WORD COUNT: 0.7k // SUMMARY: In which we are introduced to a girl in a hospital bed. // TW: mentions of mass murder
Konoe was smoking a cigarette when he heard a faint clatter behind him.
Hastily, he tossed the still-smoking butt over the windowsill and spun around, expecting to see one of the nurses in the doorway, but realized that the sound had come from the figure that was lying prone on the hospital bed. Her face had been almost completely obscured by gauze, and the rest of her body wasn't much better. Her hand had jerked to the side, pushing one of the trays by her bed over, and Konoe plucked it up from the floor and returned it to his proper place.
The woman on the bed croaked something, and Konoe slipped a straw past her parched lips. She sucked gratefully, the water running down her throat, and as she was returning to her senses, Konoe pulled out his phone and made a call.
"Sir, it's me," he said, switching from English to Japanese. "She's awake."
"Yes. It's not a false alarm. She's drinking from a straw right now, sir."
"Tread carefully. I will let the relevant persons know of this."
The woman turned her face to him. He could see movement, underneath the bandages, in the vicinity of where her eyes should have been. Her voice was rough and unsteady. "They changed my vocal chords."
Konoe shrugged, realized that she couldn't see him, and opened his mouth. "They changed a lot of things, ma'am."
"I'm not sure of the exact names, ma'am, but they made you a lot thinner."
The woman made a small noise of acknowledgement, her fingers twitching against the sheets. Then, thoughtfully: "I can't move."
"Ah, that's because your body is still recovering." Konoe felt a surge of adrenalin shiver up his spine, and the metal crate which had been placed unobtrusively in a corner of the room creaked gently. "They did something to your arms and your legs. Made them longer. That’s all I know.”
“I don’t know,” Konoe answered, as frankly as he dared, trying to keep his voice stable as the hairs on the back of his neck rose. There was the sound of squeaking, and as he turned, he caught the eye of the doctor in the doorway and shook his head. No.
“Who’s that?” the woman asked. Her voice was still as quiet as it had been for the whole conversation, but the menace that had been building underneath was clear as day. Out of the corner of his eye, Konoe saw the lid of the metal crate slide open. “I can’t see, sir. You’ll have to tell me.”
“Just a doctor,” Konoe murmured, his fingers twitching around a phantom cigarette. “Just a doctor, ma’am.”
“Well, then, why don’t you ask him in? I’d like to take a look at my new face.”
“He’s left already, ma’am.”
The woman sighed, projecting an image of gentle exasperation, and Konoe backed away as something darted over the lid of the metal crate and slid over to the woman’s side. It was long, sinuous and thick; Konoe could hear it whir, the ill-used motors beneath its overlapping metal layers flickering into life. The metal was no longer glistening, and had grown cracked, pitted and rusty, but that didn’t matter. The woman passed her hand over the metal, cooing softly, and Konoe stared, scared stiff, as three more serpentine tubes slithered out of the crate.
She’d killed sixty and injured thousands with those machines. When she’d first come to them, they’d had to hose the dried blood off the metal.
“Well,” the woman muttered, “I suppose I’ll just have to do it myself, then.”
“That might not be advisable,” Konoe blurted, and pressed his lips together as four flickering crimson lights whipped around to focus on him.
Konoe caught his breath, his heart throbbing in his ears, and blinked. “You haven’t fully recovered yet,” he explained, improvising on the fly. “The doctors… the doctors haven’t made sure that you’re okay yet. What if… what if your legs can’t support your weight? What if your arms -”
The woman laughed, the sound filtering through the bandages half-covering her mouth, and her four tentacles whirred and hissed, their pincers moving with unexpected gentleness as they lifted her out of her hospital bed.
“Sir, I have all the arms I need right here.”
