1 Fuzzy

I opened my eyes to see a woman gripping onto the white sheet of cloth that was covering my body, she was covered in bandages, with deep purple bruises all over her swollen face as droplets of tears ran down it.

From the smell and the layout of the room, I concluded that I must be in the hospital. I can make out rows of iron beds with white bed coverings and people laying on them with varying degrees of injuries.

There was nothing to separate one person from the other so I must not be in the ICU.

The throbbing pain in my head and numbness in both my legs and hands told me otherwise. Not to mention, I have no idea of who I am.

Glancing back at the woman still crying her eyes out, I reached my hand out to her and poked her arm.

Maybe she knows who I am with the way she is wailing.

Without skipping a beat, the woman looked up at me and smiled, crying with relief.

"Oh thank goodness, thank goodness. I thought you were never going to wake up. I don't know what I would have done if that happened." She sobbed, hand covering her mouth.

Why is she so happy now? Wasn't she crying in pain before? Pick an emotion darn it.

With her help, I sat up from the bed, leaning my back into the pillow, resting against the wall. The woman pulled her chair a little closer after calling for the doctor and began looking intently at me.

I should really ask her now.

"Excuse me? But who are you and who am I?"

The look on her face as I asked that almost made me regret asking it. Almost.

She let out a hysterical scream just as the doctor came to us and had to be dragged out the room after being sedated. She really has such a range of emotions.

"Hello, dear." The man I presume to be the doctor sat where the woman did and flashed a friendly smile at me. I felt revolted seeing it.

"So how are you feeling?" He asked, looking at the papers on the clipboard given to him by the nurse.

"Who was that woman?" I asked.

Just answer my question and then leave me alone.

"Hmm?" The doctor looked at me, the gears of his head turning. Without answering my question, he turned to the woman that came with him, "Nurse, she needs to get an MRI scan then bring the results back to me as soon as possible."

After he said that, he walked to see another patient.

"Yes, doctor." The woman leaned down to me and smiled, I wished everyone would stop smiling.

"I am going to take you to the MRI room, ok? It's nothing scary, I promise."

Scary? The scariest thing at the moment is your smile, please stop.

She pressed some buttons on the side of the bed and it started moving on its own, following her as she went out the door and down a hallway you would only see in sci-fi movies, passing other doctors and nurses on the way.

White pillars, walls and floors. The corners were like small gardens with bars restricting the people from entering it. They were either marble or tile, I'm not entirely sure. The ceiling was made of cement and glass at the far corners, sunlight shining down on the plants that grew below the glass.

Though I was following her like a dog on a leash, it was quite a comfortable ride. If I can call it that.

Seriously, I need to find out who I am and what exactly happened. No matter how hard I try, my memory isn't coming back and I get headaches instead.

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The MRI was fine, I slept through most of it anyway. They are checking the results at the moment while I remain in the room they took me out of, staring at the people that walked in and out of the room. Doctors, nurses, even visiting family and friends of other patients all seem to find me a spectacle because they would stare at me and then whisper to each other.

"Poor thing." One woman remarked as I tried to grab glass of water on the table beside my bed, only for the nerves in my hand to contract and now the glass pieces lay in a thousand sparkling pieces on the ground.

They look so pretty against the light from the ceiling, almost like stars.

"Are you ok, miss?!" A woman in a white military uniform (?) and an emerald crest of a phoenix with a sword and shield surrounded by waves pinned on the left of the uniform came running to me, frantic with worry. Her beautiful curly brown hair, framing her face as it cascaded down to her waist.

What's with her? You'll get wrinkles if you frown that much all the time. But her eyes … so pretty. Almost like an animal's.

I nodded my head and pointed to the broken pieces of glass on the ground.

"Ah. It's ok. Excuse me, nurse! Miss Sagepice dropped the glass, would you mind sending someone to clean this up please!"

"Of course. Right away, miss. No one got hurt right?" A nurse asked, walking to them while she wiped her hand in the apron she wore.

The woman slowly approached me and gently looked me over. Pleased that I was unharmed, she smiled.

"No one is hurt."

"That's a relief."

"Yes, it is. But I have a question." The smiled disappeared from her face as she said this, eyes cold. "May I know why Miss Sagepice is in the general ward instead of a private room? Are you trying to insult the Sagepice family? Surely you know who she is just from looking at her face."

"It's nothing like that, madam. She had been in the Intensive Care for a while and the moment she got better, we moved her to wherever is nearest and at the moment, it's the general ward. Would you like us to transfer her to a private one now?" The nurse answered, a hint of fear in her voice.

"Yes. Transfer her to the best room right away. This hospital is a disgrace. Hurry up, before I lose my patience!"

"Yes madam!"

The nurse scurried away to the door as fast as she could, talking to the others as she made her way out.

"I'm so sorry for that, Miss." The woman told me, sighing. "We will have to file a complaint when you get out of the hospital. Now, how are you feeling, Miss? Does it hurt a lot? I'm just really happy you woke up. I was ready to kill myself if you died too. I'm sorry for being useless when you needed me most, miss. I am a failure in every sense of the word. I will take any punishment you have for me. Anything."

What? What is she blabbering about?

"Excuse me. But who are you?"

And just like that, the same expression that came over the first woman, appeared on this one's face. Fortunately, she didn't start screaming and crying her eyes out. But she looked so sad, even though she is smiling.

"It's ok, Miss. It's ok." She knelt on the ground beside my bed and took my hand in her own, holding it against her forehead. I worry about the glass and water on the ground but she doesn't seem to care about it.

"What are you doing?"

"Something I should have done a long time before. Miss Meraki Sagepice, I swear on my life and honor as a member of the Society of the Velvet Gate, I will serve you to the death." She undid the bandages on my arm, revealing a fresh stitching done on the wound running down my arm.

That would explain the pain on my arm.

Picking up a broken shard of glass, she pricked her finger and drew a symbol that resembles a butterfly on the wound.

Don't tell me … I'm in a cult?! Are cults like this though?

"Whatever you wish, is for me to fulfil. I am your loyal servant from now to death."

As she said that, a warm, tingly feeling spread from the spot she drew the symbol but it wasn't uncomfortable. But I wasn't paying attention to my aching body anymore. Nor to the stares and murmurs I'm still getting sent my way.

My entire attention is on the woman kneeling in front of me, her head bowed. All the words she said repeated in my head like a broken record.

For the first time since I woke up, an emotion rose up in me and my face broke into a grin as I felt my lips curl up.

"Good." A voice that didn't sound like mine came out, harsh and raspy.

Some of her blood dripped on my hand and I licked them away, like a thirsty animal. The grin never leaving my face.