Inara awoke to a cacophony of beeps, chatter, and frantic footsteps surrounding her. She opened her eyes and winced from a blinding white light gleaming above her. Her mind was hazy and her thoughts were discoordinated.
She managed to muster up enough energy to turn her head and saw a familiar machine standing next to a small railing on the bed she was lying on. A wave of wires and tubes came out from all sides of the machine and scattered onto the bed and floor.
Her eyes widened.
The machine was a vital sign monitor, the same one she had read about in her textbooks. She stared in awe at the machine, entranced by the digital line that moved in accordance to a rhythmic beep that mirrored the beats of her heart. She had never seen a vital sign monitor in person before, at least not one that was this advanced. Hospital visits were a luxury for Fajris because of their lacking resources and economic condition, and one would have to get permissed by the Sion government to enter a hospital with a monitor as luxurious as the one she was currently staring at.
She snapped out of her trance, and not long after, a flood of memories rushed into her head. She laid silently for a minute before her thoughts started to run frenziedly.
'Wait, I was just in Varamuj talking to a guard. Last I remember, I was on the floor… after being shot by the — WAIT! Am I in a hospital???!'
She suddenly felt a suffocating feeling in her throat. She forced her eyes to look down and saw a thick tube running from her mouth to a ventilator.
'That's an endotracheal tube! I am in a hospital! What the hell?!'
She tried to get up in a frantic hurry but was met with a sharp pain stabbing away at her sides. She slumped back onto the bed and groaned. Her groan was muffled by the tube which ran down her windpipe. She attempted to bring her hands up to tear the tube out her throat but something prevented her movements.
She hunched her shoulders to stare down at her hands and saw handcuffs restricting her arms from her wrists.
'These Sionan bastards! They must have arrested me. But why am I in a hospital? They'd usually leave someone like me to die…
Urghhh, I don't know anymore. Whatever. The important thing is that I'm alive. I need to find a way out of here and find Malak immediately. I'm sure he was thrown in a cell with the rest of the protestors. He must be so scared…
Don't worry Malak. Your sister will save you.'
She resolved her mind and looked around the room for any tools that might aid in her escape. As she observed her surroundings, a door suddenly flew open.
A tall man dressed in a black coat walked in. The coat instantly stood out as a special garb with a sleek leather finish and shoulder pads dyed in red. The coat was lined with gold along its seams and its collar was pinned by three buttons shaped like stars. What caught Inara's attention the most, however, was the collection of numerous medals attached on the left side of the coat near the man's chest. The man himself did not look to be ordinary either. He was at least 6 foot tall with an imposing posture. His skin was pale as the sclera of his eyes, which juxtaposed from his long jet black hair that rested atop his shoulders.
The man in the coat approached Inara's hospital bed, standing impossibly straight with a calm demeanor. A disturbing aura surrounded him, and the air around the two of them became cold. As the man opened his mouth to speak, his breath fogged and a chilly mist of air seeped out.
"Hello miss. I'm glad to see that you're alive and doing well."
His voice was deep and dominating, exuding a sense of power with each spoken word.
She stared at him in silence, which prompted him to speak once again.
"Oh, my apologies miss. You won't be able to respond with this tube constricting your throat."
The man grabbed the tube and ripped it off abruptly, causing Inara to wheeze as the air filled her lungs. She coughed violently and glared at the man, piercing into his eyes.
The man glared back, and the air around them became even colder.
Inara, shivering from the sudden drop in temperature, spoke with quivering lips.
"W-who are you? Why am I here? You're not going to kill me are you?"
The man let out a disgruntled sigh and rested his hand on the railing of her bed.
"I am commander Itamar of the Sionan army's first division unit. You are currently in Sion's Chaim Hospital. There's no need to be so wary miss. This hospital is reserved for the elites of Sion, and the doctors here are the cream of the crop. I can promise you that they are treating you to the best of their abilities."
Inara couldn't help but feel suspicious of the man and his claims. She retorted,
"Why would a Fajri like me be placed in an elite Sionan hospital, especially after I was attacked by guards? Why didn't they throw me in a cell to die from my injuries?"
The man looked slightly perplexed by her response and leaned into the bed, getting a closer look at her face and its sickly complexion.
"Do you perhaps not remember what happened after you were injured?"
Trying her best to hide her irritation, she replied with a shaky voice.
"How would I remember? The last thing I remember is being shot and kicked in the head! All I wanted to do was find my brother. How could they be so…"
She interrupted herself with a silent sigh. She composed herself, reminding herself of who she was talking to. A realization that she could be killed by this man at any moment ran through her mind.
She trembled and spoke softly in a shaky voice.
"I apologize for my sudden outburst sir. I was just in shock from the whole situation. I did not mean to disrespect you or the guards of Sion in the slightest. But truthfully, I have no recollection of the incident after I became unconscious."
The man sighed once again and his face turned expressionless as he responded in an indifferent tone.
"You killed 15 guards on the 17th of June at approximately 11:15 PM. We have kept you in confinement in Chaim hospital for the last three days."
Inara's jaw dropped. She stared at the man in utter confusion and she could feel her mind turning hazy once again. Without wasting another second, she exclaimed out.
"What?!! How.. how could a short little girl like me kill 15 guards? I must have been framed! I promise you, I have no weapons or instruments capable of such a thing! Nor do I have any way of obtaining such weapons! I'm just a normal girl from Qasha, studying to become a doctor. I swear on my life!"
The man responded calmly.
