You’re Lucky
The bright sunlight creeping in through the hospital window baked my legs under the linen blanket. For the first time in a while, I felt comfort enveloping me from all directions. Cracking open my eyes, I noticed dust particles floating right above me. Turning my head sideways to the songbirds, a weak smile washed over my lips. Resting by a cluster of potted plants on the window, a curious pair of red chirpers twisted their heads as they looked at me.
With not a single human voice, I felt a much-needed longing for comfort slowly being sated as I listened to their morning song. That peace, however, shattered like glass as the door to my left opened abruptly.
"You're awake?" Said a woman in a doctor's gown, slowly making her way towards me.
Struggling to comprehend her features, I tried squinting my eyes to focus, but her expressions stayed fuzzy. Almost like a graphical glitch in a game, her features were buzzing all over erratically.
"Well great, it's almost time for your guardian to visit so she should be here any second now," placing her notepad on a bedside desk, the doctor leaned closer to my body. "Let me run the daily check-ups without any issues though, you've been a great patient so far so don't ruin it, okay?"
Having no clue what she was on about, I did as she asked for the time being. From checking my gums with a torch to listening to my heartbeats and even scanning for scar tissues amidst my hair, the doctor ran multitudes of hands-on tests until she determined that nothing was wrong with my body anymore.
"That just leaves the long-term effects of that strike, but as the name suggests they'll only show up long-term," even through the fuzzy view of her face, I saw her smile as she gently patted my cheeks. Pulling herself away, she picked up her notepad and turned around to leave. "I-uhm..."
Pausing by the doorframe, she glanced at me from over her shoulders.
"Your aunt, she'll fill you in on what happened, I know it's my job to bring the news, but I can't do it for you kid," leaving with that ominous message, she'd gripped my heart with an cold dead feeling.
The memories of that last encounter with my father flooded right in. I could see them replaying before my eyes as if I were back in that corridor reliving that nightmare. Did she die? Did he manage to kill her? What happened to him after he knocked us out? Did the police catch him yet or not? Such questions ruined any semblance of peace I had before the doctor's visit. I almost wished she had never come in through that door, or anyone for that matter.
I wanted to be left alone in a limbo, the limbo of purgatory; with nothing but the red chirpers to keep me company.
"Oi…" The door to the room opened once again with a familiar voice calling out to me from behind.
Walking into the room, my aunt Akeno darted her disgruntled gaze in my direction. Much like my mother, she was just as horrible of a person. However, not meeting each other often helped us stay on decent terms so far.
'I doubt that will last now, though.' Reaching into her pocket, she slipped a half-burnt cigarette out of her pocket. Moving closer, she took out a rusty lighter from the back of her jeans and lit up the smoke.
Taking a deep hit as she sat down at the edge of the bed, she turned her dreamy eyes towards the entrance. Watching it like a hawk, she just smoked for a while before finally speaking up.
"Your mother's dead," she muttered, her fingers coiling her unkempt violet hair.
"I…" I wanted to reply that I figured that was the case, but couldn't bring myself to utter that sentence.
Placing the light on her lips, she turned her head back in my direction. Seeming much calmer than before, she reached into her pocket and took another crumbled-up cigarette.
"Here, you're gonna need it for what I'm about to say next," lighting the cigarette in her hands, she offered it to me.
Taking a brief pause to process what was happening, I looked her in the eyes to try and figure out what she had in mind. Yet all I saw reflected in her gaze was the cold look of a person who's been dead on the inside for far too long.
"Oi…" With a grimace, she threw the burning light on me.
Although it burned, I didn't let out a shriek. Picking up the cigarette, I only held it in my fingers since she was so adamant about me having it.
"W-what ha-happened then?" I asked, struggling to speak with my tired jaws.
"Your father, Haru, he…" Taking one last hit from her cigarette, she kicked its butt with her finger to throw it away. "He killed himself in your bathroom and by the time the detectives were there, the whole tub was filled with his blood."
Nothing she said felt real. It all sounded like a nightmare that could never happen. I knew the man my father was, but I could've never seen him to be a criminal. Gambling was his outlet for stress, but to think mom pushed him so far to commit murder? And then kill himself as well?
"As for you…" Pulling me out of my thoughts, Akeno continued with more revelations. "The strike to your head forced you into a coma."
Getting up from the bed, she gestured to me with her fingers and lips to start smoking the light.
"It's been a month since it happened, about time you got back on your feet," walking towards the door, she huffed an exhausted sigh. "Your house is being auctioned by the lender banks soon, so you're staying with me for now, cause the police are still investigating this shit case."
"Still?" With my parents now dead, I couldn't reason why they would still be looking into these things.
"Masai's lover, he's on the run apparently, and your mom's body was riddled with drugs when they found her," with that reply, Akeno slammed the door shut behind her.
Left all alone in the once tranquil room, I no longer felt the calm comforting. Instead, the silence itself sounded like a mocking melody, as if saying to me…
'You're lucky…Lucky that it's over.' However, at this point, I knew the light at the end of the tunnel was a train waiting to run me over. 'Why does it always have to be me?!'