22

What brings you here?".

"Nothing special", answered the stranger, shaking his head lightly and laughing nervously as his smile faded slightly, "just got myself bored. So I thought that I might come and check on you. I'm sorry if I'm keeping you waiting or disturbing you, but I thought you wouldn't want to spend the whole night by yourself so I decided to come and see whether you were doing alright. Is that ok with you?".

"It's fine", responded Awerkok with a short, soft laugh as well.

"Thanks", he smiled and turned towards the doctor who had followed the newcomer into the room. "Are you done?"

"Yeah", answered the doctor. "All set", he continued with a nod.

"Great", replied the stranger, "that's great, thank you", he smiled and looked directly towards Awerkok again before looking up at the ceiling and letting out a deep breath. "Alright then", he muttered to himself in a hushed voice, "let's do this!".

He reached towards the bag on his shoulders, removed it carefully from its spot on the floor and placed it beside the bed, before pulling out a scalpel from inside of it and placing it on the table next to the bag. He took one step back and then sat down on the chair beside the bed.

Seeing that the doctor had finished his work and was now ready to leave, Awerkok said, "Let's go then", and started walking out of the room. However, as soon as he had made it halfway across the hallway, he stopped and turned around abruptly. "Wait just a minute", he said while narrowing his eyes slightly.

"Huh?" the strange man asked, blinking his eyes slightly as he tilted his head in confusion.

Awerkok frowned slightly, and then said, "This is my house. How did you get in? Don't you know how dangerous it is to come barging in like this?"

The stranger blinked, hesitated for a few seconds and then said, "Actually, I'm pretty sure that you don't own this house either".

"Huh?" asked Awerkok dumbfounded, and then he looked confused. Hadn't the nurse told him that this man had worked for him before? He hadn't known that, so he couldn't quite make sense of the other's statement.

"This is our house", he explained while gesturing at the hospital room with his free hand and then pointed at his neck. "Right here", he continued, pointing at his forehead, "you'll find an identification card that says so".

"And what's with the mask?", inquired Awerkok suddenly suspiciously.

"Well, actually", replied the man as if trying to find an excuse for his sudden entrance, "I've broken my leg."

"Oh no...", responded Awerkok, feeling even more shocked and even somewhat frightened now.

"Don't worry, I'm not hurt. Actually, it's quite funny", said the man. "I broke it in order to come here...", he said, "...so you can help me."

"What?"

Chapter 2.

"What? You mean that you're telling me that you're actually injured, and therefore unable to perform the operation yourself?"

"Yes", admitted the man sitting on the hospital bed, nodding slowly as he spoke. "In fact, this is precisely why I wanted to see you. I was hoping that you'd be able to help me. But of course, you can refuse", he added while tilting his head to one side with a slight smirk.

"What happened to you?" asked Awerkok as he sat opposite him.

"They shot me in the legs", he replied, "but since I'm already on crutches, I can't even limp around anymore, and since I haven'