Chapter 14

John slowly opened his eyes as the sound of beeping woke him from his slumber. He noticed that there was a blurry white roof above him, that's when he heard someone gasped and ran out the room, moments later the door opened and he saw the silhouettes of people around him. He suddenly felt whatever he was sleeping on lifted him up in a sitting position.

That's when the blurry vision finally settled and John could see where he was. A hospital room to be precise, he looked down and saw an oxygen mask over his face, John lifted his right hand to take the mask off and saw that the hand was laced in bandages.

"Well it seems sleeping beauty finally awakens" said the doctor.

John tried to respond but it only sounded as grunts, his throat was burning.

"Ah right you must be parched, being unconscious for 2 weeks does that." said the doctor.

The doctor took the bottle of water next to his bed and placed it on John's dry lips after taking the oxygen mask off. John drank the water bottle empty in mere seconds, the burning sensation in his throat was overcome.

"Thanks" he said softly before coughing in his hand.

"I must say you are one lucky man, all of the berserker victims I've treated died in the night due to their hearts giving up, thing is this wasn't a normal berserk case, we noticed you talking to yourself in the cockpit?" said the doctor.

When he said berserker, memories came flooding in Johns head of the fight with Grinning Madness and the voice telling him to eat the corpse, the pure hunger was striking as if it was a beast that hasn't ate for years.

"It was a normal berserk case." mumbled John.

"Well you came stumbling in the hanger and immediately went to your deployment station. When the cockpit opened you fell out unconscious and blood dripping out of your nose and later from your eyes. That's when the paramedics arrived and brought you here, and don't get me started on your hand, you can be glad Team Zero's dome brought their technology to us because without it we wouldn't have been able to fix the hand." answered the doctor.

John looked at his hand and started to take the bandages off but gave a glance at the doctor to ask if he can take them off, the doctor nodded. When the bandages were removed, he looked at his hand and saw multiple scars on it. There was one big one going over his knuckle and several over his fingers and wrist as well.

"We had to synthetically make new bones for you as the previous ones were broken beyond healing, the entire process took 5 days to finish, four surgeons switched out to do their specialty such as reconnect the muscle and nerves, place the new bones in and making sure it can react to stimulus. In the end it was a success, your hand's brand new." said the man.

The bedridden man clenched his fist and it felt perfectly normal.

"Thanks Doctor but why go through all this trouble, I'm just a pilot we don't have a long life to begin with." said John.

"You are a key player in this dome's defense, you're one of the best single pilots that not only went in berserker mode and survived, you killed two Grinning Madness which the military classifies as a category 7 behemoth." said the doc.

"Ok thank you once again doc, now when can I leave, I want to stretch my legs." asked John.

"I just want to give you a quick once over and if everything checks out you can leave." said the doctor.

John nodded and let the doctor do his thing. All checked out so the doc said he can go and left him some new clothes as his pilot suit was too stained with blood and he would have to get a new one.

The new clothes consisted of a pair of black sweat pants that had one grey line going down, there was also a plain red T - shirt that he put on, the second last item was a black hoodie with a white spiral pattern all over it, last of the clothes were a pair of standard black military boots.

After John looked himself over in a nearby mirror and being satisfied with how the clothes fitted him, he left the hospital.

After a slow stroll to the general's office to give his briefing on the Goji and Grinning Madness it started to rain and storm. John quickly started to run and when he arrived at the office the door slid open reveling a middle aged man that had green hair slicked backwards, the color of his eyes was soft grey, and to finish off the description he wore a white lab coat over his white polar collar shirt and black pants.

"Ah John perfect timing, I was about to call for you." said the General.

"For what sir?" asked John.

"Meet Robbert More the new head scientist at this dome's new technology wing that is being built as we are talking." said the general.

The reason Team Zero is staying here is that their dome has asked to merge with ours. The deal is that they help us with brand new technology and medical help and we in return help protect their dome from behemoths until the merging is complete.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." said Robbert as he held a hand out for a handshake.

"Same" said John as shook his hand.

"Now that the two of you met, John give me your report on the mission, you can stay if you want to Professor." said general.

John started his debriefing and talked about those three soldiers that got killed very quickly, the three Goji that were too co - ordinated for a normal pair of behemoths as they made quick work of those idiots, but then again they were wet behind the ears and probably never faced category 3 Behemoths. Then how team Zero came and dealt with the Goji and him fighting Grinning Madness.

At the end of it all the general excused John and told him to rest for a bit, the foot soldier can take care if weak behemoths show up. When he was outside, he saw it was still raining. Professor Robbert followed out the office shortly afterwards bidding farewell to the pilot and left.On his way back to his room to rest as the general said, he looked up at the dark clouds.

"Looks like it isn't clearing up anytime soon..." mumbled John to himself.