Chapter 38
A sharp electronic beep shattered the silence of the hospital room, echoing briefly before fading into the steady rhythm of the monitor beside the bed. Hakiten's eyes opened, and for a brief moment he remained motionless before sitting upright. The movement caused several loose bandages to slide from his shoulders. Beside him, a nurse calmly continued her work, removing the old wrappings one by one and dropping them into a nearby dustbin. The room smelled faintly of disinfectant, while outside the window the afternoon sky remained hidden behind grey clouds. Hakiten barely noticed any of it. His attention remained fixed somewhere far away, lost in his own thoughts. The nurse finished her task without speaking, perhaps already accustomed to his silence.
Within seconds, she walked toward the doorway and left, leaving it wide open behind her, almost deliberately, as though she expected someone else to enter. Hakiten turned his gaze toward the window, where the glass reflected part of his face. He hated looking at it, even now, especially now. The blue patches had spread further, covering large sections of his body. What had once been normal skin now resembled damaged stone. The colour looked wrong, unnatural, alive. For several seconds he stared at his reflection before movement appeared near the doorway. It was only a slight motion, yet enough to make Hakiten turn immediately. Someone stood there. Juson. Neither of them spoke. The silence between them felt familiar, old, almost comforting.
Juson slowly stepped into the room, and as he moved closer, his eyes settled upon Hakiten's exposed skin. The damage was impossible to ignore. More than half of Hakiten's face had changed colour, while blue veins stretched beneath the surface. The rest of his body remained covered with scars and patched areas where the bandages had been removed. Juson stopped, and his expression changed. It was not fear or disgust. It was something else. Recognition. Hakiten noticed it immediately. For a strange moment, both of them simply stared at each other, and the feeling reminded Hakiten of something. A memory. A forgotten conversation. A distant day. Déjà vu. The sensation lingered between them until Hakiten finally broke the silence. "Sit."
Juson nodded and lowered himself onto the chair beside the bed. For several seconds neither of them spoke. The monitor continued its rhythmic beeping while distant footsteps passed through the corridor outside. Hakiten leaned back slightly. "You waited outside for a long time." Juson did not answer. His attention remained fixed on the blue patches covering Hakiten's skin. Something about them bothered him. The colour, the texture, the shape. He had seen something similar before, not here and not on Hakiten, but on someone else. The memory remained frustratingly distant, close enough to feel yet too far to remember. Finally, he spoke. "What happened to you?" The question hung in the room, and Hakiten's expression changed instantly. His eyes drifted toward the wall, toward anywhere except Juson.
Several seconds passed without an answer. The silence grew heavier as Juson waited. Eventually Hakiten exhaled slowly, and the words escaped before he could stop them. "Out of Control." Juson's eyebrows narrowed. "What?" Hakiten remained silent. The phrase itself meant nothing, yet something about it struck a nerve. A connection formed somewhere inside Juson's mind. Blue sand. Red sand. Expansion. Control. The strange demonstration from earlier. The memory surfaced immediately, but it remained blurry. "What are you talking about?" Hakiten finally looked back at him, his expression far more serious than before. "Do you really want to know?" The question felt strange, almost like a warning. Juson nodded. Hakiten stared at him for several seconds before beginning to speak, slowly and carefully, as though every word carried weight.
Outside the room, life continued normally. Doctors walked through the corridors, patients spoke quietly, and machines hummed throughout the hospital. No one realised how important the conversation inside the room might become, no one except one person. A figure moved through the corridor carrying a suitcase. The man passed the doorway without stopping, unnoticed by both Juson and Hakiten, whose attention remained locked on each other. The figure continued walking toward the stairwell, toward the upper floors, toward a destination hidden from almost everyone inside the hospital. Genido. The suitcase remained firmly in his grip, and his pace was steady and purposeful. Yet as he approached the stairs, another person intercepted him. A nurse. She greeted him politely, and Genido responded automatically.
Then the nurse's eyes shifted downward toward the suitcase. A simple question followed. "What is inside?" For the briefest moment Genido froze. It was a harmless question, an ordinary question, yet something about it immediately made him uncomfortable. The nurse noticed. His hesitation lasted less than a second, but she noticed it. Genido forced a smile. "Blood samples." The answer arrived quickly, too quickly, yet it sounded believable enough. The nurse accepted it. After all, this was a hospital, and blood samples were nothing unusual. The conversation ended there. Genido continued walking upstairs, but one thought remained inside his head. If she had asked one more question, everything might have become far more complicated.