"All guards on the scene were killed, and the townsfolk of Varamuj claimed to be unaware of the incident. The only clues we could obtain were a few reports from the townsfolk who saw bright yellow flashes of light, bright enough to shine through their curtains. Suspiciously, your body was enveloped by a faint, yellow glow when we found you."
"W-what… how?"
"We're also unsure of how you managed to kill 15 guards who were trained under Sion shamanism for many years. We suspect that you used powerful rituals, though we are also unsure of the nature of the rituals you used."
"How could I have possibly use any rituals? I dont have the proper soul energy nor the capacity needed to perform them! Fajris aren't even allowed to learn the basics of shamanism anyways! How would I ever gain control of my soul energy?"
The man thought in silence for a moment and replied.
"Yes, initially we believed that you had used an instrument of some sort. You might be unaware, but instruments can range in all sizes as long as it's powered by a spirit gemstone. The strength of these instruments can depend on the quality of the gemstone, its size, and the spirit that was exorcised and absorbed into the gemstone. My superiors were sure that you had stolen a powerful instrument from us, but we were unable to find any instruments nor any gemstones in your possession."
The man looked slightly frustrated as he continued speaking.
"My soldiers and I were ordered to search day and night around the premises of the incident and could not find any such items in the last 3 days. After some consideration, we believed that it would have been impossible for you to have hidden any instrument that was powerful enough to kill 15 guards. The gemstone infused into the instrument would have to be immensely large or high enough quality to make up for a smaller size. There was no reasonable possibility that a Fajri would be in possession of such a high quality gemstone, and there was no way to hide a large one. It was such an unreasonable suspicion that we chose to believe that you were capable of shamanic powers instead."
Inara was stumped and in complete shock. She was never a violent person. She didn't believe that she even had the capacity to kill one person, let alone 15. She had no prior experiences with shamanism as well. She only had a general knowledge of what shamanism was, which everybody else in the living world probably had. She knew for a fact that she had no instruments and no way of obtaining such instruments. The only thing in her possession that resembled a spirit gemstone was her necklace.
"Wait, my necklace! I don't feel it on my neck! I didn't see it anywhere in the room either! Did.. did the Sionan military confiscate my necklace? Or maybe it was lost somewhere near the incident. I'm sure somebody must have found it. It has a charm that looks like a shiny gem, and it's attached to a red string. Please, give it back if you have it! It's a family heirloom. I-I was supposed to give it to my brother… And my brother! I need to see him! I understand that you believe I killed 15 guards somehow in someway, but I can promise you I'm innocent! I swear on it with my life. Please let me out. I need to get out and visit my brother. He must be being held in a Sionan jail somewhere, but I'm sure he's innocent too! Just pl—"
The man interrupted her pleas as he blurted out curiously.
"A shiny gem? Miss, you said a shiny gem was attached to a red string?"
"Y-yes? I mean, yes! Did you guys find my neck lace? Oh, thank the gods! And my brother! Do you know anything about his whereabouts? His name is Malak Fadi. He's only 10, and I'm his only family left. Please, he needs me!"
The man furrowed his brows and raised his hands to rub his forehead.
"Miss, please relax. Your brother is situated in the same hospital as you. As a matter of fact, he should be in the next door over. I promise you that you will be able to see him. So please, just calm down and answer all of my questions calmly. I do not wish to force the answers out of you."
Inara quickly sat up and exhaled a large sigh of relief. She stared at the man with a strong sense of determination burning in her eyes.
"Yes sir! I will answer all your questions to the best of my ability!"
The man sighed, shaking his head with his hand still on his forehead.
"Your necklace. You said it had a gem attached to it. How large was the gem?"
Inara responded immediately, mirroring the speech patterns of some dialogue she had read in books about the military.
"Around the size of a school mandated eraser sir!"
The man shook his head once more and calmly replied.
"Understood… next question. How long have you had this necklace for?"
"I've had this necklace for 9 years sir! But it's been passed down from my family throughout the generations. I do not know how long it has existed for sir!"
"Understood. Have you ever felt a strange energy emanating from the gem of the necklace?"
"No sir! Wait… Uhh, well maybe yes? I felt some type of mystical energy from it, but I always believed it was due to its ancestral importance to my family and me sir!
The man's eyes widened. He stopped to pull out a small notebook and pen from his suit pocket and started jotting notes into its pages.
"Uhh, sir? I apologize if this may come off as rude, and I do not mean to be speaking back to a respected authority such as yourself, but why is my necklace of such importance?"
The man looked up from his notebook and stated.
"Well miss, when we arrived at the scene, there were fragments of a gem that we believed to be a spirit gem stone. But as we inspected it closer, it slowly faded away into thin air. At first, we suspected it to be the afterffects from a ritual cast by some sort of instrument. Then, we believed it to be a ritual ability that you possessed. But now I'm starting to believe something else entirely. This conversation has been more fruitful than I had expected. I'll have to report this to the higher ups."
The man stopped to think once more and asked another question.
"And just to confirm miss, you stated that you have never participated in any shamanism or shamanic education secretly?"
"Yes sir! I have never once participated in any shamanic activity, educational or practical!"
A satisfied look appeared upon the man's face. Inara could see a small, reserved smile creep up from his mouth as he said.
"That is very interesting… interesting indeed. Oh, and get up miss, I will allow you to see your brother now."
The handcuffs attached to Inara's wrist froze into ice and suddenly shattered. She looked down in shock and looked back up as she saw the man turn his back.
She shuddered and thought to herself.
'What a scary guy… I should keep myself at least a mile away from him as soon as Malak and I are free.'