4

"It felt so real," I told him.

Emmanuel had called for a nurse, and in the meantime, I spoke about my dream. It didn't take long for her to find us.

The moment she came into view, it something about her that took me aback. She looked young, too young, for a nurse.

She greeted us with a lazy smile, dressed in a simple soft colored uniform, holding a clipboard and pen. Her thin, shaped brows raised with her round cheeks, moving down to her complimented slim nose and plump lips. She pulls a curtain, revealing a line of beds where people can be seen in a few of them.

"Hi, you're Ruvelia Kim? That's a unique name. I'm Xiao Sang and I'll be checking up on you today." Her smile was pretty. There was something about her presence that comforted me.

"Hi."

"So how are you, feeling better? I've noticed that you've been sleeping every time I walked past your bed. Your knees were also injured but don't worry, it's now all bandaged and clean."

"Yeah, I'm better, great actually. When can we leave?" I didn't like hospitals. Besides the fact that I feel much better, there was no logical reason for me to be there.

"When I think that your good to leave. Let's have a little talk session, shall we?"

"But I feel better-"

"Yes- but you need to be observed. It says here that you blacked out from trauma, your blood pressure was checked and it was high. Your brother told us that you both went through something serious that may have been the reason for your condition. If you are alright with it, can you tell me what is behind your distress?"

I glance towards my brother, his head was bowed, dazed. I return my focus onto the nurse.

"Uh.. my dog went... missing. We found him but he had already died of coldness and he meant a lot to me.."

Emmanuel's brows furrowed, so obviously.

"Ah, I see." She scribbled something down. With only her eyes above the board, she quickly eyes me, which I had noticed.

"You mourned?" She continues.

"Yes."

"You had a lot of blood on your legs, I'd say it was yours?"

"Uh- well.. yes. Yes it was." My panic sprung in. She looked at me skeptically with a risen eyebrow.

"No one checked the blood on my hands right?"

"What do you mean? There wasn't anything on your hands."

Huh? I was sure that I held their blood.

She checked my pulse and my blood pressure again. She said that they were back to normal.

"Do you feel anything going on with your head? Do you feel completely fine?"

There she goes. Emmanuel's talk on them thinking I was crazy was true.

"Yes, I'm very much fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Mhm." It felt like she kept repeating her questions.

"Alright, you'll stay here for a while and we'll see about you okay? I'll come back to yo-"

"Ruvelia Kim! Emmanuel Kim!"

A man appears in a leather jacket, jogging to us from the hallway. He stops at our post, catching his breath with a hand on his knees as he pulls out an identification card.

"I'm agent Simons. I'm part of a police investigation. I'm gonna need you children to come with me."

"Sir? This is a public hospital. You cannot just take them fro-"

"This is an investigation that we are obligated to conduct. I ask for your cooperation, our team has verified that Ruvelia Kim is in good conditions and can be discharged under our supervision."

She paused. Her expression told us that she figured out something.

"And how do you know that? We haven't updated her information yet. She remains asleep according to our data." Emmanuel and I kept quiet yet confused. Xiao Sang seemed unwilling to give us over. She had gotten up and faced him. He told her to move but she didn't. It was the right time to get a gut feeling about the situation.

"Uh, what's happening? Do they know something that we don't?" I whisper to my brother.

"They're acting like it. I dunno really."

We kept observing. The 'agent' was agitated by his looks, and the nurse made it worse. My gut feeling was right.

He lounged towards her with a grumble, clearly unhappy with her provocations. She simply steps to her right, his move missing her completely. Now that I saw her face, she looked content at first with a slight grin on her face, but changed it as it was her turn to have him. She had him cornered to a wall.

The agent's eyes begin to glow red. His skin suddenly bubbles, morphing into the blackish-greenish skin of what was now a scaly beast. It was on all fours, with rattling large scales on it's humped spine as it hisses with the swinging tail of a python. Its head now took the shape of an unfriendly green basilisk; it bared its great, pointed teeth, just like the ones in my dream.

We stare, our jaws possibly reaching the floor of the building.

"What the hell is that?!" Emmanuel squeaks.

"Good, now that you've shown your true form." Xiao Sang leaps backwards and motions us to leave.

I sat right where I was, my brain unable to comprehend whatever that happened seconds ago. Brother caught on with the nurse and urged me to get up. I shook my head vigorously; I wake up and we run. A piercing growl was heard behind us but we chose to ignore it. We took a strict left turn down another hallway. To our right was pure glass, beyond it a square compound of scenery enclosed by infrastructure where patients and doctors can be seen around. We were on the third floor.

"Are we about to die? I'm hallucinating right?" I ask, between my breaths.

"No, I'm seeing as much as you are."

"Hey!" We looked back. Xiao Sang was on our tails. "Run faster!" she blurts, exactly when the monster finds its way behind us, the white wall that we once went past now exhibiting a grand hole of debris.