Chapter 206: Alfred’s condition.
Nimo’s head turned and she looked at Sunshine the moment her friend sat down beside her. For so long, she had been silent and now she felt the urge to burst into tears and reveal all the agony she was keeping locked up tight inside. "What am I going to do Suni?" She wailed.
Sunshine wrapped one of her hands around Nimo’s shoulders. "He will be fine, I am here. If you cannot trust anything, trust me. If he could escape death once, I am certain that he can do so again."
Nimo leaned her head against Sunshine’s shoulders. Her tears continued to flow and her whole body was rocked as she sobbed even more. "He was close. This whole time he was close, and I missed it. We did not make it to the town hall because there was a crack in the road, and we were in a hurry to get back to the base. Why didn’t I..."
"Stop." Sunshine barked sternly.
She scared the people around them, including a seven-year-old child that had been brought in with a fever. He was so frightened that he burst into tears.
His mother carried him away.
Meanwhile Sunshine comforted Nimo with carefully chosen words. "You are not your brother’s keeper. You do not have the ability to see the whole world and control everything that is happening around us. How could you have known that he was in the town hall?
You defied everyone in order to go outside and bring him into the wall. You have done everything you could to find and save him. His life is not in your hands. You do not get to blame yourself for everything that has happened to him and if anybody dares to say so, I have a hammer and a fist that would like to talk to them."
She took her hand back, got a tissue that Ariel had stuffed into her pocket in the morning and then wiped away Nimo’s tears tenderly. "What is the prognosis?"
"The doctor is with him." Nimo answered softly, nodding towards the closed door. "Apparently exhaustion has caused him cardiovascular strain and also something hit his head, and he has a swelling which they suspect is causing some bleeding. Maybe it happened during the fight or before." Her eyes watered again, although she tried blinking her tears away.
Sunshine reached out, laying her hand gently on Nimo’s shoulder and squeezing it. "Alfred is alive, that is all that matters for now. We have croast leaves, some of that special blood from you know who and red fang flowers. I know that he will live."
She remained close to Nimo, holding her as they waited for the doctors to come out of the operation room and give them the final verdict.
Darkness deepened and three hours passed. Finally, the wait was ended as an unconscious Alfred was wheeled out of the operation room and pushed into the ICU.
Doctor Choi faced the family which was huddled together waiting to hear from him. He put his hands on his waist and sighed. "The operation was successful. We managed to stop the bleeding and....."
The rest of the updates fell on deaf ears as they hugged and cried or screamed. Even Doctor Choi got some hugs before escaping and leaving Nurse Kendall to take over.
"There is nothing to fear, we are keeping him in the ICU for two nights but that is mostly for observation. We also want to give his body the opportunity to regain its strength." She was kind enough to reassure them. "We think he collapsed because he used his abilities for far too long as he tried to save all those people. Mrs. Maya, you should be proud of your son, we all are."
Maya Fawk sobbed, hands glued to her face. "He’s alive....my son is alive."
Nimo embraced her mother and urged her to cry her frustrations out, only then would she feel better.
Sunshine watched the family for a while and decided to back away and give them privacy. Stealthily, she walked out of the medic bay and went straight to the decontamination center where the eagles had been placed.
The villagers were still there, trying to get more feathers.
A smile came to form on Sunshine’s lips as she approached them. "Still after the feathers I see."
Nala nodded. "They will make nice warm clothes. Look at their size."
Funnily enough, a toddler tried to lift an eagle’s leg and fell over.
Sunshine did not mean to, but she laughed.
Turning to Nala, she touched the woman on the shoulder and said, "We are grateful to have skilled fighters like yourselves at our base. Thank you for risking your lives by my side."
Nala shook her head from side to side. "Mrs. Quinn, without you and your husband giving us shelter, this cold would kill us. And Morris says that it is going to get worse, my worry is for the people that we left behind..." She paused, a knot tying in her chest. "They will not make it; my stubborn father is among them."
Without any idea of how to comfort her, Sunshine squeezed Nala’s shoulder. "There is a way we can find out if the people there are still alive. We have technology that we can use."
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a walkie-talkie alerting sunshine to the presence of guests outside the gates.
She returned to the command center near the gate and spoke into the intercom, "Jon and group, what are you all seeking here at this time of the night?"
Those inside the vehicles poured out, riffles in hand as their eyes scanned the area for enemies.
"Suni! We heard fighting and we came to help." Jon waved his hand at the camera in a friendly way.
Sunshine had no smile on her face. The nerve of the man to call her by her pet name like they were close shocked her but then it was Jon! The man who tried all ways to get under her husband’s skin. Was he planning on using her to annoy her husband?
"Suni?" She let out a scoff. "I am Mrs. Sunshine Quinn to you all of you."
Jon placed a hand to his chest. "My bad Mrs. Quinn....I thought that we are all friends after finalizing the alliance, so I dropped the formalities."
Jin stepped forward. "What the hell happened here?" He asked, feigning ignorance.
"It was those giant eagles; we all saw them." Sheldon blurted out.
One of the men pinched him and he winced.
Sunshine scoffed. "You saw them and waited until the fight was over to come over and do what?"
"No, no! Mrs. Quinn, we did see them, but we had to mobilize our men and guns. By the time we were ready to join, you all seemed to have the situation handled. We did not want to be distractions." Jon quickly answered, he did not want Sunshine to reconsider the alliance.
"You came too late," she said flatly, she could only thank the heavens that they did not come because then, they would have to save even more people.
In fact, they were idiots for coming out of their bases in the dark during an apocalypse. What the hell were they thinking? Hadn’t any of them ever watched a horror movie?
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