Writer: Suriko

[Suriko]

Hi all. May have seen me popping into the IRC channel from time to time since the project was started. After liking Lilly from the outset, I finally decided to throw my chips in for a shot at path writer for her. Here's 5 1/2 hours worth, 1800 words, largely focused more on the protagonist's condition than she herself:

Severance
Writing sample document

I open my eyes.

White.

A clean, pure, horrid white.

As my eyes slowly adjust, I make out the details of the irritatingly familiar scene. The small dimples on the ceiling. The dark lines of the tile joins. The ceiling of a hospital.

I give a long, slow sigh. It's far from the first time I've been at a hospital - a fact that I wish weren't so true - but the experience is always the same. The overbearing smell of cleaning agents, the death-like whites and grays of the room, the disquietingly neatly folded blankets and sheets. The uncomfortable sterility of the whole scene haunts me every time. In an almost automatic process, I close my eyes, bring my right hand over to cover them, bring my head up, then gently move my hand away and slowly open my eyes to let them readjust to the lighting of the room.

The sheets are bright. Morning. My ears finally register the beeping of the heart monitor, regular enough to time a metronome from. As I look up, I see the clipboard attached to the metal bedhead. Continuing up, a blank wall save for one picture in a thin, unadorned black frame. In dark blue text, "Sendai General Ho"...

My heart suddenly skips.

This isn't the school infirmary.

My eyes widening, I jerk upwards. Halfway through, I shout wildly and fall back onto the bed, my chest burning with intense pain. I clasp my eyes shut and gasp for air akin to a fish flung out of the water, recovering from the shock of the unexpected pain. My mind races for what seems to be hours of frantic attempts to make sense of the situation. My left hand, seemingly of its own accord, forms a fist and starts to blindly bash the wall to the left of me trying desperately to find an emergency button, with my right hand uselessly clutching my chest in abject panic. After several tries, I suddenly feel my hand sink into the wall, with a small amount of relief coming over me. My gasping slows to laboured breathing as I try to collect myself, and my right hand settles to laying on my chest. It only takes mere seconds for the door to burst open, my head flicking to the left to see a young man in a familiar white coat burst through the door, with a nurse just visible behind him. He stops at the foot of my bed, eyes moving in seemingly one fluid motion from the heart monitor to me. As his eyes meet mine, he realises the situation, waving the nurse away. With another person in the room, my mind finally calms down and allows me to start thinking rationally.

"I take it you just woke up, Mr..."

The doctor's eyes flick down to the clipboard.

"...Hisao?"

I can only quietly nod, too dazed to give a coherent reply.

"I see that was quite a shock you had there. Are you feeling well enough to learn what happened, or would you prefer to have some time to rest?"

I reply meekly and simply, still dazed but desperate to know the situation. "What happened?"

"Hey there, I'm Doctor Makahara. Let's see... you're aware of your condition? Long QT syndrome?"

"Yes."

"Well, to put it simply, you've had an acute heart attack.."

...A heart attack. That would be the second I've had. The first had me sent to the school, and...

"Sorry, could I say something here?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"Didn't I have a..."

Come on, I know this, I made an effort to remember this in case something like this happened...

"...Implantable cardioconverter defibrillator installed to stop this from happening?"

"Cardioverter defibrillator, "

...Damn.

"Well done on remembering that much though. When that was installed after your first heart attack,

..."first heart attack". I twitch. He says it so flippantly. In passing. As if it were nothing. As if it hadn't changed everything about my life. He continues, disrupting my dwelling and seemingly not noticing my annoyance.

"It was, as you said, to prevent something like this from happening again. Unfortunately... I guess I'll have to skip a bit of a history lesson for now[1], but suffice to say, you were one of the lucky ones to get one of the earliest implementations."

"Then why didn't it stop this from happening?"

"Well, being one of the earliest implementations was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it quite possibly stopped you from having another heart attack and dieing until now, but..."

He stops, a touch of hesitance in his voice.

"...but?"

"...Nowadays we have much better versions. Many don't even require opening a person's chest to implant them. The older versions - such as yours - aren't as reliable. To put it simply, yours failed."

Now there's a definite feeling of disappointment in his voice. I suddenly notice he seems somewhat young for a doctor, not really much like the normal image of one. The pieces come together, and I finally realise that he must be relatively new, not much older than a few years after graduation from university from the looks of him. Without thinking, I give a small smile, before realising that we had just been discussing the fact I'd had a heart attack and nearly died. As my smile fades, I try to confirm my best guess at why I'm in pain.

"...So basically, it died. I'm guessing that... it got replaced by a new one? And that's why my chest hurts like a goddamn bitch - ah. Uh, I..."

