Peculiar room

Sterix found himself staring at an unfamiliar, dark brown wooden ceiling, in a room that smelled heavily of medicine, blood, and cold iron.

He wore a completely blank expression, though inside, confusion whirled over what this place was and how he had even arrived.

On the bed beside him, a young man lay motionless, staring up at the exact same ceiling. The young man was dressed like an adventurer—a peculiar one—and was missing his left arm.

“A hospital?”

Sterix finally rose, sitting upright as he questioned the strange environment, the deep confusion now bleeding onto his features.

Sterix's voice made the young man pivot his head in his direction, a surprised expression quickly taking over the youth's previously calm face.

Sterix let his eyes wander across the peculiar environment, studying its structure to figure out what this place truly was instead of simply sticking to his initial assumption that it was a hospital.

“Wow, you're finally awake!” The young man hurriedly sat up.

His sudden movement made Sterix look over, surprise evident in his posture as if he were only now truly figuring out that there was someone else sharing the room.

“I thought you'd never wake up!”

The young man was loud—annoyingly loud, so much so that he twisted Sterix's confusion into a complicated grimace. It made him wonder if the kid was just dense or completely incapable of reading the room. Yet, something about the kid's words sparked a grim curiosity, and he couldn't help but ask.

“...What do you mean, ‘you thought I'd never wake up’?”

“...Oh?”

The young man smiled, a wide grin that exposed a row of teeth—along with a noticeable gap near the back corner where a tooth was completely broken or missing.

“Well, you've been asleep for like, um, two months now,” the young man explained. “The guy in charge here said something about you being in a catato—something state. I don't quite recall, but I think it was a week ago.”

“...Two months?” Sterix muttered, the words tasting foreign on his tongue.

The young man nodded. Sterix stared at him for a brief moment, wondering if the kid was simply lying to him for all he knew. But what if what he said was actually the truth?

Sterix looked around the room again. This could have possibly been a dream—it was simply too realistic—but deep down, he knew it wasn't. Everything was sharp, clear, and undeniably real; he was just in too much denial to accept it.

‘I need to clear my head and think for a moment. What was the last thing I did before I ended up here?’

Sterix tried to remember, but his mind was just too tangled and confused by his current surroundings to piece anything together.

“What's wrong?”

“...Nothing. My memory is just a little vague…” Sterix pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed tightly as he tried to concentrate, but the effort yielded nothing.

“Maybe this will help.” The young man reached toward the opposite side of his bed and picked up a plate of sliced apples that had been sitting on a short side table.

The fruit itself looked suspiciously butchered, as if whoever had sliced it was incredibly lazy or simply didn't know how to handle a knife in the first place. One might assume this kind of clumsy knife work came from a man, but no—in this case, it was the unmistakable work of a certain woman.

“Sorry, but I think I'll pass,” Sterix said with a soft smile, trying to appear polite, though a single eyebrow twitched in the process.

“Are you sure?”

“More or less.”

The young man looked at Sterix with a confused expression. What were those words supposed to mean? Maybe he wanted the fruit, maybe he didn't—which one was it?

Sterix quickly followed up, adding, “I don't mind. You can eat all of it.”

With those words, the young man's expression brightened instantly.

“Thank you!”

The young man quickly set the plate down on his lap and began to eat.

‘Huh? Why is he thanking me? Wasn't the food already his?’ Sterix wondered.

“By the way, what is this place? Some kind of hospital?” Sterix asked.

The young man bit off a piece of an apple, chewing and speaking with his mouth full. “Kind of. Though, in a way, it isn't an official hospital… It's for people like us. You can think of it as a break room.”

“So it's not a hospital after all,” Sterix muttered, before the weight of the kid's other words finally caught on to him. “Wait, ‘people like us’? Were you also chosen by the Goddess of Selection?”

The young man tilted his head, glancing up at the ceiling as he finished chewing. A moment later, he replied, “Not exactly… I'm way too weak for that kind of thing. The Goddess selecting someone like me would be laughable.” He paused for a second, his tone dropping slightly before he added, “We're more like the bait team.”

***

The bait team—otherwise known as the second hero team. They were a group of dangerous criminals who, instead of being sentenced to death, were sentenced to act as bait, drawing the enemy's numbers away from the capital and any villages lying outside the city's protective range.

These individuals were branded with magical marks on their tongues—curses designed to detonate their heads if they ever attempted to run away or abandon an order given by anyone holding authority over the brands.
This bait group wasn't exactly a secret to the public; in fact, nearly everyone knew of their existence.

Nonetheless, how had Sterix found himself tangled up with them? He was a hero, after all—one chosen by the Goddess herself.

“You're joking, right?” Sterix asked, desperately trying to confirm that he was simply hearing things.

“No,” the young man replied. “But you're welcome to think of it that way if it makes you feel better.”

Sterix stayed silent for a long moment, carefully arranging his thoughts and trying to figure out exactly what had happened.

The silence stretched between the two beds, punctuated only by the crisp, rhythmic crunch of the young man chewing through his plate of butchered apples. Sterix ignored the noise, focusing entirely inward as he forced his mind to dig through the heavy fog blanketing his recent past.