The nurse walked me through the brightly lit hallway to a non-descript door. Four beds surrounded in curtains were inside the room. She walked over to one of them, but her hand paused as she grasped the curtain. Turning towards me, she said, “Mr. Sun... your father’s condition isn’t good.”

My head nodded, my eyes unfocused. “How long does he have?” I croaked out, trying to prevent my eye from twitching.

She sighed and finally opened the curtain. “To be honest, it depends.”

The man in front of me was covered in bandages. Of the skin I could still see, almost all of it was purple and green. My gaze lingered over his face; even when sleeping he looked tense. Then, I noticed his legs. Or rather, the lack thereof.

“He’s stabilized for now, but he’s very reliant on life support. His internal organs were severely damaged, and we’ve had to amputate both legs. Emergency surgery has taken care of all the immediate concerns, but it’s likely his liver will fail in the future.”

I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t stop asking myself, how could this happen?

“He’ll need additional surgeries in the future to normalize the organs in the intestinal region, as well as a liver transplant. For the foreseeable future, he’ll have to stay in the hospital for monitoring and regular treatment. If he’s treated properly, he has a good chance of survival. You’re his closest living relative?”

I nodded.

“We’ll need your contact information,” she handed me a tablet. “You’ll need to provide authorization for any major procedures. We’d also like you to sign a form allowing us to perform emergency operations if his life is in immediate danger and you can’t be reached.”

I kept nodding while I transferred my information to her tablet.

“Ah, and…”

She paused for a second until I glanced up at her. Dark circles laid under her eyes, her brown hair hastily tied up. “There’s also the matter of insurance.”

Shit. So that’s what she meant by “it depends.”

I signed the digital forms on the tablet. “Um… well, we aren’t really insured.”

A sigh. “I understand it’s unusual for rural people to have proper insurance. Well, we do have payment plans and loans we offer, as well as connections with other financial institutions if your loans exceed our limits.”

I gritted my teeth.

“Unfortunately, we do have to receive insurance information or at least a portion of a payment before we can continue with treatment.”

Fuck. I could barely breathe. She gazed down at me with dead, uncaring eyes. Overworked, underpaid. With the massacre of our town, she must’ve seen dozens of cases identical to ours before this. Her hand grabbed the tablet from my hands and she pressed some buttons. A notification appeared in front of me.

Patient: Geon Sun

UID: 801-12-93445

Guardian: Kian Sun

UID: 827-94-82145

Address:

...

“A notification should’ve appeared. Does everything look correct?”

I briefly glanced over the information and nodded.

“I’ll send the bill details now. You’ll have the option to set up a payment plan there. We’ll need confirmation by tomorrow at the latest in order to continue with his treatment.” She gestured to a chair by the hospital bed. “I have to go tend to other patients now, so I’ll leave you alone. He shouldn’t wake up due to the anesthesia, so please get a nurse if he does.”

I plopped down in the chair after she closed the door, grasping my father’s hand. My face felt hot. There was no reason we wouldn’t be able to cover basic medical costs with the income from the farm, so we’d never needed insurance. It was actually more expensive. Most of the other townsfolk were the same way.

We were screwed. What to do in this situation? Normally I’d go over to Harvey’s house to chat when I was having problems, but he was dealing with his own shit now. I pulled up my contacts screen and found Mira’s name. Stepping out into the hallway, I pressed the icon to call her. Mira was usually really busy with work, but she’d always given good advice.

She didn’t pick up. It’s okay, she was probably working, and she probably hadn’t heard about the situation yet. I tried to ignore my hands shaking.

I scrolled to Ronin’s name. Ronin, Mira, Harvey and I were all childhood friends. While Harvey and I stayed in town with our families, Ronin and Mira left for urban life as soon as they could. Mira traveled all over the country as a fashion designer, while Ronin moved to Silicon City and ended up working as a player. We still talked pretty often.

“Hey, what’s up? It’s late.” I heard Ronin’s voice in my head as I stepped into the hallway to talk.

“Hey, uh…” I started as my voice began to break. “Um, I’m at the hospital right now. It-- it’s my dad.”

“Oh fuck, is he okay? What happened?” he blurted out.

A notification appeared; Ronin wanted to video call. I declined the request. “Sorry, I don’t wanna video call right now…” I paused. “Dad’s…. well, he’s alive at least.” I sat on the floor with my back against the wall of the long, empty hallway.

“...What happened?”

“Ronin… I don’t-- I don’t know w-what to do…” I tried to muffle the choked sobs that forced their way through. “There was an event here, uh, some kinda huge monsters trampled the whole town… I didn’t… I don’t know what to do. I-- Dad’s legs, he-- his legs are gone. The hospital--”

“An event? What? Kian, slow down, I can’t understand you.”

“Sorry, sorry… I can’t--” I gasped for air as I tried to calm myself down a bit. Shit. Everything was crashing down at once. How was I going to pay for the bills? The farm was destroyed, how was I gonna make money? Why the fuck did this happen?

“Kian. Accept the damn call. What’s going on?”

… I lifted my shaking hand and reluctantly pressed ‘okay’ on the new video call request.

“Oh, shit. Uh, you’re crying?”

I nodded. “They had to amp-- amputate both his legs… H-his organs are... all fucked up t-too...” I sobbed. I felt pathetic.

I glanced up at the moving image of Ronin’s face. He looked like he was in his room, I probably woke him up. He combed his hand through his curly brown hair as he stared back at me, his eyes wide open in shock.

“I’m so sorry… are you okay?”

I nodded again and wiped my eyes and nose with my sleeve. “I’m fine, I-I think. Uh, well, I don’t know?”

“You don’t know?”

“W-well, um, my ability was revealed, I guess.”

“Your ability? How?”

“Well… I died.”

“You what?!” yelled Ronin. “Sorry, did you just say that you died??”

I nodded as I pulled up my ability window and shared it with him.

A moment passed.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah.” I sniffled as I wiped my nose again. I had finally stopped crying, at least for now.

“What’re you gonna do now?”

“I don’t know… I need to set up a payment plan with the hospital by tomorrow. We have enough savings that I should be okay for a bit, but the farm and the house were destroyed and I-- I don’t even know what happened to Daniel, Jared and Kyle.”

Ronin sighed. “Shit, man. Uh, how would you feel about coming here and staying with me? At least for a bit. It’ll be easier to find work in the city and I can support you, at least for a while.”

I paused for a moment. I’d normally like to refuse and figure things out myself, but I couldn’t think of another way out right now.

“Are you sure? I don’t wanna be a burden…”

“I’m sure. Besides, you know I suck at cooking, I need you here.”

I chuckled a bit. Ronin was known for being disastrous in the kitchen during our school days. … It made me feel a bit better to laugh.

“Okay, but only until I find a place to stay. I don’t want to intrude on you and all your important player nonsense.”

“Right, right. When do you wanna come up?”

“Uh, I think I’ll stay here tonight and come up in the morning. I need to go back to the house and see what’s left.”

“Okay. Well, just let me know if you need anything. I’ll meet you at the station here, just let me know when you get on the train, okay?”

“Okay.” I smiled weakly. “... Thanks Ronin. Really.”

“No problem. Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

The call ended. I took a few more breaths before standing up and walking back in the hospital room. It looked like the other beds were occupied by other patients from the town, most in the same condition as my father. Broken and bruised.

I sat in the chair next to his bed and held his hand. Hands that used to be so strong and rough felt so delicate now. Memories of the day whirred around in my head, barely settling down enough for me to fall asleep, my head lying on the hospital bed.