18 Waking up

…

"He's fine… He should wake up soon."

"It's been more than 12 hours!"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Juin heard people talking, but he could not see them. His vision was completely dark, save for the bright human-like silhouette that appeared far away from him.

The human-like silhouette's hands appeared to be moving and waving about, as if it was talking to Juin.

Juin suddenly felt someone touching his hand.

"Wake up, kid… Don't sleep any longer… You're scaring me…"

The voice that sounded familiar to Juin kept repeating the same words over and over again.

"Wake up… Wake up…"

Juin closed his eyes.

In a room, Juin's physical body stirred slightly.

"He's moving, Mrs. Martin!" A young boy's voice could be heard shouting.

Juin's eyelids fluttered slightly before he saw a sharp, bright light that flickered slightly.

"Oh, he's waking up…"

The first person Juin saw when his eyes adjusted to the light were Mrs. Martin and Wesley, both of whom were looking at him with worried eyes. He moved his eyes around the room and saw that a doctor was also standing near them.

"W-what happened?" Juin asked weakly as he tried to sit up, but he found that he did not even have the energy to prop himself up. Even lifting his head felt as if he had done a 400 m sprint across a field. "I feel… weak…"

"The doctor said that you fainted because of shock… But other than a few superficial cuts, your body is fine…" Mrs. Martin said worriedly as she helped Juin to sit up. "It's a good thing that none of the debris fell on you. What were you doing in the basketball court? Why didn't you run out when you felt the tremor?"

Juin looked at her, wondering what she was talking about. Basketball court… Lucifer... Suddenly, he recalled something. "Max! Where's Max?!" He tried to get out, but when he tried to move his legs, he could barely move them.

"Calm down!" Mrs. Martin said as she tried to keep him in bed. ���She's fine! She's still in shock, but she's fine. She's not injured or anything."

Well, mostly. Max was so agitated when she woke up that the doctor had to give her some sedative to calm her down. When she woke up again next, she kept saying that there was something weird, and something choked her and lifted her up in the air.

However, according to Max's parents, they said that she was a little delirious and that she probably needed some rest.

"What happened?" Juin asked Mrs. Martin as the doctor took his vitals.

"There was a sudden earthquake throughout the city, and your school was at the center of the earthquake," Mrs. Martin explained as she watched the doctor writing things down on Juin's medical file.

"It was so scary!" Wesley chimed in as he sat on the side of the hospital bed. "I thought I would die!"

He was having lunch with his friends when he felt the tremor, and the next thing he knew, everyone was being evacuated. When he heard from his friends that St. Dexter was hit really badly, he immediately went over to take a look. That was when he saw Juin and Max being carried out on stretchers.

"When you and Max didn't step out during the rollcall, everyone thought that you guys would be dead, but it's a good thing that nothing happened to you," Mrs. Martin said with a sigh as she secretly thanked God for protecting the kids. She had run to St. Dexter's the moment she heard the news, that Juin was missing.

It was a good thing that the earthquake, even though it was strong, only lasted for a few minutes. Otherwise, who knew what would have happened if those two were in there for a longer period of time. "The basketball court was completely wreaked, but the two of you fainted at the two safe spots. You guys must have gotten the protection of the gods."

"More like the protection of the devil," Juin mumbled under the breathe.

"What?" Mrs. Martin asked. She didn't quite get what he said earlier.

Juin smiled and shook his head, and after a while, he asked with a frown, "What about Luca? Where's he?"

"Luca?" Mrs. Martin frowned as she tried to remember the name.

"He's a new transfer student. He was in there with us." Just the mention of Luca Rockefeller made his blood boil in anger. That guy almost killed Max!

"By the time the firefighters got to the basketball court, there were only two of you. They had cleared out the whole place, and I don't think that Luca person was in there with you. Did you remember correctly?"

Juin frowned, wondering where Luca was. His memory was a little hazy. He remembered feeling a weird sensation when the contract was being pushed into his hand. And he remembered that when he was watching the fight, it was as if his body was not his. He could not do anything. All he could do was to watch quietly, almost as if he had taken on the role of a spectator.

He clearly remembered that Luca was badly injured by his punch. Well, Lucifer's punch.

"Did someone save him?" Juin thought to himself as he looked at his palms. When Lucifer took over his body, Juin felt an adrenaline surge through his body, and at that moment, he felt as if he had the strength of a thousand people in his body.

He suddenly recalled Mrs. Martin's words and looked up at her.

"Cleared out?" Juin frowned. "How long was I out?"

"It's already the next morning… You were out for a scary long time. Even Max woke up way before you," Wesley said as he took the cup of grapes on Luca's tray and ate it.

"Hey, that's Juin's!" Mrs. Martin scolded Wesley as she took the cup of grapes from him.

"It's ok. He can have it," Juin said as he made way for Wesley to lie down. "So, the next morning… That's almost…" He looked around the room, and when he saw the wall clock, he mumbled, "18 hours…?"

"You scared the heck out of me… The rest of the kids wanted to visit as well, but I told them to stay at home. The city council declared today a day off so that they could discuss where to put you kids at."

"Huh?" Juin could not follow her at all.

"Your school is completely ruined, and it's going to take a long time to fix it. Some of the buildings collapsed completely. It's no longer safe for you guys to go back there, and the place has been cordoned off. So, most likely, you would be transferred to the schools nearby," Mrs. Martin said as she pulled up a chair to sit next to Juin. "Enough about all that. How are you feeling now?"

Juin tried to move his fingers, but he could barely wriggle them around. "Weak… Like I don't have any energy at all."

Mrs. Martin looked at the doctor, and the doctor nodded as she said, "His vitals are fine. We need to do some more tests, but I think that he's probably just scared out of his wits."

"That's definitely possible," Wesley said with a chuckle. "It won't be the first time he got so scared he couldn't even feel his legs."

"Get lost," Juin said in a fake threatening voice. But Wesley was right. It would not be his first time.

The doctor smiled as she said to Juin, "You must have been extremely scared… You guys were lucky to escape death."

Juin merely smiled and did not say anything. "Luck?" Juin thought. "I sold my soul literally for this luck..."