"Really now," I looked back to the botanical garden in admiration.
"He always had a fascination with plants and botany. One time I went in there, and when I tell you, I felt like I was inside the rainforests of the Eastern Continent!" The nurse's excitement seemed to simmer as her tone lightened, recalling the pleasant encounter.
She then turned back towards the door leading back into my room, pointing towards a strange hole in the wall.
"If you have any concerns, simply drop a note through the hole, alongside your room number and problem. We'll send a nurse over to attend to you."
Her expression seemed to soften as she turned to Damien, smirking. "Sometimes we get complaints about a lack of dessert."
Hearing her teasing, Damien's cheeks flushed a hot pink as he turned towards the wall, pouting like a baby.
I couldn't help but smile, chuckling silently from the teasing. "I'll make sure he won't bother you anymore."
After a little while, the nurse left the room after explaining a few more rules and details on the experience here. Before she left, she had turned back to me and put a bottle on the counter filled with small purple pills. They were sleeping pills.
"Rudolf tends to yell late at night; I recommend taking a pill about an hour before sleeping," she explained, looking towards the thin wall beside my bed.
After she had left, the smile quickly left my face as I turned back to the botanical garden outside, resting an elbow on the windowsill and peering out the fog-covered window. The details and scenes of my dream rushed back into my mind, scenes I had to emotionally suppress while interacting with the nurse. If I were to give details or show any serious abnormalities, I might be locked away where the other, potentially insane patients were.
Suddenly, I heard Damien's voice sound behind me. "I don't know why she embarrasses me like that, it's mean."
I turned around, gazing at the white-haired boy sitting on the bed. He was looking down at the carpeted floor, his arms crossed in a bratty pout. His lower lip trembled, and his entire body was stiff like a board. At that moment, his white eyes fixated on my form by the window.
"Are you talking to yourself?"
I shook my head, sighing softly as I sat on my own bed, the mattress stiff beneath me as I tried to sink into it, finding some comfort.
"You talked first," I replied, my expression unchanging as I sighed.
"Shut up," Damien snapped, standing up from the bed and approaching the table with the stacked notes. He grabbed the partially chewed pencil and scribbled down something before tossing it down the chute. I listened carefully, awaiting some kind of noise, but I heard nothing except Damien's breathing.
"I told them to move you away," he turned back to me, rolling his eyes.
I crossed my arms over my chest, smirking slightly as I looked the boy up and down. "I don't think that's happening, Damien. The nurses put me in here with you, and you'll have to deal with it."
"I just don't wanna turn into a bug, you meanie. You have that Demon Maggot Disease, right?"
The boys questioned spilled into the now empty room. My eyes widened upon hearing it. It's not that I was shocked to realize I had it, but I didn't want to be feared by anyone.
"J-just look at you. Your skin is all gray and you look like a zombie."
He walked over to the bookshelf in the corner of the room, fishing through the numerous volumes for a few moments before taking out a particularly thick book which looked neglected, obscured by a thin sheet of dust. Damien blew it into the air before opening the book, flipping through the pages before resting on one page in particular.
The white-haired boy turned the book towards me. On the pages of the book was something that made my skin crawl. It was a messily drawn image of a humanoid figure. It had darkened skin, hollow eyes, and a pair of insectoid wings protruding from its back, leaving a trail of blood, bones, and bodily fluids behind it.
Its fingers closely resemble bones, the limbs seeming to twitch in the lantern light. In messy handwriting that was barely legible was scrawled.
THE LAST PERSON TO ENCOUNTER DEMON MAGGOTS OR TREMEBRUS ESSENESE TURNED INTO THIS HORRIFYING MONSTER.
At the bottom of the page was the date, October 24, 1492. That was well over a century ago!
"I'm not gonna stay in the same room as that thing."
I leaned back in my head, staring up at the ceiling as I huffed. "If I turn into that thing, promise me you'll put me out of your misery."
Damien shot me a skeptical look. "I'll have the nurses stick a needle in you."
At that moment, the door opened. A male nurse stepped inside, rolling his eyes as he approached Damien. "For the last time, Damien. Complaints to have your quarter-mate removed are not viable. If you have a real complaint, you submit it."
Damien turned around, crossing his arms as he pouted. "But I don't wanna stay here with bug-boy."
Hearing the nickname, the nurse turned towards me. His eyebrows arched upon seeing my condition, my gray skin, bandages on my head, and sunken eyes making me appear like a zombie.
"He may look scary, but that doesn't mean he'll hurt you."
"That's what the other nurses said," Damien barked, turning back around.
The doctor stepped back, taken aback by the boy's remark. Damien's bottom lip quivered as he pouted again.
