The Last Normal

The waiting room was white. Sterile. It smelled like chemicals trying to hide the scent of death.

Lily sat in a chair that had become almost familiar over the past week. The nurses had stopped looking at her with pity around day three. Now they just nodded when she arrived each morning, already knowing the routine.

Dr. Sato had explained it clearly: Riku needed to be monitored, stabilized, adjusted to whatever the treatment had done. The protocols were strict but necessary.

Seven days watching him through glass.

Seven days of machines beeping.

Seven days wondering if he'd wake up the same… or something else.

On the morning of the eighth day, Dr. Sato found her in the waiting room.
"You can see him now," she said. "He's stable. The sterilization is complete. He's regaining consciousness."

Lily stood so quickly she almost knocked over her chair.

The ICU room was smaller than she expected. Or maybe it just felt smaller because Riku was in it.

He lay on the bed, still pale, still fragile-looking, but breathing on his own now. The machines had been reduced. The tubes were gone from his mouth. His chest rose and fell with natural rhythm.

Lily pulled a chair close and sat. She didn't touch him yet. Just watched.

His eyes flickered. Once. Twice. Then slower, more deliberate.

They opened.

For a moment, he didn't focus.

Just stared at the ceiling like it mattered.

Then his eyes moved. Searching. Finding her.

Recognition lagged. Then—his pupils widened.

"Mom?" His voice was rough, barely a whisper.

Lily broke.

The tears came all at once.

Not gentle—violent.The kind built from days of fear and no sleep.

Riku tried to sit up. Couldn't quite manage it.

"Hey, hey," he said, his voice still weak but getting stronger. "I'm okay. I'm here."

"You absolute idiot. Do you have any idea what you did? Do you understand what could have happened?"

Riku actually laughed. A real laugh, hoarse and painful-sounding but genuine.
"I don't really get it," he said."But… I'm alive, right?"

Lily wanted to scream. Instead, she wiped her eyes and glared at him.

"No, Riku. Everything did not 'work out.' You nearly died. I nearly lost you. I spent two days sitting outside that window thinking I was going to watch my son disappear."

His expression sobered slightly.

"I know. I'm sorry."

She waited for the sarcasm. For the dismissal. For him to make a joke.

Instead, he just squeezed her hand.

Lily felt her anger dissolve into something softer. She reached out and touched his face—checking if he was real, if this was actually happening, if her son was actually alive and awake and looking at her.

"Don't ever do that again," she whispered.

"I won't," he said.

"Promise me. Promise me you'll be safe. That you won't die on me. That you won't do anything stupid like that again."

Riku looked at her for a long moment.

"I promise I won't die," he said finally.

"That's not the whole promise," Lily said firmly.

Riku laughed again, softer this time, and his eyes were already getting heavy.

"Fine," he mumbled, already drifting. "I promise I won't..."

But he was asleep before he finished the sentence.

Lily sat there, holding his hand, watching him breathe, finally allowing herself to believe that he was going to be okay.

One week later, Riku was discharged.

The doctors had run every test they could think of. Everything came back normal. His vitals were stable. His blood work was clean. The venom was completely neutralized. Whatever the experimental treatment had done, it had worked.

They sent him home with instructions to rest, to take it easy, to come back for follow-up appointments.

Lily took him home and watched him sleep for most of the first day. He was exhausted in a way that seemed to go deeper than just physical tiredness. Like his body was still processing something, still adjusting to whatever had changed.

By evening, she left him sleeping upstairs and went to the living room.

The television was still on from that morning—she'd left it running out of habit. The news was cycling through the usual reports: stock markets, political drama, another Zone update.

Lily sat on the couch and let herself breathe for the first time in what felt like forever.

On the screen, a new report was starting.

"...the Northern District Zone has been successfully neutralized," the anchor was saying. "The area is now cleared for civilian return, though reconstruction efforts are still underway."

The camera cut to footage outside the Zone perimeter. Military vehicles. Cleanup crews in hazmat suits. And then—a flash of movement.

Figures in dark uniforms—sleek, precise, silent. Numbers glowed faintly on their chests.

SACH.

The Neutralization Units.

The media was trying to interview them, pushing microphones forward, shouting questions. But the figures simply moved past, loading into unmarked vehicles that seemed to swallow light.

