Awakening From Ashes

Chapter 4: A Path to Revenge

Lucas entered the morgue a damaged but somewhat clothed man ever since he woke up in the hospital room.

The nurse led him towards the slab under the bright lights in the middle of the room. The same slab that had a covered dead body under it and somehow made the room of death seem even more daunting. 

Lucas winced at the slight pain he felt from his surgery stitches but he still pressed on. If the body under there was who he thought it was, then he had no time to stop. He needed to see her.

They reached the slab and the nurse turned to him with sadness in her eyes. She bit her lip but still spoke to Lucas.

“I asked for you to see her alone. Well, not alone since I’m here as your chaperon in the hospital. Is that okay?”

Lucas gave her a nod, his eyes trained on the sight before him.

“Are you ready or do you need some time?” she asked Lucas as she gripped one side of the sheet.

“I’m ready,” he answered her, bracing himself for the revelation and at the same time hoping against hope that this was all a joke. A sick prank. 

Lucas really hoped that his mother would bound through those doors with a laugh and shout ‘got you’ while she hugged him and smiled. He prayed that she was still alive and that this was all a figment of his twisted imagination. Or a freaking nightmare, even. 

But all those hopes shattered when the nurse lifted the sheets and the sight of his pale and very dead mother seared itself into his eyes. 

The nurse slunk away leaving Lucas to deal with his emotions. He stared at his mother and at the still red gap in her delicate neck and gritted his teeth. Black veins mapped her body like she was an object to be thrown away. 

Lucas huffed and licked his lips, still in disbelief at what he was seeing. His hands went up and moved to touch her hand but he hesitated. Then he took a deep breath and went through with it. 

His fingers touched her cold and stiff ones. Even when he crossed his fingers with hers and held her tight, they didn’t move. She didn’t smile at him like she always did. She didn’t tell him that she loved him. 

Lucas’s breath got stuck in his throat and his eyes began to tear up. He curled his free hand on the even colder slab as the tears had their way and fell freely, unchecked, and relentlessly as the sense of loss settled in his soul.

He cried. For the first time in a long time, Lucas cried. His chest heaved with each sob and without any help from his brain, his mouth opened and a raw guttural scream echoed through the almost empty room. 

He clutched at his chest as if trying to keep himself from falling apart inside. Then he opened his eyes just to see a blur of the world around him, but his mother looked so prominent in the fog of his mind. 

Through his tears, Lucas rubbed his thumb on the back of her hand like she had done a million times to calm him down. He sniffled and leaned down to her before placing a kiss on her forehead. 

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you. I tried but I was too weak.”

He stood up straight and looked at her face again. His free hand touched her cheek and determination swelled up in his heart.

“I swear it to you, Mom, I will avenge you. Those bastards will pay for what they did to you even if they have to die by my own hand. I will kill them for this,” Lucas vowed out loud before breaking down again. 

The people that killed his mother, Emilia, and Nicole, however deep the river of death ran, he would find them and he would destroy them and everything they held dear, but that would be later. Right now, he needed to mourn. Mourn and beg for his mother’s forgiveness. 

                                                                        •••••

Lucas spent hours in the morgue just clinging on to his mother’s hand before the nurse had to step in and quite literally pry him away from her. His head was raised high but his heart was still broken. He might have been looking put together outwardly but apart from his sadness, he was boiling on the inside. His mind was like an inferno that he desperately wanted to let loose on the people who did this to him.

He had two choices to make. It was either he followed the nurse back to his room and stayed here for another week or so or he left right now and made those bastards pay. With no hesitation, Lucas’s mind was already made up. 

He arrived at the lobby that they had to pass to get from his room to the morgue before he stopped abruptly, causing the nurse to stop with him and face him worriedly.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Cole?” she asked Lucas, moving to put her hands on him to check his body. 

But Lucas stopped her before she could. 

“I’m fine. I want to leave.”

“Sir, I know we said that you were doing well but you are in no shape to leave the hospital just yet. If you leave the hospital right now, you could still die. You still need rest and some drugs to keep the pain at a certain level and even with that we still need to…” she rattled on but he stepped close to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. 

As their eyes connected, Lucas knew that he had to make her understand. 

“I need to leave this place,” he told her, his stand not changing because of what she said.

She eyed him for a moment and slumped her shoulders, caving. She knew that he wouldn’t change my mind about this. Plus, he wasn't a teenager so she could keep him at the hospital. 

“Very well. The doctor and I can get you the drugs you need for now. Come with me,” she said, agreeing before they continued to walk farther into the building. 

As they moved she asked Lucas another question. 

“What about your mother?”

His jaw ticked for a second as the image of his mother entered his mind but he still gave the nurse an answer. 

“I’ll bury her. I just need to go and make preparations for that.”

“That’s why you’re leaving?”

“Yes.” He gave her a monotonous and more or less truthful answer. He was actually going to do that and so much more when he left this place.

After that, they both walked in silence all the way to the doctor’s office. She knocked and when the voice of a man beckoned her to enter, she turned the knob of the door and opened it so that they could both go in.

It was the doctor from before. The same one who had told Lucas what happened to his mother. Lucas glanced at the plaque on his desk. It read “Doctor Richard Finch.”

“Mr. Cole,” he said with slight shock.

“He wants to leave the facility, Doctor,” the nurse said.

“I don’t think that’s wise. Nurse Dorothy, did you tell him that…” Doctor Richard started but the nurse stopped him with an explanation and a raise of her hand.

“I already told him but he still insisted on this. He knows the risk.”

“So you know that you still stand a risk of dying if you aren’t careful?” Doctor Richard asked Lucas and he gave him a nod. 

The doctor sighed and frowned at his impatience. Then he turned around and rummaged through the large cupboard above his desk looking for drugs, Lucas presumed. Just as he thought, a minute later, Doctor Richard placed two vials and three prescriptions of drugs on the desk and eyed Lucas sternly while he spoke.

“Take all of this twice each day and take them consistently. Never overshoot or undershoot the dosage, if not it could upset your rehabilitation. Do you understand?” he warned Lucas.

“I do,” Lucas said as he scooped up the bag the Doctor had placed the drugs in and held onto it.

“About the payment…” he began. Lucas knew that even though this place was meant to help people, they still collected payment for everything they did.

“Don’t worry about it. The bill’s already been covered.” Doctor Richard waved Lucas’s words away.

“By who?”

“The people who brought you here. They said they were friends of your family. Since you’ve been out of it, they’ve contributed to keeping you alive. You people must really have a tight-knit community over there,” Nurse Dorothy said.

Lucas stood there, shocked that the people he had seen and interacted with for years had come together to save him. He inwardly smiled and thanked them.

“Lastly, if anyone comes here to ask of me, tell them that I died,” Lucas said.

“I don’t understand,” Nurse Dorothy stated, confused at the request. 

Doctor Richard furrowed his brows and leaned on his desk, already coming to terms about the situation he have gotten himself in.

“What sort of trouble are you in?”

Lucas waved his question away. 

“Don’t worry about it. Just tell them exactly that. Thank you, both of you,” he said to them finally before he opened the door and left the room, leaving them to stand in silence. 

Lucas walked out of the hospital building a broken but changed man. Even though he wasn’t physically changed, Lucas’s mind was shattered as the memory of what he had lived through was going to haunt him forever. 

He took a deep breath and set off, ready to begin on his path of revenge.