Chapter 2: Hospital Heist


    Wren, Zayu National Hospital


    <hr>


    The first thing I noticed – everything hurt and everything beeped. A hospital, then. My insurance provider was not going to be happy. Not that I had an insurance provider.


    I cracked my eyes open. Why was everything so damn bright? It was almost too bright to make out the people in the room. Tracks, there were always people in the room in scenes like these. If I was all alone, that would’ve been sad. “Am I dead?” I mumbled out, staring at the ceiling.


    “Nope. You’re very much alive,” June’s voice sounded right next to me.


    “Aww. And here I was wondering if I were in heaven,” I said, trying and failing to lift myself into a sitting position.


    “If I’m with you, we’re not in heaven,” June said, her voice much closer now. Not close enough. “If anything, the deepest depths of hell would be my bet.”


    “Sounds about right. Just my Weddit comments would be enough to get me half way down.”


    “Here, let me,” June said as she slipped one arm behind me, allowing me to sit up and see the whole room. I blinked repeatedly, everything finally coming into focus. Asahi’s bed was next to mine but he was still out cold. An IV drip was attached to the back of his hand. He was wearing a blue hospital gown. Hmm, giving dad in midlife crisis. He wore a neck brace- hey, so did I! A rustle from the corner drew my attention. The only other person in the room was Daiki, looking out the window and pretending he didn’t give a shit.


    Why were we here? I frowned, reaching back mentally for my mind palace. The events from last night came rushing back. Asahi and I got caught in an oddity and kept looping the same street over and over. I had Asahi stay back and stay safe but we both ended up being attacked by a creepy dude in all black asking about a graveyard of all things and now we’re… here?


    “What happened last night?” June asked. “I’ve heard bits and pieces, but I want the whole potato from the source.” Something felt off. I’d read enough and more mystery novels, and I was sure you weren’t supposed to be asking questions from the kid who literally just woke up.


    “That’s what I’d like to know,” Daiki said, his gaze still pointedly out the window. I didn’t trust him, for some reason.


    Alright, playing dumb it was.


    “I was in the stratosphere when we left The Fire Squid and… uh yeah. That''s all, nothing, nada,” I put on my best Amnesiac Kid? face.


    “Is that so?” Daiki asked, still looking out the window. Asahi had described his brother as a very melodramatic man, and I was starting to believe him.


    “How drunk would you even get at The Fire Squid? The beer there is practically water,” June said. She was now beside me on the bed, poking at the padding on my neck brace.


    “What can I say? My tolerance is weak.”


    “You can say that again!” a groan sounded from the next bed. Asahi was awake.


    “Oh come on.”


    “Hey, if you wanted a flattering review, I was the wrong person to become friends with,” newly awake or not, Asahi was clearly enjoying this.


    “Asahi, would you mind giving us a rundown of how this happened?” Daiki asked, still staring out the window. Brother, give your brother a break!


    Asahi frowned. Before he could respond, I shot him a look. To his credit, the man rolled with it.


    “Yeah, no. I got wasted at The Fire Squid. I think I tried to fight a vending machine?”


    “Of course you did…” June sighed.


    “Right…” Daiki said, turning to the two of us. “I’ll go get a doctor. You two stay put.”


    “Hey Asahi, let’s siphon off the painkillers in the IV bags. I know a guy,” I said, waving the IV tube attached to my hand. Daiki scoffed and walked out, gesturing for June to follow him. Finally, some peace and quiet and what the-


    “Dude. Last night was freaky,” Asahi piped up. Huh, he remembers too.


    “Freaky is what happened between me and that girl from Professor Yamada’s class.”


    “She turned you down, dude.”


    “That’s what I’m saying! It’s freaky that she turned me down,” I said, waving my arms in the air and making the IV wobble.


    Whatever Asahi was about to say was interrupted by Daiki and June, coming back with the doctor. I stared at her. Hinami, Daiki’s wife.


    “Hey Hina! Do you have any idea when we’ll be able to get outta here?” Asahi was more happy to see his sister-in-law than his brother.


    Hinami looked over at the two of us. “You two knuckleheads aren''t going anywhere until you get your heads checked, quite literally.” She flipped through her clipboard. “Although, you two are going to have to explain how you got here.”


    “That’s what we’d like to know. Asahi and I don’t really remember what happened.”


