roll of bandages and handed it over to his father. Josiah kneeled down in front of Tyler and grabbed his hand, carefully wrapping the bandages around it.
"Tyrell, this is serious. I mean, realistic hallucinations, panic attacks and dizziness? You're showing signs of repression. I know I haven't been able to talk to you a lot because of work, but I need to when something's wrong with you. This is a problem. We've talked about this, if you keep this up, you'll end up in a bestial state. I told you this many times, but releasing your anima is needed for you to stay healthy." His father finished bandaging Tylers fist, standing up again and walked over to Tyrell, putting his hand on his shoulder.
"I'm not doing it." He pushed Josiah's hand off of his shoulder and walked past him. Tyler stood up from the chair and followed him to the door. "Like people always say, it's my anima so I decide what I'll do with it. I'll handle it myself." His father grabbed him by his arm and slightly pulled him back, the inside of his hand felt dry because of all the work he's been doing. Tyrell pulled his arm away from Josiah without looking back. Tyler followed him out of the room as they headed to the elevator.