Chained - Jenlisa

My Heart, My Soul

The doctor stepping to Lisa's bedside makes enough noise checking her vitals that I snort awake, in a clumsy fight mode, and almost fall out of my chair. The doctor sincerely apologizes but I'm not entirely upset. For the last four nights I've been having a dream part nightmare that relentlessly haunted me. It makes me not want to even close my eyes to blink.

The child that Lisa saved told her story about what happened in that burned house, and I keep having dreams about the tale mixed with my own subconscious spin on things. I keep seeing Lisa getting shot in the thigh and stomach, keep seeing her protecting those children and getting impaled by a falling chunk of wood. The little girl said Lisa begged her to use her budding magic to help them all live until someone could unearth them. I wouldn't have believed it but... they're all alive. By whatever God made it happen, they're alive.

When the doctor leaves I scrub my face in exasperation, my stomach grumbling for something to eat. Everything in my dreams have been nightmarish up to the end, where Lisa talks directly to me. She tells me I'll be okay and that she cares for me. In my heart I feel it's true and I'm almost at peace, but then she begins to decay and I wake up to find her still unconscious on her hospital bed, hooked up to machines she doesn't understand, tubes in her that she's sure to hate. That first moment of awareness always made me feel like those were her parting words to me. I didn't want to believe it, but it constantly bothered me that my subconscious was getting ready for her to die. There was no way I was going to believe that. She's a fighter. She would never leave me.

"You're going to have to eat," Rosé tells me, sitting down in the empty seat beside me. Her, Jisoo, and Sandara have been taking turns watching over Lisa and me, but mostly me. They want to make sure I sleep and eat. They want to make sure I don't do something stupid.

I rub my eyes and shake my head, pushing away that muck in my mind trying to convince me I was going to be alone again. "I had something earlier."

"... That was yesterday."

"I'm not hungry."

Rosé delicately hands over a sandwich wrapped in plastic. "Lisa would be really upset if you starved yourself."

I sigh and start unwrapping the sandwich slowly. "Every time you use that one, and every time I fall for it."

Rosé chuckles and passes me a bottled juice. "That's why I keep using it. Besides, it's true."

"I know. But it sucks that she's not the one telling me."

"She'll wake up. She will."

Though there's food in my mouth I don't have the strength to chew so I let it sit pressed to my inner cheek. My eyes fall on Lisa and her battered body, all the things stuck in her to keep her alive, fed. Her head is bandaged from having been hit by falling debris and her face still has light burns from whatever she dealt with before I arrived. The bullet wounds to her leg and belly went through and through so they were bandaged up nicely, though she did lose a lot of blood, almost too much. The worst injury she sustained was a pipe skewering her in the shoulder. The doctor said it was touch and go for a bit but he managed to remove it without causing any damage. That's all well and good to hear, but to see... Lisa is a wreck. It hurts my hear to know she took so much damage without any regard for her own well being. For some strange reason I wish I could feel her pain the way she can feel mine.

I exhale heavily through my nose and finally chew my spit soaked mouthful. The doctor said he didn't know how long Lisa would be out but that she definitely would recover. That's thanks to the consent I gave the doctor to inject Lisa with the serum, but only a half dose. I know Lisa said before that she didn't want it but I figured this was a life or death situation and she'd appreciate the help. If she doesn't, well, that's fine. She can be mad at me for the rest of her life as long as she's alive and conscious to do it.