Board Thread:What Would You Do?/@comment-34263048-20180217032442/@comment-33398500-20180221221912

How could this have happened?

As I stood at the door to her recovery room, looking at her actually lying there in a hospital bed: the girl that had been the living incarnation of hell for me for years, currently laid there, half-mummified in bandages and gauze, red marks all along the bandages from cuts she had also suffered during the incident.

Having sat down next to her, I found myself shaking slightly as I finally spoke “I don’t know how to thank you...”

“''You’re alive... but how? I didn’t find you...”''

As she attempted to reach out to me, and found her hand falling short, I, strangely, reached by reflex and caught her hand, moving it back to her side, though when I tried to pull my hand back, her injured hand kept it with a desperate, shaking grip as she spoke again “My love... alive... loved one... here... with me...”

It took me a moment to fully realize something: she might only be this injured because of ME... if she had gone to get us out of the house when it was on fire, and got the others out, she could have very easily avoided further injury, but had instead gone to search for me inside, but couldn’t find me, continuing to look everywhere she could even whilst getting injured to no avail. This was giving me an uncomfortable mental image of her desperately searching the corners of the house for me.

Shaking my head as the rest of me began to shake while thinking about this, trying to deny the wetness in the corners of my eyes as this thought passed through my head, I attempted to reassure myself “''No... that wouldn’t be possible... one of the others would have told her I wasn’t home, right...? Right!?” ''

Continuing to sit there, my hand not moving from her currently weak, yet still determined grip, I didn’t move, even as the rest of my family showed up “Umm... Victor... what are you doing?” my brother asked, looking confused at my hand in hers while she slept, with her having moved closer to the edge of the bed toward me.

“Please... tell me something...” I responded, without even answering his question “...tell me you told her I wasn’t home... not to go in looking for me...” looking up at them, my expression must have changed, because they looked taken aback “Please tell me!”

“I... I couldn’t...” my father responded, shaking his head “I didn’t have a chance to say anything before she had gone rushing back into the house... she might have been looking for you at that point... she always was sweet on you...”

My mother had been about to respond when she simply said “...see?” as, without my noticing, her tail had moved and was now weakly wrapped around my waist.

The four of us spent about an hour in the room with her unconscious there, sometimes speaking to her as if she could hear us, other times sitting in an uncomfortable silence, but as the rest of them went to leave, I shook my head “I can’t yet... she might be in this state because of me... and she doesn’t want me to leave...” I commented, as neither her grip, nor her tail had wavered the entire time. “I think I’ll stay for a while...”

“Umm... all right, then... talk to you later then, Victor...” my father then stated, before the rest of them left, leaving me to the unconscious manticore.

After another hour or so, in which I had only gotten up to go to the bathroom once, coming back to have her unconsciously stressing out, trying to find my hand until I actually took a hold of her hand again, returning to consciousness again, slowly opening her eyes “Y-you’re still here...” she started, still gently grasping my hand. “How long was I out?”

“Only a couple hours...” I told her gently, still rather unsure what to think right now, but wanting deeply to comfort her with her in this state.

“Y-you’ve been here the whole time?” she asked me, her voice clearly stating disbelief.

“Y-yeah... I’m still here...” I had to reassure her. “...after what happened to you, it’s the very least I can do... why did you keep looking for me...? I wasn’t home...”

“I had to...” she told me. “I had to try to find you... if something happened to you, I’d never forgive myself...” she continued weakly “...I told you before, that you were my love...”

“Was that before or after the time you waited to ambush me in the changing room after everyone else left?” I then asked, her, a slight chuckle emerging from me.

“M-maybe...” she answered, starting to laugh before wincing in pain “P-please don’t make me laugh, it hurts...”

“That’s all right... you’ve been through a lot... just rest now... I’ll be here when you wake up...” I then told her before she slipped off into unconsciousness again.

This cycle repeated every couple hours until the end of visiting hours for the day, where they had told me to leave, making me have to separate myself from her gentle grip and go home. Though going home didn’t really help, as my sleep was broken by a series of dreams in which I was in a burning building, sifting through the debris until I eventually found her injured form, only for a beam to fall on me from the ceiling before I woke up with a start.

Sighing heavily to myself, I made my way back to the hospital, having wanted to go back better rested and with something for her, but unable to do such today. Despite this, when I came back, the nurse looked relieved upon seeing me “I’m glad you’re back... since you left last night, she’s been... distressed...” pointing me back to the room, where she was tossing and turning in her sleep.

Slowly stepping into the room, I walked over to her and sat back down in the chair I had been in, where I took her hand again, her tossing and turning practically immediately calming down. Strangely, it was at this moment where I fully grasped just how much my presence affected her.

After a couple hours, she woke up again “Morning, Victor...” she told me quietly.

After visiting with her that day, I had to tell her I wouldn’t be able to come in until later each day due to having to work “Y-you’re going to keep coming?” she asked me.

“Yeah... I will...” I told her, as the doctor entered the room, assumedly to tell me visiting hours were over, but he then stated “No... I wanted to tell you... your absence seems to have an adverse effect on her recovery... we’ve seen it more than once with mamono and their husbands... so we’re allowing you to stay with her overnight...”

“H-h-husband...? B-b-but I’m not her...” however, he was hearing none of it, as he walked out of the room quickly, her body now shifting to the opposite side of her bed.

“P-please... come in...” she told me quietly, before I, strangely, found myself crawling onto her bed and with her tangling her limbs around me, snuggling me as she went off to sleep quickly.

This pattern repeated itself for the next few weeks over the course of her recovery, my days rather busy going from work to the hospital then back to work, turning from obligation to habit as I found myself there every day, with her clinging to me as soon as I showed up. However, things began getting awkward at this point, because, as soon as she was starting to get her strength back, she began attempting to get me to ‘spend the night’ whilst I was keeping her company, though the time I tried not coming in at night, they told me she was ‘impossible to deal with’.

Now at this point, after just about two months, where I found myself again with her tail pushing toward my crotch in conjunction with her hands, I had to make her a promise before I found myself raped “All right... I’ll make you a promise...” I resigned “...once you recover, and once they let you out of here... I’ll let you have me...” her eyes lighting up immediately.

“D-do you mean that?” she asked suspiciously. I once did this sort of thing in high school to get out of her raping me then under different circumstances, so she had reason to be.

“Y-yeah... I mean... it’s obvious you really do care about me... and that night I spent alone, I have to admit, was the worst night’s sleep I’ve had in months, I don’t like it when you’re not there with me anymore... so once you’re feeling better... we can do that...”

She seemed bothered by it still, but immediately started clinging to me again. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, as her bandages came off, and laid bare her scarred, damaged state, I knew the day was getting closer and closer where she would expect me to make good on my promise. Lo and behold, another few weeks later, she was in sufficient condition to be released, and I was there to take her back with me.

As we returned to my family’s property, she got a glimpse at the house-in-progress that stood there, only partially complete still after having to rebuild it. “Oh... it’s almost done... but not yet... come with me...” she giggled excitedly, leading me along to her house now, pulling me through the door and wasting no time getting me up the stairs and through the door to her room.

As she pushed me toward her bed, I felt something pierce me from the side “My tail may have lost a few of its spines, but the ones that are left are just as good as before~” she told me excitedly as she pushed me onto her bed now “Time to keep your promise~” was all she said as she descended on me, removing her clothes as she did so.

All’s well that ends well, I suppose...