"I know what happened to your father was a traumatizing incident, but you can't let the past cling to you forever," The doctor knelt down, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder. In an instant, he slapped it away and walked over to his bed. Damien rolled over on the sheets, planting his head into the pillows. Shortly after a period of silence, his body began to tremble slightly.
Soft cries and whimpers echoed through the room, barely muffled by the thin pillow.
The male doctor sighed as he stood up, looking back at me. "He loves to cry, at this rate we should put him down."
Without saying anything further, the doctor silently turned around and left the room, closing the door behind him. My mouth hung open, shocked by that he had just said. I looked back at Damien, my brows furrowing.
I shot up from the bed, slowly walking over to his bed and sitting on the edge of it. I wanted to put a hand on his shoulder, but I feel like he'd bite it off if I attempted to make physical contact.
"I-I know you're there, bug-boy. Leave me alone!" Damien cried through the pillows, his small hands tightening around the edges, wrinkling the stale-white fabric that matched his uniform.
...
Shinso politely knocked on the door to Catherine's estate, waiting for the woman to allow him entry. Overhead, the clouds continued to let down a light sheet of snow onto the stone sidewalk. The snow accumulated up the stars, only to shield the one closest to the door by the covering extruding above it.
After a few seconds of silence, the door opened. Catherine, clad in a silk dress, smiled softly as she allowed him entry. Carter was splayed in an armchair by the fire, sipping a hot beverage as he looked into the flames, seemingly obvious to the boy's arrival.
She guided Shinso into a separate chair by the fire and served the boy some tea. After everyone in the room was seemingly settled, Shinso cleared his throat and began speaking.
"Can I talk with you about something?"
Catherine exchanged a glance with her fiance before nodding. Carter seemed to gain interest, placing his drink on the edge of the table and shifting in his chair to face the indigo-haired boy.
"Sure, what is it?" Catherine asked, clasping her hands together and resting them under her chin.
Shinso drew a heavy breath as he reached into the pocket of his trousers, extracting the two photos of the fugitives and splaying them out on the table in front of the duo.
"Mind telling me who these individuals are?"
Catherine adjusted her rounded glasses, pushing them up the bridge of her nose. She grabbed both of the photos, examining them closely with narrowed eyes. To gain a closer look, she told Carter to turn on the overhead light.
When the people in the photos came into view, the small wrinkles on the edge of her mouth deepened as she scowled.
"I've never seen them before, Shinso."
"C'mon, be honest to me. If they're you, I won't tell anyone," Shinso leaned in closer to Catherine, looking down at the grainy photos of the man and woman.
"Since when did I wear a monocle?"
Shinso took the photo of the woman, turning it around to show Catherine. "The resemblance between the two of you is almost uncanny. Are you sure you're not lying to me?"
Catherine's brows furrowed as he fingers clasped tighter.
"Unfortantly, monocles are deeply out of style," Carter interjected, smirking as he admired the complexion of the man who bore an awfully similar face to himself.
"Though...these individuals do look a lot like us."
The cluelessness of the duo took Shinso aback. He was certain the people in the photos were Carter and Catherine under some sort of individual identity or something similar. He leaned back in his chair, taking back the two photos as he stuffed them into his pocket.
"I'll tell the Pollinators you're not of any interest."
"Pollinators?" Catherine's eyes widened. "You're working with them?"
Shinso turned back around. "Didn't Carter insist I find employment in this kingdom?"
The black-haired woman shot the orange-haired man a deathly glance. "Correct, but that doesn't mean to join the organization currently on our tails!"
"M-maybe I could tell them not to arrest you," Shinso shrugged his shoulders.
Catherine reached out, her hand clasping around Shinso's collar. "You can either have us finish you off, or you can leave the organization for good."
"Finish me off?..." Shinso's voice lowered to a whisper. Catherine's eyes flickered with a glint of malevolent purple energy.
"We're not official Seekers, we're wanted fugitives. We may not be the people in the photos, but we did steal the potions to give them to you, and we do insist on protecting you."
She leaned in even closer, her breath tickling Shinso's ear. "And if you dare to inform them of our whereabouts, we will hunt you down, alongside your other friends, and make sure nobody threatens us again."
Catherine's usually maternal voice carried a bitterly cold edge to it, deeply uncharacteristic of herself. Carter, who was watching from the sidelines, glared at Shinso with a gaze deeply contrastant of his usual eccentric personality.
"And if you do manage to find the people in that photo, you will tell us where they are."
In the dim light of the fire, Shinso spotted something metallic hanging above the fireplace. It was a pair of blades locked behind a glass covering. The blades were riveted on one side, made to easily cleave into flesh and bone. The handles were made of a polished black wood with purple engravings dug within them.
"...and we won't hesitate to eliminate them."