    Hinami sighed, looked at Daiki and then back at the two of us. “The 911 report says that one of the residents in Wren’s building found the two of you passed out at the foot of the stairway, reeking of alcohol. I’m thinking you two were so drunk that you fell and hurt yourselves in the process.”


    “I do remember fighting a vending machine…” Asahi was totally playing it up, dumbass that he is.


    “Well now that’s just embarrassing,” I said, rubbing the back of my head with just the right amount of sheepishness.


    “What were you two thinking?” June asked, smacking Asahi’s head.


    “Ouch. What the hell June!” Asahi yelped. “I’m the patient here!”This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    “Yeah, a drunk patient.”


    “Speaking of which, Hina, how high were our blood alcohol levels?”


    “Well, the reports I have here indicate that you had a 0.23% and Wren was at 0.28%,” Hinami said, squinting at the clipboard. She was lying. We weren’t found at my apartment building, nor would our blood alcohol levels be that high after a couple watered-down beers.


    I looked over at Asahi, who seemed to be having the same train of thought. Hinami did a few tests on us, gave us a few painkillers, updated our charts, and then practically dragged Daiki and June out with her.


    “So, I’m not the only one here who wants to call cap on Hinami’s story right?” I asked, fully knowing she was lying. Asahi seemed only partially convinced.


    “I don’t know Wren. What if we were just drunk and fell down a flight of stairs?” he asked. “I mean, a never-ending street, a shadowy figure, a vending machine villain and all seem very Tim Murton, right?”


    “Dude all we had was Milton’s Black Iced tea! Un-fucking-sweetened! Just look at your right thigh. Look at that stab wound. Does that look like something you’d get falling down the stairs?”


    “Maybe we fell through a window?”


    “Who do you think you are? Bella Swan? Go touch some grass, dude! What window would we fall through in the middle of the street?


    “...Are we being gaslit?”


    “I think so.”


    “So what do we do?” Asahi opened the drawer in his bedside table. “And where are our phones?”


    “The hospital must’ve taken them.” I paused, double checking my bedside table. Same story. “Yeah, they for sure took them.”


    “I say we wait until nightfall and find our case files, figure out if we really were drunk,” Asahi said. “I know where Hinami’s office is, plus I know how to pick a lock.”


    “Why am I not surprised?” I asked. “Risky. I like it.”


    “What can I say? I’m full of surprises,” a smug expression spread across Asahi’s face.


    – – –


    We spent the rest of the day being model patients. We slept a lot and quietly sat through Hinami’s tests when we were awake. The IVs were unhooked after a few hours along with the neck braces – thank God – and when it started becoming dark outside, we managed to convince everyone that we’d be just fine by ourselves overnight. Daiki was less convinced, but June dragged him out by the collar, telling him to stop being a helicopter parent.


    I owed her one.


    By 1am, the hospital was dead silent. The hallway was dimly lit. The only thing we heard was the whirring of the machines and the occasional sound of footsteps. For the most part, the halls were silent; most of the staff were probably snoozing in a staff room. They deserved the break, and it worked out for us since we were more or less free to walk right up to Hinami’s office.


    Earlier in the day, Asahi had managed to swipe a hair pin right off a young nurse’s head. I had just watched, slack-jawed, the entire time. This hairpin was now being used to open the door to Hinami’s office.


    “So, should I start calling you Sir from now on?”


    “What are you on about?”


    “I saw how you pulled out that premium rizz with the nurse.”


    “Oh please. You’re just as capable of flirting.”


    “Well yeah. I have rizz. You just have that premo shit.”


    “The fu- what?” Asahi asked, as he opened the door.


    Hinami’s office was small, her desk in front of the door, and her filing cabinet right behind her admittedly comfy-looking chair. We moved silently – as silently as two boys feeling run over by a truck possibly could – to it and opened it up. Thank god Hinami didn’t lock it. The files seemed to be arranged by what looked like case names and not by person.


    “Dandelion Seeds? Bottomless Mimosas? Unsanitized Sanitizers? What are these, code names?” Asahi asked as he flipped through the files, eventually stopping at one. “Hanafuda Street Stalker, maybe this is us.”


    “Well, we were attacked by someone who was stalking us on Hanafuda street. The name checks out.”


