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“You can come in now,” the nurse said, much to Mako's relief. He'd been waiting for 2 hours, his a** was sore, and his son was possibly on the verge of death in the next room – he was beginning to deduce that the doctors just wanted to cause him as much stress as possible. It was probably better for business that way, after all.

As he entered the room, he couldn't help but smirk on the inside. White tiles on the floor, white curtains enclosing the bed, and blinding white light pouring down from the ceiling, it was all the image of perfect sterility... but there lay Luca. Even though he was probably the cleanest Mako had ever seen him, he still presented the image of absolute filth. It was as if his body was producing filth, as if he was innately meant to be dirty and battered. If he could've looked any more out of place, they would've been in a Hello Kitty cartoon.

Perhaps what kept him looking as filthy and disgruntled as he normally did was the subtle yet awful contortions of his body that clearly displayed the agony he'd always seemed to hold towards life. His face was stiff and grim, indicating that he was not merely in a normal state of unconsciousness, and although his limbs weren't visible, the contours of the sheets suggested that they were contriving to escape from his body.

“He was found in the woods and brought in by two men who had happened to be out hunting the next county over...” The doctor paused to allow Mako's shock at this information settle, but, quite disturbingly, he didn't seem shocked at all, merely impatient that the doctor wasn't just getting to the bottom of things. “He...was found near a deer carcass, and was covered in the creature's blood, amongst other thi...”

“What's wrong with him, doctor?” He knew the abruptness of the question must've startled the doctor, but he really didn't feel like jumping through any more emotional hoops in the form of a grisly story the details of which he could already guess.

“Well, um...to put it simply, it is a very advanced case of tetanus. He somehow must've been suppressing it for a while...my theory is that it started out as local tetanus, most likely infecting one of his limbs, and gradually spread throughout his body, reaching his central nervous system and becoming generalized tetanus...the most advanced case I've ever seen,” he said, bowing his head.

“Wh...what are his chances?” Judging by the look of him, and how many tubes and wires he was hooked up to...

“That's the odd thing. Normally, I would say he... should have already died. But his immune system is almost inhuman, either that or it's a miracle.”

“He's always been very hardy,” Mako said with a twitch of a smile. “So, then he might...?”

“He could very well make it, at the rate things are going now, but the tetanus is just so far advanced, I'm afraid it's impossible to tell, I'm sorry.”

“Thank you...could I spend a few minutes alone with him?”

“Of course, just ring the nurse when you're done,” he said, indicating a button on the wall before leaving.

Sitting alone in a room with Luca was as awkward as ever, and he didn't know what he was going to accomplish by doing so, but it felt like something he had to do regardless. So, this was what his “son” looked like underneath all of the grime. With a sudden jolt, he realized how many scrapes and scars had been covered up even by a thin layer of dirt – what had he been letting Luca get away with? Enough to put him in a hospital, obviously.

“What the hell have you done? What the hell have I let you do?!” His voice was a mix between anger and despair. “You'll be very happy with yourself when you wake up pumped full of chemicals in this place, won't you? Hah, that'll be a fun situation. Well, you make sure you give that doctor a scare when it happens.” He sighed. “Just don't you scare me again.”

The unnatural beeping of the heart monitor was enough to drive Lucavi mad even in his state of unconsciousness, but it soon came to a stop, the line on the monitor that usually spiked with each pulse of life now lying as flat as the sustained beep that the machine now emitted.

Lucavi watched all of the odd suction cup-like devices that had been attached to his chest drop to the floor as his vision returned to him, blurred though it was. The IV in his arm that had been pumping fluids into him was the next thing to hit the ground. Even as it clattered to the ground, the white tile floor and seemingly impossible sterility of his surroundings made him cringe. Not even his own heartbeat felt natural anymore.

'What am I...Where the hell?' he thought in frustrated fragments, tearing free from his bed completely before a pain shot through his shoulder and down his spine. He buckled, but flew quickly back into his rage as if nothing had happened. Glancing down at his shoulder, he caught site of the bandaging and ripped it off to reveal a mass of scaring that stuck out even from his various other scars. While scars were no new or uncommon thing to him, he usually did remember how he got most of them, but this new development wasn't jogging any memories at all, which disturbed even him.

'Damnit, I should know what's happening to my own body! What the ******** is this?!” Running his fingers around to the back of his shoulder, he found that there was scarring back there, too, and he definitely didn't remember anything piercing his shoulder. The last thing he could recall was...

'That buck...' Then his dream came back to him in a flash, the image of the antler protruding through his shoulder piercing his mind's eye. Suddenly, he felt as if he was being dragged down by the weight of the carcass, and his ability to separate his dreams from reality was lost to him. What the hell had happened? Had that buck gotten him? His head swelled and his vision blurred more, but he fought to regain composure. The awful flatlining noise of the heart monitor shot through his whirlwind of thoughts, and out of instinct his hand swing around and punches the monitor hard enough to crack the screen and nearly snap his fingers.

Ah, pain. There was something real, something tangible to him that retrieved his senses from the confusion of his dreams and the mind numbing inauthenticity of his surroundings. 'Whatever the hell has happened,' he thought, 'I'm not going to achieve anything now by just standing here.' His limbs seemed half dead still, his muscles even straining against his brain's commands, but he pushed himself towards the door. His teeth bit into his lip, drawing blood and keeping him motivated.

