Today was Saturday, October 18th and I was currently in an ICU ward in Saint Wesley Fire Hospital, West Flame City. After telling me what they could, my parents had to leave, with Mom assuring me that she would check back on me soon. Left with more questions than answers, I settled on looking over the mummified Daina Scotland on the bed next to mine.
"Daina... you too... I wish I could fully remember what happened," I whispered to her. Mom had taken off the wrappings over her face, revealing unhurt skin. She seemed to be in some sort of discomfort, though. "Please be okay."
There was a knock, and two people entered. One was a nurse and the other was a patient, an old man with silver hair.
"Oh? What are you doing... WHAT THE!?" the nurse exclaimed.
"What is it, miss?" I asked, a little scared by her reaction.
"How are you out of bed already!? It wasn't but three hours ago you and the woman were being given a 12 hour long skin grafting operation."
"Um, I don't know! I'm just as confused as you are, ma'am!" Mom had told me about the operation. She was not allowed on it because her superiors knew the situation held her unfocused due to distress.
"Wait! Let's all calm down," said the man. We both turned to him. He looked at me. "Young man, do you remember me?"
"I'm sorry, do I know you?"
"Oh my, it looks like you have a bit of amnesia."
"Huh, my father told me the same. So I take it you know me?"
"I know your name, at least. Uh, I want to talk to you for a bit," he turned to the nurse, "with your permission, of course."
The nurse looked at the man. "I need to go take a rain check with my superiors. Mr. Williky, I suggest you keep your business short. You still need more monitoring."
"Yes ma'am, and thank you." With that, the nurse left the room and Dr. Williky turned to me. "Let's have a seat."
"OK." We went near Daina's bedside and I sat on the bed I woke up on. The old man took a chair in the room and he made himself comfortable. "So, what's up? Who are you?"
"So you really don't remember, huh?" he asked in an amused tone. I nodded. "Okay. My name is William Williky..."
As he said his first name, I was jolted, and a flood of memories washed through my brain. "Dr. William! I remember now! The field trip to Lava Side Island!"
"Well, that was quick! I'm glad to have you back. Bill Punjabé, right?"
I nodded. "Yes, that's me."
"Listen, you and your teacher..."
"Sister Daina," I cut in, pointing to her.
William nodded in acknowledgement and continued, "... were involved in an unspeakable incident."
"I now remember those intruders who broke into the PA room. I can barely remember the moments up until the explosion, though."
"Ah, yes… The explosion." He seemed to wince at that.
"How do you...?" I implored.
"I saw it along with everyone else after the escape. Let me tell you of what I remember before waking up here in this hospital. You see, after the first shot, Keith got into a fight with the rifle wielder and I tried to evacuate everyone. I'm sorry to say that you, Miss Daina and Keith were basically left for dead..." He looked very sad at the thought of losing his friend. "Poor Keith…"
"Whoa... Um, well… I forgive you I guess. But listen, during the fight, I think there was an accidental shot which damaged the PA's Lead Shield. Not only that, it came on and radiation was leaking out. My skin felt itchy because of UV exposure..."
"Radiation... Ah, it all makes sense now."
"Huh? What does...?"
"I'll be frank. I know exactly why you and Miss Daina are even alive right now, but I'm going to have to run a test on samples of your blood in order to prove it to you." I gasped. "Bill, this incident has made the two of you..."
"BLEKK!" Daina suddenly sat up, easily tearing apart her remaining cloth wraps, and retched up a shiny silvery, black substance all over her. Instead of soaking her torn wraps, it merely bubbled and oozed to the floor.
Joy overtook me, although I was forced to quickly turn away from her as she was also in her birthday suit. "Daina! You're awake!" Some shuffling and the chair scraping told me William turned as well, thankfully.
"Billy? Is that you?" Her voice was coarse and raspy, with traces of shock. "Are we dead? I don't remember a thing." There was a pause. "Uh… why am I…? Oh, wait… Are we in a hospital!?"
"We're alive and well, Sister Daina." I got up and went to the drawers. I rummaged through the adults' section and pulled out a gown large enough to fit her down to her knees. Still facing away from her, I walked backwards and then held it out to her. "Here, put this on."