    I looked over Asahi’s shoulder as he went through the file. There were some images of the street itself, and then the vending machine with its glass smashed in and blood all over the ground.


    “How’s the leg treating ya buddy?” I asked, looking at Asahi, who was not pleased. Before I could say anything, he elbowed my ribs. “Yeah okay, I deserved that one.”


    “Jokes aside. This is shady beyond belief. What’s going on here, Wren?”


    “How would I know?” I asked as I closed the door. What should’ve been a simple smash-and-grab had now become a smash-and-critically-analyse. “This whole thing is shady.”


    “If Hinami’s in on this, Daiki definitely is,” Asahi sat on the chair and picked up a framed picture on her desk. “I should’ve known. A leopard doesn’t change its spots. We can’t leave June off the list either.” He placed the picture back on the table. It was a picture of their family; Asahi, Daiki, June, and Hinami. Asahi looked at me with an expression that was a mix of anger and confusion.


    “Listen, I’m sure they have their reasons,” I said, placing a hand on Asahi’s shoulder. “What else does the file say?”


    Asahi took a second to compose himself and opened the file back up. “Matsumi Honda.”


    “That’s the chick who got attacked recently. It was big news in the neighbourhood.”


    “And here I thought you got your info off Weddit,” Asahi said, flipping through and stopping at a particular page. He had found the info I was looking for. “Matsumi Honda. Attacked by a Class 2, Humanoid Oddity? What on earth is an Oddity?”


    “Does the file tell us anything about where we can find this woman?” I asked, peeking at the pages. “With the injuries she sustained, there’s no way she’s been discharged.”


    “You’re right. She’s here in room 509.” Asahi said, pointing to the room number in Matsumi’s medical report.


    “Let’s go pay her a visit. If she’s really a victim of the same guy, she’ll have info we can use to figure out what happened last night.”


    “Asahi, but there’s also a good chance that Daiki’s gotten to her. This woman will probably give us nothing.”


    “It’s worth a shot anyway.”


    – – –


    It didn’t take us too long to figure out where room 509 was. Asahi and I made sure to move as quietly as we could – for two boys feeling run over by a truck, again. 509’s room lights were on and shone into the hallway. Two voices came from inside the room. At 1am? Goddamn.


    “Yeah, and it seems that the creature that attacked you managed to harm two other civilians. It’s a whole mess,” one voice said. Wait, she sounded familiar…


    “I see. How old were they?”


    “Early 20s. College students attending The Zayu National University. For now we have them believing that they got drunk enough to not remember the night before. But we have to start taking more drastic measures to ens-” the voice was interrupted by the sound of a pen falling…in the corridor. Wait a minute- we were in the corridor. I looked back at Asahi, the file he was holding, and the pen that was now innocently rolling away from us.


    We looked at each other, and then, as one, turned and made a mad dash for our room. We almost made it too, only to be tripped up at the last moment. I tried to get up, but got kicked down by someone, most likely one of the people from Room 509. I looked over to Asahi who was being pinned against the wall by a red umbrella.


    I tried to get up, but the person holding Asahi against the wall snapped at me, “Don’t you dare move a muscle.”


    The dip lights made it hard to make out facial features, but with my limited vision I managed to make out a familiar face. Raechal.


    “Reachal? What- Why… are you doing this?” I asked, slowly getting to my feet. Asahi was struggling to break free, clawing at Raechal’s umbrella. She was a lot stronger than she seemed.


    “I said-” Raechal moved back, releasing Asahi who fell to the ground gasping for breath. “don’t-” she shifted the grip of her umbrella, pointing the handle towards Asahi “move.” She drove the handle into the back of his neck, knocking him out cold.


    “Alright, I yield.” I said, raising my hands in defeat.


    “Why were you two snooping around Room 509?” she asked


    “Matsumi Honda” I said, nodding my head in the direction of the file that now had its contents all over the floor.


    “You two broke into Hinami’s office and got this, didn''t you?” Raechel frowned, realisation dawning. “You two remember. You feigned ignorance.”


    I had to hand it to her, girl was quick. “Bingo!” I said, pointing two finger guns at her. Startled by my sudden movement, she jabbed me thrice, straight in the stomach, making me drowsier with each strike.


    As I faded out of consciousness I heard a dial tone, followed by a voice: “Daiki. You were right. Wren and your brother remember everything.”