NUMBERS

     Fear and amazement engulfed her rippling cheeks as they peeled down the road on a sports bike with Mirai at the handle. “Your sister owns one of these things?” Shiyui struggled to force from her mouth. “It’s mine,” Mirai clarified.

     Zipping and swerving through the roads, swinging in and out of traffic, they closed in on a hospital illuminated against the backdrop of the dimming night sky.

     Mounds of air nearly choking her, Shiyui still found a means of blabbering about how she’d also learned to ride a motorcycle back when she was with the Digital Engineering Unit. And ecstatically concluded on her own that the two of them were going on a secret mission.

     Making a harsh turn off the road, Mirai came to a full stop just a few meters away from the hospital entrance. “So, we actually are going covert, huh?” Shiyui muttered, catching her footing from a failed leap off the motorbike.

“No... I just never really liked this place for some reason.”

“And stopping here is to accomplish what exactly? You’re going to end up in there anyways.”

“I like to manage my risks.”

     Confused, Shiyui sneered at a confident Mirai before mocking her, “I LiKe tO MaNAgE My RiSKs.” Finding her antics unsuccessful in drawing Mirai’s attention, Shiyui let the questionnaire generator that was her mouth carry on unmoderated. “Is this where Yukue works? Why would your sister leave clues in a hospital of all places? There’s a better chance of finding something hidden in one of those old dusty books she’s got in her house.”

     “I’m not here hoping for clues that she felt safe leaving hanging around,” Mirai stiffly uttered, “I’m here for the ones that she felt that she couldn’t.”

     Shiyui noticed Mirai almost reverently staring at the gate of the hospital, her expression drowned in thought. “That gate tracks who enters and exits,” Mirai stated. Struggling to take a closer look, Shiyui was barely able to make out a sensor attached to the automated gate system guarding the only noticeable entry point to the hospital. “Have you ever been here before?” questioned Shiyui, “No,” Mirai firmly answered.

     “Why would a hospital need personnel tracking?” Shiyui asked, the scent of suspicion crawling up her nose. “It’s not the first time I’ve seen it, to be honest,” Mirai informed, “The police precinct, the Ward Office; they all monitor who walks in and out.”

     Shiyui struggled to understand the oddities of the town she found herself in. With her only managing to come up with more questions than answers.

“If they’re that strict, wouldn’t it be easier to just make this a gated community? I don’t understand the patchwork.”

     As she proposed her thoughts, she couldn’t help but to notice the vacancy on Mirai’s face. It was as if she was seeing something that Shiyui couldn’t. Something within herself.

“I don’t understand it either,” Mirai then stated, the two of them failing to come to a conclusion.

     Finding it useless to seek answers neither of them had, Shiyui focused on the reality of the situation before them. “Well, I doubt we’ll get much out of being here. It’s not like they’ll let us peruse around looking for stuff.”

“I’ll find a way,” Mirai ominously forebode before suddenly taking off towards the entrance. Realizing she’d been left behind, Shiyui shuffled her fingers through her hair in a fit of rage, only to then slump her entire body in defeat as she murmured to herself, “She’s such a bitch!”

     Their shoes screeched against the staunch white floor of the hospital lobby. A wide-open space with marble stone accenting the walls and garnishing the countertop. A handful of people seated in the lobby looked on towards Mirai and Shiyui in a daunting silence, but noticeably absent was the smell of disinfectant that a hospital was expected to be rife with.

     Mirai dragged her eyes across the lobby. The lack of immediacy within the building felt unfitted, and unusual. Yet something about the place felt uncomfortably familiar.

Tap

Tap

     Noticing a man standing at the computer behind the front counter, Shiyui nudged Mirai forward towards him, only for a nurse to intercept them from the side. “What can I help you with?” the nurse asked with a crooked grin. “She umm…” Shiyui fumbled with her words before being interrupted by Mirai. “I’m here to see Doctor Yukue Tsumi,” while glimpsing at Shiyui from the sides of her eyes.