"Thank you… Please hold on a moment." I nodded, trying my best and failing to suppress a massive blush. This situation was understandably embarrassing. "Okay, I'm done. Now, since when did you start calling me sister?" I turned to her, finding her smiling at the new way I had addressed her. "I kind of like it… But back to the matter at hand… are we really in the hospital?" She looked at William. "Oh, Dr. Williky… Hi… Have you been here long?"
"No mini amnesia for you, it seems," he said with a slight chuckle. "I'm glad to see you are alright, Miss Daina. Yes, we are in the hospital."
"Oh…Did I miss something…" Daina turned her head as she began to salivate. She groaned before vomiting out more of the unknown substance. "Blaarg! Ugh... That is seriously not improving. It tastes horrible!" She wiped her mouth and I moved to take a look. William was already studying it closely as Daina stood at my side.
"If I had to take a guess, then this mucky stuff looks like mercury..." William looked puzzled as Daina and I exchanged glances in shock. "It doesn't look like any mercury I've seen before. If anything, it just looks like water with metal powder thickly dissolved into it."
"Uh, um… Doctor… what were you about to say to me just before Daina awoke?" I asked, though now I was somewhat afraid to hear the answer. So many strange things were occurring this morning that I could barely follow. Right now, I just had a bad feeling, not too dissimilar from how I felt after my nightmare.
William retook his chair and sat down, motioning with his hands for us to do the same. "I think you'll need to sit for this. I'm going to be as straight as I can with you." Daina and I once again exchanged glances before obeying, wanting to get to the bottom of all this. "Now, what I'm about to tell you is a closely guarded secret, known only to me, my wife, my brother in law, a friend, and the more trusted staff at SP Plasma Corp. A secret that now has relevance to you two. Do you remember the radioactive isotope, Pyrium Unstable?"
"Wait a minute!" Daina suddenly exclaimed. "Bill, what happed to your wound? You took the shot that was going to kill me and I desperately tried to help you… Everything after that is a bit of a haze… But I definitely remember the Particle Accelerator exploding. I remember light and pain before darkness."
I felt the wound, but there was nothing but skin and muscle. It was fine, as if it never happened. But that could not be. It had not been nearly long enough for my grievous injury to already be healed to such an extent. I was not even feeling any pain in the area. "I… have no idea… William?"
"If you would allow me to continue uninterrupted… Right at this very moment, you two have Pyrium Unstable coursing through your body, slowly binding with the carbon in your cells." Daina and I gasped at such an impossible sounding revelation. "The truth is that Pyrium U is not actually radioactive. That is just what we tell the general public. Pyrium U is actually called "Pyrium-PE." It possesses a potent amount of a special latent energy, way more than the tiny amounts found in SRT and LRT. My brother-in-law is just like you two, and he calls it "Plasma Energy." Under a microscope, this energy can be observed randomly exchanging from point to point in the form of electricity, similar to nervous pulses. He has been researching it for a very long time. He calls the whole process of the organic fusion of Pyrium-PE in one's body the Atomic Plasma Energy Heritage Mutation, or APEH Mutation for short. Curiously, Plasma Energy grants some strange properties in living things; extraordinary abilities… Dare I say, super powers, if you will."
"Okay… My mind is blown on so many levels right now…" I commented. "I don't even know where to start…"
"This… Plasma Energy…" began Daina, "is it what… healed us from whatever the PA's explosion did to us?"
"From our burns and our surgery?" I added.
William nodded. "Yes. Daina, you know that cells only divide a set number of times, right?" Daina nodded. She was not only good at Chemistry, but biology as well. "Well, Plasma Energy doesn't seem to care about that, with some limit though. You can now heal from almost any injury provided you have the energy to heal it. However, the vast majority of Plasma Energy is produced in one's heart, so if you lose your heart, you won't recover… at all; kaput." Daina and I grimaced. "Likewise if your head is cut off. There's no healing from that. But enough depressing talk. There is the matter of a slight danger you two are currently in."
"Does my mercury vomit have anything to do with this quote and quote danger you speak of?" said Daina surprisingly calmly, much to my shock.
