Doctor In The House (Dr. STONE Fanfiction)

The Beginning

*Artwork by: @WhosKeera 

It was another busy day for the young doctor. Adorned in her lab coat, the blue-eyed lady entered the laboratory where a few of her colleagues were conducting their own researches. She walked towards her station, exchanging quiet greetings along the way, and took a seat at the end of the right row. Besides a desktop, she had a compound microscope placed on the right, where a stone swallow was lying atop a piece of cloth and small racks of capped test tubes in front of it.

"Time to start work." sighed the doctor. Her gaze then fixated on the bird, and she frowned. 'It's been a few days since we've received this.' she thought. 'But I have yet to determine the reason behind this phenomenon. The details on this bird are too refined and immaculate to say that this is a sculpture. Even if that is the case, why would a sculptor spend so much time sculpting thousands of swallows in the world? It's even more boring to conclude this as severe scleroderma or any other related diseases. Plus, I highly doubt all swallows have this disease. I guess there's only one hypothesis left; and I hope I'm wrong with this. But this world is not as simple as we ought to think.'

As if on cue, a pop-up appeared on her screen. It was a notification that she just received an email from the Tokyo Metropolitan Archaeological Center, followed by another email from Tokyo University. She clicked on them to read the contents and saw that the lab results just came in. Quickly, she downloaded the reports and began reading, but it seemed to be not what she expected as her frown deepened with each passing line. Uneasiness soon etched on her face as a drip of cold sweat rolled down her cheek. With a weak smirk, she muttered, "Would you look at that? Things have become more complicated than we ought to think. Just what on earth is happening?"

However, she wasn't able to get her answers on that day. A bright green light illuminated outside St. Luke's International Hospital, and in an instant, she turned into stone like everyone else. It was as if everything had come to a standstill. But as the years passed, the world began to regress; vast amounts of growing plants shrouding every corner of buildings and roads, modern technology soon ceased, the land that was once dominated by humans was replaced with animals and plants. Everything that humans once owned perished with the flow of time. It was the end of the old civilisation, and now was the time for a new one to arise.

Crack!

The stone layering the young woman's forehead suddenly cracked before it broke off. The cracks connect to her eye area and another piece came off. She let out a soft gasp, both confused and surprised by the light she saw after being in the dark for who knows how long. She started regaining control of her body, letting out a grunt as she used whatever strength she had to break free herself. The rest of the stone cracked more, and the next thing she knew, she was finally free. She sat up and took a deep breath, still trying to adjust herself to what was happening.

"What happened?" was the first thing she said. She was even more surprised when she realised that she wasn't inside the research laboratory prior to what happened; instead, found herself in a forest, particularly in the middle of nowhere. 'Where is this?' she wondered. Her attention soon went to the pieces of stone, and surprise soon etched her face when she picked a piece up to inspect it; ignoring the fact that she was naked. 'Isn't this the same material as the ones layering the swallows? Well, that doesn't matter now. I need to do whatever I can to survive.'

Brushing off the remnants, the young lady stood up and began walking around the forest, looking for any clean source of water. As she walked, she passed by more people still petrified. 'Just like the swallows, no one was spared.' she thought. Not long, she came across a river where she drank some water, just enough to quench her thirst. The next thing on her list was to wound some leaves and vines as temporary clothing. 'And the fact that we're surrounded by nature, it must've been millenniums since that incident. I wonder if there's a way to de-petrify everyone else. But first, I need to eat and find shelter.'

The young lady continued her journey, occasionally picking edible fruits and eating along the way. The path eventually led her to an open space where a small treehouse built on a large tree. Hesitantly, she took a few steps forward and inspected the surroundings. "So there's at least someone who's de-petrified." she muttered.

"Looks like you woke up too, huh?" came a male's voice from behind.

She turned around and came face to face with a young man of slim build and average height. He had prominent light green hair that spiked up with two long locks draping over his face, and sharp red eyes. She also noticed two symmetrical, diagonal lines on his inner eyebrows. The young lady also noticed that he was wearing what seemed to be like animal skin clothing, which had Einstein's mass–energy equivalence formula written across the breast of his shirt. In his arms were few pieces of wood he collected while on his mini-exhibition.

"So, who are you?" he asked with a raised brow.

"Matsumura Rikona." was her reply. "But I think surnames are trivial right now, so you may address me as Rikona."

"I'm Senku." he introduced.

It was his turn to take note of the lady's appearance. Rikona was a fairly tall and well-toned woman, considering the fact that she was about a centimeter shorter than him (without adding his hair to the measurement, that is). She had bright blue eyes, and black chin-length hair with a few locks at the front longer than the rest. There were altogether three stone markings on her face; an inch-long vertical mark on the center of her forehead, and two marks protruding from the corner of her eyes which resembled cat eyes.

"Well, since you just woke up, you can stay with me for the time being." He then pointed to the back with his thumb and added, "In a few days' time, there'll be someone joining us once he's de-petrified. So don't be surprised if you see another person here."

"I see." she responded. "Is he your friend?"

"You could say that." he remarked. "Come on, I'll give you some spare clothes so you won't have to run around in those."

Rikona followed him inside the treehouse once he placed the wood on the ground. Inside, he pulled out some spare cloak and animal skin and handed it to her, along with the necessary sewing utensils. Senku then left the house to do his own tasks while she got to work, measuring before cutting and sewing pieces of the materials. It didn't take long for her to finally create a set of clothing for herself - a sleeveless dress made from animal skin which reached her upper thigh with slits at the sides to allow more movement, a pair of shorts underneath made from the cloak, and primitive boots.

"I'm done." she announced while stepping outside. "Is there anything that you need of my assistance?"

Senku gently placed a small clay pot on the ground and looked up to see her climbing down the wooden ladder. "Of course." he responded. "There are still lots of things we need to do if we want to rebuild civilisation."

Rikona was about to ask what he was doing until she reached near the pot, taking a few sniffs before questioning him. "Is this seawater? Are you going to extract salt from it?"

The boy looked at her with mild surprise. "Yeah." he replied. "I'm surprised you know what's inside here just by sniffing."

"This stale sulphury smell has the dimethyl sulphide produced by bacteria after digesting dead phytoplankton." she explained with a small smile. "It's rather hard to miss, honestly."

Senku couldn't be any more surprised. So this young lady actually knows her stuff? Looks like he has another brain added to the team. "I have a lot of questions to ask you, but we'll save that for later. Right now, we need to conduct the extraction. Let's sieve it before boiling the water."

While the young man rushed into the house to grab a piece of cloth, Rikano brought over an empty clay pot she saw and put it on the small pile of firewood. When Senku returned, he tightly covered the empty clay pot. Rikona lifted up the pot with water and slowly poured it into the one covered by the cloth, removing any sand or debris mixed inside the seawater. On the other hand, Senku was starting the fire for the boiling process. Once the flame was ready, Rikona had already poured all the contents and carefully removed the sieve.

"I'm going to get more wood." called Senku, who was holding a stone hammer. He turned around and grinned at her. "I don't think I need to tell you what to do, right?"

Rikona gave him a closed-eye smile. "Nope." was her answer.