Cool breeze… Smell… Warm… Smoke… Hot.
"Gasp!"
My eyes shoot open and dart around the room. Left - table, right - chart, left - machine, right - small tube. It doesn't take me long, I know I am in a hospital. My throat is dry, my hands are close to numb, and my voice doesn't seem to work.
"Heh… Heelllpah…"
My voice is too weak to be heard. I am alone. I am unable to tell how much time has passed until the nurse finally walks in the room. The sound of something plastic hits the concrete wall. Maybe a cart?
"D- Doc! S-she woke up!"
She only stares for a couple of seconds before coming back to her senses and kicks into gear, it was as if something clicked in her mind. She didn't say anything else until a doctor came into view.
"I don't know how long she has been awake, it could have been no longer than 3 hours though."
"That's a relief, if it had been longer than 5 hours she could have gone back like before. Has she tried to move yet?"
"I'm unsure, I haven't seen her move at all except for her eyes. Not even to speak."
"Interesting."
The doctor has black hair and seems younger than the nurse, he speaks in a calm and soothing voice. The nurse on the other hand seems serious with blonde hair, she speaks in a cold tone but I can hear sincerity in her voice. The doctor turns to me.
"My name is Dr. Nilum, can you understand me?"
I nod my head slowly, a massive searing pain crawls up my spine and resides in the back of my head. I visibly wince from the pain. Now I have a headache, great.
"Good, then we will start treatment immediately."
A few minutes pass when three more doctors walk into the already small room, one casually dressed woman hangs back just outside the room. The three doctors then spend the next hour giving me commands such as: Look up, breathe in, raise your hand, and many others. I made attempts at every single command they gave to me, I only failed the speaking ones.
"Does your throat hurt?"
I nod slowly.
"Can you swallow?"
I nod slowly after demonstrating.
"We will be right back. Mrs. Tefoe, she is responsive, you may speak with her now."
Everyone leaves the room as the woman just outside enters. She has long brownish black hair that curls toward the bottom. She is slender and her skin is without a blemish, I would consider her as beautiful as she is tall. With her head down, she points her eyes in my direction, grey. She seems familiar, I manage to raise my hand to wave and show her my most sincere smile.
"Do you remember your name?"
Her voice is not what I imagined, sad and high pitched. I shake my head. Now that I think about it, I can't really remember anything about me. I don't even know how old I am. The woman begins to tear up.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Fffaaam- Cough fam…ill…ee..are…" My voice is raspy.
"Familiar? It's not exactly what I wanted to hear, but it's a start."
Though it hurt, I managed to get the one word out that I wanted to say. The woman smiles, I can tell it's real. Over the next few days many tests are done on me, many medications are given to me, and lots of physical therapy. They even helped me start talking again.
"Okay, I think you are ready for the memory reader now."
My eyes grew wide, they mentioned that they haven't told me anything just in case because I could go into shock. That wouldn't be the best for me as I am still recovering… or so they say.
"A-are you sure? What if it's too much?"
"Try not to worry, your test results are much better than when we first started. You are even talking with minimum stutters now. You got this!"
"Okay… then let's do it."
"But first, I need to show you something. Here, take this.
He hands me a grey rectangular flat tray.
"Turn it around."
Turning the tray around I start to see a light reflected on the floor, then the wall, then my face. My… face… dark brown hair, blue eyes, thin eyebrows, my hair is long in a bun, not a blemish to be seen. The only marks are a few freckles near my small nose. I start to see a tear running down my pasty face.
"Wow, so this is what I look like… But what is that?"
I angle the mirror down to my neck where a massive scar rides down the front of my left shoulder, barely above my heart. It ends just before my arm. Ugly.
"That is what caused you to be in that coma for over three months."
"Wait, three months! Just what time of the year is it? Did I miss any school?"
School…? That's right, I'm in school…
"You'll figure this out with the help of the memory reader, I am afraid that if I say anything else you won't be ready anymore. But the fact that you remembered school is a very good sign."
"Okay…"
Dr. Nilum leaves the room after our conversation with the promise to be back in just a few minutes. He was kind enough to lend me the mirror until he comes back with the memory reader. Once he returns, I can see who I am. I wonder if I will still think the same… I stared at the mirror until I was startled by that soothing voice.
"Okay, just relax. This is Alix, she is going to be the one who reads your memories back to you. All you need to do is try to not resist. I won't lie to you, this isn't the most comfortable feeling."
Something came racing back to my mind.
"What is her ranking? If I can ask that."
"Don't worry, I'm a B+ tier. To be more specific, a B-9.3. I'll make sure to take extra care of you."
Rank is something that just popped in my head, it was as if I knew it to be real so I just had to ask. To put it simply, rank is also called a tier. A tier is a way to show how strong a person is with their power's Skill, and a Skill is a certain power that is like DNA passed through generations. Some lower tier Skills could just be modified strength enhancement for example, and a higher tier Skill is something extraordinary and rarer such as Memory Read. Ranking starts at F tier and rides all the way to S tier. The decibel number next to a ranking shows how strong in that tier you are from 0.1 to 10. So I am pretty content with B+, It's almost an A grade.
"Shall we get started then?"
She smiles at me and then puts her index finger in the middle of my forehead, I get lost while my vision goes dark.
Redirection Successful.
Putting the pizza in the oven I hear the front door click, Mom must be home. Seeing as it's only 2pm, something must have happened for her to be off work so early. The front door opens and mom comes through the door carrying grocery bags.
"What's all this mom?"
"Well I thought it was time for a bit of grocery shopping."
"Need any help?"
"If you don't mind, there's only a couple more bags though."
I give mom a smile and walk out to the car.
Just then, a message appeared before me, just like that of a game.
Violation of the mind has been detected. Attempting to resolve, Stand by…
"Gasp"
As I snapped back into reality I found that Alix had fainted onto the floor. There is blood dripping down her nose. I was greeted by Dr. Nilum.
"Sigh… She must have overused her Skill."
"Will she be okay?"
"Yeah, she will be okay. Hey Rebecca, can you give me a hand with this?"
The blonde nurse entered the room and together with Dr. Nilum carried Alix to a safe place to recover. When Dr. Nilum returned, he seemed cautious.
"So what did you see?"
"I saw my mom, the woman who came in to see me the day I woke up. I helped her carry groceries in."
"Interesting… Do you remember if you had a Skill in the past?"
"No, I don't remember. I'm sorry."
"That's okay, we can use a skill reader."
"Is that a person or a machine?"
"It's a person, quite a rare Skill too. I'll go get one on the floor so don't go anywhere okay."
As he leaves the room he shoots a quick smile toward me. I wonder if I have a Skill and if so, how powerful? It only takes a few minutes for Dr. Nilum to return with another man.
"Alright, this time I'm having you meet with Dr. ly, he is also a high tier A-1.6." (Pronounced Dr. Lie)
I can only remain silent with a smile, this guy gives me the creeps! With a cold stare, he says nothing while his eyes start to glow a bright green. He then takes my hand and closes his eyes.
"I feel nothing."
"Nothing? Interesting."
"I do not believe this girl has any Skill."
"Alright, thank you for your service Dr. Ly. You are dismissed."
I didn't expect to be so upset to learn that I had no Skill, my eyes tear up involuntarily.
"Hey, don't sweat it. Many people in this world don't have Skills. We can try again in the morning okay?"
"Okay…"
"By the way, did you happen to catch your name?"
"No…"
"Since you haven't gone into shock, you can get as much information as you want. Would you like to know your name?"
"Can my mother tell me?"
"I'll bring her in, hang tight."
"She's here?"
"She never left."