     The nurse tilted her head to the side before asking Mirai for her Patient ID but paused after her eyes met with Mirai’s. Quickly raising the temperature in the room, Mirai began ranting endlessly, her expression sinking with every word that came out of her mouth.

“I was told to meet with her today and if I can’t then I can’t keep track of my promises and things don’t go well when I don’t keep my promises and if that happens someone has to pay, someone has to pay, someone has to pay, and I’m scared because it’s gonna be me, it’s gonna be me, it’s always me-”

     As unpleasant stares from those in the lobby began fixating themselves onto Mirai and murmurs could be heard rumbling around them, the nurse began glancing around with her hands tremblingly reaching towards Mirai in an attempt to calm her down.

     Shiyui was both shocked and impressed with Mirai’s quick thinking and jumped to play her part. “She’s been getting worse,” Shiyui claimed, “I’m not even sure of what it is that she’s talking about, but I know if she doesn’t get help soon, she could grow violent.”

     Two more nurses then approached and tentatively began escorting Mirai towards a separate wing. Shiyui attempted to follow suit, but, to her dismay, was stopped short as one of the nurses asked her to take a seat until called upon. Mirai peeked back over her shoulder at Shiyui as she was then taken behind a set of double doors. Disappointed, Shiyui sulked in her chair like a spoiled child.

     Glaring off she met eye to eye with an old man beside her who bore a round, pleasant looking face and thinning snow-white hair, giving her a drawn-on grin. “Y’know, I could be at home watching TV if I’d ignored that damn phone call,” she whined. The old man, however, just stared on with the same drawn-on grin. Not saying a word in response. Shiyui then returned one of her own before sitting straight up and staring lifelessly at the ceiling above.

     Lost in her own absentmindedness, Shiyui eventually pulled her concentration back together as she floated her eyes across the lobby. Peeking to her left, she realized that the old man that was once beside her was now gone, and feeling a sudden wave of detachment from the environment, she sat up and peered around for one of the nurses. Spotting someone sifting through files at the front desk, Shiyui swiftly approached the employee, only to lose him as he disappeared through a door behind the counter. “Imagine I was dying right now…” Shiyui quipped to herself.

     Looking down the hallway to her right, she found the wing to be uncharacteristically quiet. With a final glance over her shoulders, she stepped through the wavering doors and descended into the lengthy hallway.

     Passing by a door left slightly ajar, Shiyui caught the sound of a faint grunt. As she peeked into the window, she noticed the same old man from earlier lying on the bed hooked to an odd apparatus. Just as she turned to step away, the man began chanting, “Nineteen thousand nine hundred sixty-nine. Sixty-three thousand four hundred ninety-four.”

     Huh? She thought, backtracking and glancing into the room once again. The old man continued reciting random numbers and letters while aimlessly staring out the window beside his bed. Shiyui, taking a closer look around the room noticed something unusual which urged her to slide the door open and step inside. The old man looked over at her with a grin on his face, but this time Shiyui didn’t return one of her own.

     Slowly stepping towards his bedside, Shiyui asked the man what he was being treated for. “Sometimes, I seem to get a bit confused,” the old man whispered, “I feel like my body isn’t quite my own. When that happens, the doctor here helps fix that problem for me.”

     “With this thing?” Shiyui responded as she pointed to the machine at his bedside. It was an unfamiliar computer like device that had various code drawn across its monitor. Shiyui was unfamiliar with medical equipment, but the more she looked at it, the more out of place it appeared.

     “I never really concerned myself with the how,” the man followed. “But then again, what would a confused person like me know anyways…”

     Unable to find the words to reply, Shiyui began taking a closer look at the screen hoping to pick apart what it was processing.

Clatter Clatter

“Mam, you can’t be in here,” a nurse cried out from behind.

     A bit startled, Shiyui apologized, made up an excuse about looking for the restroom, and began to make her way towards the exit. But as she passed through the doorway, she could hear the old man once again begin chanting random numbers and letters. Leaving her with an uncomfortable sensation in her chest.