American Devil

Chapter 16: Recovery

A rhythmic beeping breaks Kyro's unconsciousness. The sound is slowly pulling him out of sleep. Gradually, he becomes more and more aware of his body, of the dull pang that echoes through his body with every beep. It's familiar, but he cannot, for the life of him, place it. His brain isn't working like normal; it feels numb. It is like it is submerged in a cloud. He struggles to fully wake up, feeling like it's the biggest effort to pull himself back into full consciousness.

His eyelids are heavy, like lead, practically glued together. Now that he thinks about it, it's not just his eyelids that are refusing to cooperate, nor is his brain the only one clouded and dimmed. His entire body feels numb, sort of detached. Without much success, it feels like he is floating just outside of his body and trying to get it to listen to what he says and wants to do. It takes him a good minute to finally flutter his eyes open.

The first thing his gaze falls on is a white ceiling above him. The fluorescent light is luckily off, so it doesn't blind him. Looking up makes Kyro realize that he is lying down on something. He shifts a bit, and even that bit drains him, but now he can at least accurately assume he's lying in a bed from the softness of it.

The beeping that woke him up now draws his attention again, coming somewhere from his right. It takes too much of his energy to force his head to turn around and find the source of it, but he is surprised when he finds it. It's a heart monitor machine, one that he can see is connected to himself. That's why the sound was so familiar.

Everything about the way his body is feeling makes more sense now. It makes sense that he is in a hospital with the way his body throbs at each intake of breath. But it still freaks him out, because he doesn't remember how or why he ended up here. He doesn't remember what happened to him. The beeping of the heart monitor picks up in tune with the beating of his heart.

He slowly turns around to look at himself. There's a sheet that covers the lower half of his body, but his upper body is uncovered. He is well uncovered by the sheet, but his entire torso is covered in gauze. He screams at the sight, but it only makes everything worse, bringing his awareness to how his throat is hoarse and how it's painful to swallow.

His arms try to lift him, dual waves of pain surging up from the palms of his hands and up to his shaking arms. He ignores the pain, somehow, and succeeds in raising himself into a sitting position on the hospital bed. His hospital bed He is scared to uncover his legs, but he needs to know the true extent of the damage. His fears are confirmed as he lifts the sheet up and sees that his legs are, much like the upper part of his body, all wrapped in gauze. He's basically a living mummy. He'd suspect he was dead and in the process of being mummified if it weren't for the constant pain that sparks up every time he tries to move or the mechanical beeping of his own heart.

There's a lump stuck in his throat as his panic rises. He doesn't know where he is, doesn't know how he got here, doesn't know how he got hurt. His entire memory is a blur, the panic making everything even worse.

He needs to get out, needs to go outside, get some fresh air. It takes him far too long to move his legs to the floor, but he succeeds in the end. However, once he tries to get up, they buckle under his weight and he crashes to the floor. This disconnects some of the machines, which sets off alarms blaring throughout the room.

Even without the alarm, the hospital staff would have been warned that he had fallen off the bed, because the moment he lands on the floor, it's like every nerve in his body is set on fire. The pain clouds over every thought as he screams along with the loud wailing of the alarm, both sounds only increasing his hysteria. His entire body is hurt, and he doesn't know how he got into this situation. He can't move on his own, and it scares the life out of him. He wants Vanessa, no, he needs her by his side. Where is she?