Chapter 14: Uninvited Guests

“Why are you two silent all of a sudden? What is--”

“I think I need to go to my room,” Aunt Una interjected, her breath came out ragged.

It was as though she was finding it difficult to breathe. She found it difficult standing on her feet but stopped Livingstone from helping her out with her hand. He watched her stand up on her own and sighed in relief. She took a few steps away from his bed and breathed in a large amount of air to calm her thumping heart, but then her vision became blurry and distorted. She shook her head to sweep away the effects since they were affecting her vision. Getting to her room became her top priority--she needed her medications before something worse happened. There was a sudden tightness in her chest, and the wave of dizziness caused her to touch her forehead.

“Una--” Elijah spoke when he noticed that she was walking with great difficulty, but he was stopped from continuing his words when she rose a hand to silence him.

Pushing herself to double her steps, she exhausted the little amount of energy she had left in her and fell with a thud on the marbled floor, hitting her head in the process. Both father and son jumped into action at the sight of the fallen woman. Elijah checked her pulse and realized that she was heating up. She had blood oozing from her nose. Positioning an arm under her legs, he lifted her up from the floor with ease. A slipper slipped off her right feet and her head lolled back.

“I need you to call Victor and inform him about this. Don’t forget to phone Novera as well,” his father instructed. “I would be taking her to the hospital Dr. Zhang Suzuki works in to know what exactly is wrong with her.”

With that being said, he exited the room.

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The last place Elijah ever anticipated to be at that particular moment was at the hospital. It’s been over forty minutes now since he arrived here with his son and there was still no news on Una’s diagnosis. He began to pace around the waiting room of the hospital but halted then turned his body to face the transparent door when he heard it being open. He watched his son strode into the room with Novera by his side. He was expecting to see Victor walk through the door any moment from now after them, but he didn’t grace the room with his presence.

“Uncle Eli,” Novera called out, as she runs into the arms of Elijah. She buried her face in his chest and began to weep. She pulled away from the hug and looked heavenward into his eyes with teary eyes and a puffy nose. A clear indication that she had been crying. Elijah stared back into the younger version of Una and pushed away some strands of hair that had stuck to her face.

“Your mother would be fine, Novera.”

“What if she’s not, Uncle,” she said, uncertainty swarm in her teary eyes. She buried her face in his chest once again and he hugged her, brushing the thick layers of her brown hair with his hand.

Livingstone gave them some distance as he watched them. He knew how close Novera was to his father. He was the second most important fatherly figure in her life. He reminisced those days he had to compete with her when it came to getting showered in his father’s attention.

“Where is Victor, Novera?”

“Father couldn’t make it, Uncle Eli. But he did tell me to update him on everything that happens.”

Elijah nodded.

He handed her a handkerchief to wipe away her tears when she stepped away from him. Minutes later, Dr. Suzuki walked in with a clipboard in his hand. Livingstone recollected his memory with him the previous day. He looked happy with his wife and family. However, the look he spared him and his family screamed bad news. He wondered what exactly could’ve happened to make Aunt Una’s illness escalate to this extent.

“The patient’s chances of survival are very little and futile. Her condition is new and would require some time to be studied into. Her tissues seem to have been failing her for some time now, and that has led to the collapse of some vital organs like her kidneys and pancreas. It won’t be long before her heart and lungs also follow suit. We can have this fixed immediately by removing the collapsed organs and introducing implants in their place. However, the problem is that if we happen to do that; then we haven’t really fixed anything since we still do not know the root cause of her illness.”

“What do you think is our best option then, Dr. Suzuki?” Novera asked as she wiped away a tear and sniffed.

“My team and I believe that keeping the patient in one of our cryogenic labs for the meantime could buy us some time in studying her condition.”

Novera huffed. “What are you trying to tell us? If I’m getting you right--you’re actually telling us that you want to store my mother in a tube and have her frozen until when? Until you find the root cause of her illness?” her temper sparked. Elijah tried to calm her down by holding her arm, but she pulled her arm away on instincts. “What if it takes months or even years, huh? Would my mother still be kept in that Human Storage Unit?”

“Trust me, I understand your dilemma but this is the best option we can offer you people. I don’t think you would want to see your mother dead before we find the cause of her illness. And let’s not forget that, finding the root cause of her illness would mean finding a cure to it.”

“He’s right, Novera. This is our only option,” Livingstone voiced. He looked in her direction and understood the look of defeat etched on her face.

“Fine. You have my consent,” she said and Dr. Suzuki nodded with a small smile on his face. “However, you still need the consent of one other person.”

“Who?”

“My father.”

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Livingstone arrived home later that night. His father decided to spend the night at the hospital with Novera. A few minutes after entering his home, he trudged to the dark hall and halted when he felt several unknown presences around him. He was being watched and he knew it because he could feel it. His pupils dilated as he adjusted them in the darkroom. Upon focusing his eyes on a silhouette, he snapped his fingers and the light illuminated the hall. He scanned the hall, realizing that everything was still in place; he shuffled to the kitchen.

He knew that he was still being watched and--followed.

He walked to the fridge, turned back and opened it. He brought out a carton of his favourite juice and moved to the sink. Dropping the carton, he crouched and slipped a knife he had taken from one of the smaller compartments in the fridge in his boots. He picked up the carton and moved to the hall. He walked to the curtained window, stood behind it and turned his back to men hiding in his house. He twisted the cap of the carton and began to gulp it. Then, he lifted the hand which had his ontel wrapped around it and raised it a bit higher than usual. To the men clad in black, he was checking the time, but to him--he was watching their actions through the dark screen of his ontel.

He saw four figures clad in black outfits pop their heads behind the wall. Their faces were masked and from the looks of their actions, they were on a mission. A mission that he was about to find out.

He bent down to place the carton on the floor and brought out the knife. He stood up in a bolt, spun around and threw the knife in the direction of a figure who had just popped his head out from behind a wall. The knife missed its target. He looked down to his chest to find four red dots on his shirt. He lifted his head up to fix his eyes on four clad men with their guns aimed at him.

One of them fired his gun abruptly and the next thing he knew, volts of electricity surged through his limbs and muscles. He fell to his knees and groaned in pain. He was shot at again and this time, he fell limp on the floor. His breaths came out ragged. One of the men walked to his side and checked him for any more knives.

“Sir, we have his son.” He heard one of them say through the speaker he had in his grip.

“That was not part of the plan.” A deep baritone voice scolded from the other end of the line. “Anyway, I want him here unharmed.” These were the last words he heard before he plunged into darkness.