The doctor lets out a boisterous and very undoctorly laugh. I can't help but smile, and have a certain newfound respect for the person. He slowly calms down and collects himself, taking a big breath to kill off the last remnants of laughter.

"Oh dear, ah ha. That's fine Hisao, it's probably the best description of it I've heard to be honest. You've got a good head on you boy,"

He's loosened up. I feel somewhat more relaxed, a very welcome feeling indeed.

"That's exactly right. I should state though that, listen carefully here, this was pretty damn serious. You really dodged a bullet there, as even someone without your condition could well have died. You'll have to thank her for knowing CPR[2] - it saved your life, without a..."

"...her? Who's her? Where is she? Who is she!?"

My mind suddenly starts racing again. I've forgotten something. Something important. Something I need to remember.

"Uh... She... Uhm..."

He's taken aback by my sudden outburst, barely able to respond.

"Sorry, I'll have to... check with the nurse. Will you be okay in here alone for a bit?"

"Yes, I'll be fine."

"Hold on then."

He scurries out of the room, a look of dazed confusion on his face that, thinking back, is probably close to what I had only minutes ago. I sit my head back, looking at the ceiling as I try to remember what happened.

...

No use. Absolutely nothing. I rub my eyes in frustration as I try to remember and look around to calm myself down. As I do, I notice something unusual about the room I didn't notice before. On the pale wooden bedstand next to me on the right sits... a book. All I can see from the wide are the thick, slightly yellowed pages and the textured red of the sides of the covers. I furrow my brow as I gently reach sideways to grab the surprising find. As my right thumb presses onto the cover, I feel something. A bump. Too small to be part of the title, it barely registers it's so small.

Ba-dump.

I slowly bring the book above me to see.

Ba-dump.

My eyes widen, and my breath catches.

Ba-dump.

The door swings open, with the doctor rushing in.

"She was Lilly Sato... but... you know that now, don't you?"

"Y... yeah."

I calm down a little. Okay. Lilly brought me here. Lilly - apparently - knows CPR. Lilly left this braille book here. There's one more thing I can't quite remember...

"You'll need to thank her sometime. She saved your life."

"Mmm. She did. I had no idea..."

I put the book down on the bed in front of me. She knows CPR because she wanted to help me if anything went wrong. She learnt it secretly, never telling me, so I wouldn't bother trying to dissuade her. Shit, even I don't know CPR. She must have... really...

"...Oh shit."

Makahara quietly lets me continue as my memories flowed into my vision, trickling over my confused and struggling brain.

"She... I... I had..."

A torrent of memories began at once, and suddenly stopped. The entire scene seemed to play out in fast-forward right in front of me. I was back. I knew everything now, and more importantly, knew what I had to do.

"Doctor Makahara, do you know where she is now, or how I can contact her? Where exactly is this hospital?"

"Ah, we're currently in <character's home town>. You were stabilised in the school infirmary, but we needed to bring you here for the surgery. She didn't leave any contact details, nor where she would be."

I quietly take a moment to absorb and think over the information. I remember something I should've asked in the first place. I slowly ask it, dreading the answer.

"...How long have I been out?"

Doctor Makahara notices my expression, moving quickly to allay my concern.

"Not long. Due to the speed at which we needed to operate, you were moved here during the night on the same day you were brought in. The doctor who first gave you your implant still works here, so we didn't have to..."

I cut him off somewhat rudely, my mind focused like a razor's edge.

"How long was it?"

"...Oh. Uh, 4 days, in total. You'll need to stay here for a few more days yet for rehabilitation and observation though."

Okay, not as bad as I thought. First priority is to contact her.

"Would I be able to use a phone?"

"Sure, there's on on the bedstand next to you. Just dial zero first to dial outside the hospital. The phonebook's under the phone if you need it."

I hear a faint beeping coming from the doctor's pocket.

"Ah, sorry. do you need me for anything else?"

"No, that's fine. Thanks for helping."

"Okay,"

He moves to leave the room, opening the door and looking back.

"Just press the call button on the remote on the bedstand if you need help again."

"Sure. Thanks."

He leaves the room, leaving me once again in solitude.

"Alright. Now. To call Lilly."

[1] Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator history lesson GET.
[2] Not sure about Lilly learning CPR. While it makes the most sense from a medical perspective, it seems possibly a tad contrived. Maybe she gets a mobile phone, despite her old-fashioned personality.

[cpl_crud]

Plesant, if not overly melodramatic.

I know TC is going to have a cry and say something about "style guides" and the like, but I like to think that these first few steps into our would should be of your own choosing.

You seem to have your head around the basics of the game, and that's good, however I should warn you that writing in the VN format is quite different from writing prose (even though most of us still bend the rules of both generes).

In short, I liked it. Would haev been better with a conclusion though.... heh...