Chapter 40 Arise

((( Rhio POV's )))

Time passed by me swiftly while everything was in pitch black. Niel's footsteps were the first thing I heard as I drift back to my senses. He was studying some radiographs against the morning light by the tall windows of my own room. All the burgundy curtains and the casement windows had been spread open to let the light in.

"Stay still," Niel advised without looking at me. "This is most probably due to a relapse of your injury when you were young. You fell off a speeding horse, remember? All because you've been so confident that you've mastered equine riding without the trainer to escort you. Hard-headed from childhood up to this day, I see."

I puffed loudly at his reprimanding, "How long will I stay like this?"

"The swelling of tissues in your lower thorax may take about two weeks or much longer to heal if you don't respond well to medication," he answered. "And I suspect fibromyalgia for the rest of the chronic pain you were feeling. You might have been hiding the much milder to worse pain for this long, haven't you?"

"Two weeks? That's too much!" I complained to avoid his much more important question. But the truth is, I already had some mild attacks of body pain immediately after a year of taking over at the company.

"Fibromyalgia is due the brain's overreaction to pain. Therefore, normal pain would feel rather unbearable. It is caused by a past trauma, stress that could be work-related or not, depression and many more factors," he lifted his glasses to briefly rub his eyes. "And apparently there is no cure for it. There are drugs to remedy the pain but you'd have to carry it for a lifetime."

I scoffed at his him whose words sounded like a death sentence.

Then I was silent.

There was really nothing I could argue with what he has just said. All the description he had stated fitted me perfectly.

"If you want your condition to improve you'd have to change your strenuous lifestyle a bit. I'd also want you to undergo therapies and obediently take medication," he looked for a while outside the windows in deep contemplation, his hands hidden in his lab gown pocket. Then he turned his head to me with a smile, "And also look at the sky more often. Blue is a therapeutic color."

I followed his gaze and just that instant, I realized it was the first time my room bathed in natural lighting. Birds chirped and the cloudy blue expanse of the sky greeted beautifully in the backdrop. This lonesome place suddenly felt alive.

But the pounding headache I have made me instantly sour about all of it.

Niel exhaled deeply as he took a folder at the nightstand. "Elthon came here earlier while you were sleeping and wanted me to give this to you."

I looked at the papers. It was the power of attorney document that I requested for him to draft in occasion that I fell ill or incapable to go to work. It'll give him the authority to handle all the company's affairs while I am gone to rest. Niel was the third agent I appointed to take in place in case something undesirable happens to Elthon.

"Treat this as your vacation while Elthon acts on your behalf," Niel advised after I signed the document and left me alone once more in my room.

Vacation, huh?