"You two just finished healing, so you don't have a lot of Plasma Energy right now. But when it inevitably replenishes, you will not have control of it and the unique powers that were "configured" to you will start flaring up."
"Like super strength?" I asked. William did not look confused. I was not sure how I would describe the look he gave me, so I said, "When I awoke, I was practically mummified in cloth wrappings. After a bit of weird paralysis, I suddenly tore it all apart as if it were wet toilet paper." I looked at Daina. "Just like how Daina tore hers as she woke up to vomit."
"Yes, I suppose. That is a possible symptom of lack of control. Here is what needs to happen. In order for you two to be able to safely reintegrate into society, you two are going to need to learn how to control your "Plasma Power". To do that, I'd like you to visit me at this address." He took out and showed us a piece of paper. "Julie and I have our own lab back home where we conduct our own research. I have a PhD in Chemistry and Biology, and she has a PhD in Physics and Electrical Engineering, so we make a great team."
"Whoa, you guys are super smart!" I looked at the piece of paper. "Chicken Great Lane, West Flame City," I read.
"Yes, right here in the city. Bill, your mother is Dr. Punjabé, correct?" I nodded. "I will explain all of this to her and attempt to convince her to take you two under my care. Bill, Miss Daina, I am sorry about school, but this is very important. I'm sure you wouldn't want to place your colleagues in danger by your new gift." I shook my head at that, shuddering briefly.
"No, sir," answered Daina.
"Look forward to it. If you two work hard, I'm sure we will get this all sorted out by the end of the midterm break." William got up and turned to leave. "Okay, I believe I may have overstayed my welcome. I'll be seeing you."
"Bye, Dr. William!"
"Just 'William' is fine." He waved behind him before exiting through the door.
I looked at Daina, and she looked at me. Here we were, lucky survivors of a fiery situation, and our skins were without mark. It was as if we were new people. "Sister Daina..."
"What is it, Bill?"
"How are you feeling?" I asked.
"Except for a small tummy ache, I feel more than fine," she replied.
I felt a smile creeping on my face, and Daina returned it with a divine equivalent. "The latter makes two of us."
Late that afternoon, around 4:30 PM, Daina and I were discharged from the hospital, albeit reluctantly on the part of the staff. All kinds of tests were ran on us but nothing was found to be amiss with us. At least, the tests didn't point out the largely mysterious Plasma Energy in our systems. Therefore there was no reason to keep us. Dad, Daina and I proudly walked out of the hospital front door and towards the parking lot with smiles on our faces.
"Boy am I glad to be out of there! I was getting sick of hospital food," I mused.
"Billy!" Daina gave my shoulder a playful flick. "You barely ate any of it!"
"Well then, why don't we get you two to Dr. Williky's residence so that you can have a proper meal?" suggested Dad. While we were being tested, William had spoken to Mom and she called Dad to come pick us up. She explained everything to him just before we left. To say he took it all with a mountain sized grain of salt like she did was an understatement.
"I'm already looking forward to it! What are we walking at this leisurely pace for?"
"Well, well, I see you are still as voracious as ever when it comes to food, my son!" mused Dad. The three of us shared a laugh.
William had already gone home. He had only suffered a minor head trauma from being sent flying for a few yards due to edge most wind force from the research center's explosion. He was definitely pretty strong for an old man. He was supposedly getting some stuff "ready for us", whatever that meant. It was a surprise that I could hardly wait to discover.
I began feeling strange as I climbed into Mom's car. I could feel minute, periodic vibrations randomly taking place inside of me, and a light but annoying buzzing was going off in my ears. "Hey, Daina, do you hear… buzzing?"
"Buzzing? No…" Daina replied. "But my ears are sort of ringing all of a sudden, and my tummy ache is getting worse."
My eyes widened. "Daina, our Plasma Energy must be building. Maybe we should get you to a trash can before you…"
"Urk!" Daina held it in long enough to get back out of the car before retching. "Blaarg! Ugh…" A puddle of dark, silver mercury formed on the ground. "Darn… Mr. Punjabé, we really need to get going!" Daina said as she got back into the car. "Man, I feel really hungry right now…"
"Okay, here we go," said Dad as he started the car.