Awakening

Alain woke up in the middle of the day.

As he regained conscience, Alain let out a painful groan. He felt as if both his stomach and head had pieces missing out that would wickedly increase pain if he ever moved them.

After a breath of courage, Alain pushed on his arms, letting out a muffled groan of intense pain as he failed to up himself. Nothing to do – his sore body returned to its initial position, covered in sweats.

"You're finally awake at last." Alain heard a man's voice to his left, feeling the voice familiar though he was in no condition to want to guess.

He tried turning 90° left, but even that seemed too big an effort for him in his actual condition. Groaning, he eventually could only let it flow and ask,

"Who are you?"

Alain heard the man's footing getting closer with each second. Then, from his blurry eyes, he barely saw a humanoid figure bending as it wore what seemed to him as a white piece of clothing – a priest's uniform he would have recognized had he been in any other condition.

"How do you feel?" the man asked slowly. Alain's thoughts were so slow he didn't have time to will himself to answer. The man continued, "The process of awakening is always harsh when one's come back from the energy's world."

Alain heaved a sigh whose purposed seemed to get rid of his pain – at least, that was the objective. Then, after a moment of silence, he said: "Has it already ended?"

"Indeed."

" But… it's been, like… a day?"

Alain had the urge to curse as he felt his already numb mouth going weaker.

"A day? That's an awakened's classic feeling for an operation that takes a year, and you took double that amount of time."

The priest must have moved since the white figure he saw slowly changed to some kind of brawn ceiling.

"Take your time to rest." The voice came from Alain's left. "I shall inform your family now that you have awakened, and," he paused, his voice getting even slower, "make the necessary arrangement."

Alain closed his eyes as he heard the strident sound of doors closing resonating behind him.

'Ahhh'

Alain's face showed a feeling of pleasure as he returned to the blanket's warm. His eyes did bulge, and he moved his head in annoyance as his body continued to be painful. Even his hair became so painful that he made him change places. It lasted for a few seconds before he could take on a position he found acceptable enough.

He closed his eyes and prepared to sleep when –

"Alain," A small male teenager's voice called him.

"What?" He asked in exasperation as he put another blanket near his head, stopping the bit of the sun from attaining him. The blanket's strong smell irritated his nose, which made him want to just put it aside.

"I need to tell you." The voice resonated again. "It's Jean and Eloise, they, ", he took a small breath, "they're dead."

Alain's movement stopped as an intense feeling of cold appeared from within him. For a few moments, he stood immobile, eyes barely half-focused on the ceiling as stress grew and swelled from inside him.

"They are still on their beds if you want to see them."

"...Okay," Alain said without returning to face them.

A few dozen seconds passed.

"You don't care?" A teenager's female voice was heard. At that time, Alain had already woken up enough to identify the voice's owner, Emilie.

"… I do. "

"Then why don't you see them?!"

" Shut up," Alain said coldly and angrily. Both his teeth and fists were ready to destroy her face.

He heard a despised mimic coming from her mouth that urged him more to beat her up, but his body seemed to have no wish to fight or even move with such low vitality.

"Let it go," He heard François whispering to whom he guessed was Emilie. "It's not worth it."

Two people exited the room as the door sound reached Alain's ears.

They were 6 to pass the awakening, Alain thought. One out of five generally died. If Eloise and Jean had died, it left only François, Emilie, and Lena.

After some time, Alain found himself sleepier than ever and fell asleep again.

As he awoke, he heard a person muffling its cry. He soon identified it as Emilie.

A feeling of guilt arose inside him, and many times, he wished she could just leave - frightened by the potential danger of what an irrational person could bring to him, even though he did consider it improbable.

He heard the door closing and knew his wish got fulfilled.

Only then did he groan as he forced himself to stand up, rubbing his eyes as he glimpsed at their beds.

The blankets had been pushed to their left side as if something had just discovered the corpse. Eloise's arms were hanging from the top, her eyes were still open, and her legs were whiter than normal.

Both still held in their stomach a kind of larva – the demonush – that had fed them during the awakening.

He felt teary. He wishes he was teary. He sighs, hiding inside the blanket, tightening his fist, and forcing his body to slightly trembling.

'Eloise… I'll never see her again.'

Tears ran down his face as his mouth made sounds of pain muffled.

Alain stopped and tried mopping up his tears as he heard the door opening again.

"How do we take them?" a man asked

"I'll tell you the instruction; just follow them. " the other man said. "No, no, push it to that side. Yes, like this. Take his legs together. Okay. Now the other."