Within seconds, they were gone.

Lily watched the empty space where they'd been.

She'd encountered a few of them before, during her work at the lab. Never up close. Never long enough to really understand what she was looking at. Just the sense of something powerful and purposeful moving through the world in ways most people couldn't comprehend.

I wonder what they're like, she thought. What kind of people step into those Zones and come back out alive? Most people don't survive. Most people die.

She thought about Riku. About how close he'd come.

They must see death constantly. Must lose people. And yet they keep going in. Keep trying. I couldn't do that. I can barely keep myself and Riku alive as it is.

The broadcast moved on to weather. Lily turned it off and sat in the quiet of her living room, grateful that her son was upstairs, alive and sleeping, and that she didn't have to be brave enough to do what those masked figures did every single day.

Upstairs, Riku slept deeply.

His dreams were strange—fragmented images that didn't quite make sense. Burning. Something moving through his body. Colors that didn't exist. Sensations between pain and everything else.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Riku jolted awake, his heart racing for no reason he could identify. For a moment, he didn't know where he was. The ceiling was wrong. The light was wrong. Everything felt slightly off in a way he couldn't articulate.

Then it settled. He was home. In his room. Safe.

He silenced the alarm and lay there for a moment, trying to shake the feeling that something fundamental had changed while he was asleep.

He got up and went downstairs.

Lily was already in the kitchen, making breakfast. She looked better than she had in weeks—less hollow, more present. She glanced up as Riku entered.

"Morning," she said. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Riku said, dropping into his usual seat. "Tired for some reason."

"You're recovering," Lily said, sliding a plate in front of him. Eggs again. Toast. Fruit that looked fresher than before. "Your body's been through a lot. Rest is important."

Riku ate mechanically, his mind not quite engaged yet. Lily moved around the kitchen, getting ready for work. She'd taken enough time off. The lab had been understanding but patience was running out. She wore her work clothes—practical, neat, the uniform of someone who had places to be.

"I have to go in today," she said. "I've missed too much work. Will you be okay here?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Riku said.

"Don't do anything strenuous. And if you need anything, call me."

"Yeah, yeah."

She grabbed her bag and headed toward the door, then paused.

"I mean it, Riku. Rest. That's an order."

"You got it, boss," he said, already not paying attention.

She disappeared into the back of the house to finish getting ready—fixing her hair, grabbing her keys, the usual morning routine. Riku could hear her moving around, the sounds of someone preparing to leave.

He finished eating and was about to head back upstairs when there was a knock on the door.

He groaned.

"Go away," he called out, not moving from the kitchen table. "We don't want whatever you're selling."

The knock came again. More insistent.

"Seriously," Riku muttered, standing up slowly. "Just leave it on the porch."

But the knocking continued.

He shuffled toward the door, already composing his most dismissive expression. But before he could reach it—

"Riku!" Lily's voice called from somewhere deeper in the house, from her bedroom. "I know you hear that! Don't you dare ignore it and walk away!"

Riku stopped mid-stride.

"I'm going," he called back, irritated that she'd caught him trying to avoid it.

"You better be!" she yelled.

He dragged himself the rest of the way to the front door. He reached out, grabbed the doorknob, and pulled.

CRACK—

The entire door came off in his hand.

Riku froze.

Door in hand.

He blinked once.

Then again.

"…huh?" he said.

At the exact same moment, the delivery man said the exact same thing.

They stared at each other. Riku holding a door. The delivery man holding a package and something close to horror in his expression.

"Uh," Riku said. "You don't happen to be delivering a new door, do you?"

The delivery man stared at him.

The package slipped from his hands.

He turned.

And walked away—fast.

Riku stood in the doorway, still holding the door, staring at his own hand.

He looked at the door. At his hand. At the space where the hinges used to be.

He flexed his fingers slowly.

They felt normal. Just fingers. Nothing different.

But the door hung there, light as air. Like it weighed nothing.

For a second—just a second—something shifted under his skin.

Then it was gone.

"Riku!" Lily's voice came from upstairs. "What happened? What was that noise?"

Riku stared at his hand.

And for the first time since waking up, something cold crept down his spine.

That's definitely not normal.

END OF CHAPTER 6