The hallways seemed to be empty for the moment, but Lucavi would've nearly preferred them to be full of people and life, rather than the unnerving quietness that allowed his own footsteps to follow him down the hallway in echoes. Occasionally there'd be a cough, wheeze, or moan coming from the other rooms as he passed, and Lucavi would attribute their suffering to this horrid place rather than their physical conditions, thus becoming more determined to escape it. Unfortunately, Lucavi soon found that his footsteps and their soft echoes were no longer alone.

“Excuse me...excuse me!” a voice called out from behind him before a man in a white coat overtook him. “I'm sorry, but you'll have to return to your room...it looks like you need to be re-bandaged, I'll call somebody to...” Lucavi ignored the man, continuing to head towards the end of the hall.

“Hey! I'm sorry, are you deaf?” The question was serious. The man put a hand on Lucavi's shoulder to halt him, but Luca pulled away aggressively, gritting his teeth and forcing his body into a run. Alarmed, the man took off after him, taking his cell phone out as he ran.

“Security? Yes, in ward B4, there's a patient, orange hair, scarred shoulder, in white boxers only, probably around 16, he seems to be trying to escape, probably still under the effects of some medication...”

Luca easily put distance between himself and who he assumed was a doctor, arriving at the end of the hallway to find 2 elevators on his left and a stair case on his right. Not having time to wait for the elevator, he opted for throwing himself down the staircase. The doctor could only gasp as Luca rolled onto the landing below, hitting the wall with a thud before picking himself back up and repeating the process.

“Hurry, hurry! Patient has thrown himself down a staircase, possibly overdosed on pain killers, heading toward the main floor!” With that, he hung up and ran to the end of the hallway to find that Luca had already left the landing. He winced as he heard a body rolling around below before hurrying off to grab a wheelchair and take it down to the main floor on the elevator.

Luca righted himself once more as he rolled onto the main floor. Sure, he was scraped, bruised, and aching all over now, but that was how he normally felt anyways. Cracking his neck to make sure it wasn't broken, he emerged from the stairwell into a minor hallway clearly leading to the main lobby of the hospital. Thinking he had lost his pursuer, he began dragging himself down this hallway until the exit was blocked off by two men in black suits.

“Orange hair, boxers, shoulder, this is the kid, no doubt,” one said, nodding to the other before taking off down the hallway towards Luca. Growling, Luca tried to rush past him, but found this man to be more of an obstacle than the doctor. Soon, both men were restraining him, or attempting to, anyways, while Luca thrashed, unsure which of his violent movements were intentional and which were uncontrollable spasms.

Back down the hall near the stairwell an elevator door binged as it opened, the doctor from before finally managing to unfold a compacted wheelchair before rolling it down the hallway towards Luca.

“Here, sit him down here, I've got a sedative that will calm him down” the doctor said, motioning towards the wheelchair before pulling out a syringe. The two men forced Luca into the chair and managed to force him to sit still long enough for the shot to be administered, and Luca spat in contempt of having another foreign liquid forced through his veins. He soon felt the effects of it draining the life out of him, and though he fought to stand back up, another minute of struggle drained the rest of his energy from him.

Unconscious once again, he felt as if he was still struggling mentally, but that was not enough to get him through the front doors of the lobby. As he was wheeled back to his room, the doctor pushing behind him prayed that he wasn't working the next time the kid woke up.

Well, he's finally home. With the rate he was going at, I thought they were going to admit him to a psychiatric ward after they were done treating him physically, which I wouldn't have blamed them for in the least, but still, it's nice to have him home and know he's ok. I doubt he'd return the sentiment, but sitting at home while he was in the hospital was maddening, like watching somebody play tetris, and they keep ******** up. Lame analogy, I know, but something was missing while he was gone, and now that he's back, well, we're still not a functional family, but everything feels back in place.

I'd hoped he'd come away from this experience a bit wiser and more cautious about things, but so far, it only seems to have increased his taste for destruction. I bet he did learn his lesson, and is denying it just to spite me, or whoever the hell he enjoys spiting so much. Really, though, any normal person would have a near death experience and learn to value their own lives more because of it, not just become more reckless with them. Then again, I've known ever since I first saw him that Luca is not any old normal person.

On the other hand, he has at least taken a worthwhile interest in actual biological explanations behind the pure carnage he sated himself with before. I overheard him listing off bone names the other day, each name followed by a particularly spine shuddering squelching and ripping noise that lead me to believe the bone he named had just been separated from its former body, and although I did retch, I also had to marvel that he was putting actual thought behind it now. I can only hope that this develops into something good, rather than some sick motivation for god knows what.

The thought of Luca potentially becoming a doctor, however...well, I don't know whether to laugh or shudder. Can you imagine? I don't know if his new medical fascination could ever be enough to force him into a state of constant cleanliness and professional, white, undamaged clothes, but the thought of it certainly does make me laugh. But seeing what he does to the poor animals that happen across his path, well...I'd pity anybody he was operating on. Pity...and fear for their lives, yes. If he could actually curb his appetite for senselessly ripping things apart in favor of controlled surgery, however, I think it'd be worth the risk...of whoever he'd be operating on.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised – his biology marks were always high, though I suspect the teacher deducted points from his grade out of contempt for his morbidity. But still, he was one of the top in his class, even if his other grades weren't all spectacular. When he shows interest in something, he can definitely excel in it...I think perhaps I'll ask him if he's interested in getting some basic medical books.

You never know, something good might just come of him.