Chapter 30: Time To Wake Up (1/2)
The silence coming from the hospital ward was unbearable for many to say the least. Gale's condition was stable for the most part. Since arriving Zinnia had refused to leave his side. Resting next to his bed, she had fallen asleep, resting her head on the side of his bed. Everyone else waited outside. Percy began trailing back and forth, unable to sit still while Emil was also in the mists of catching some sleep. Alton was silent like the others. His eyes fixated on his phone and the banned account. He was stuck in this trance until Iris spoke up paranoid. ”This is a joke… first, you all get banned for no real reason and then Gale… he's going to be alright. I promise.”
”We don't know that.” Alton pointed out. ”Injuries like that… he's in a bloody coma… they don't wake up from that.”
”You don't know that. He'll wake up in no time just you wait.”
”No, they really don't. Trust me on this one, or you'll spend your whole life waiting for them to wake up…”
Percy stopped pacing as he sighed sitting in the chair opposite to Emil. ”I can't believe we were played so easily. I should have gone with Gale. If I did none of this would have happened.”
”No point beating yourself up about it. What happened happened. No point dwelling on the what if.” Emil grumbled opening one eye. ”We should trust the doctors and wish for Gale to make a full recovery.”
”Yeah, I suppose… but what the hell happened back there?”
Alton shrugged his shoulders still not quite sure himself. ”That I cannot explain any better than you. I had a doctor check me out, I seem to be perfectly fine.”
”It doesn't make any sense. We watched you have a mental breakdown right there and then. You were this close to exploding on us and then nothing.”
”You sound disappointed.”
”Shocked than anything else. What went through your mind when you know, it happened?”
Alton ran his hands over his face taking a long breath. ”I really can't remember. When I was being overwhelmed by the substance, everything went black. I couldn't do anything. For that short moment, I had no control over my body… But I do remember the partway through I saw something.”
”What did you see?” Percy asked, intrigued.
”A Garden?”
”Hmm, that is interesting,” Iris muttered.
”That important somehow?”
”I don't think so, probably not. But there was this story my father used to tell me when I was a child. It was about a garden which grants us all our powers. The garden of grief they called it.”
”The garden of grief? You don't think it has anything to do with the situation at hand.”
Iris shook her head, peering into the room. ”Hardly, like I said it's just a story.”
”How does the story go?”
”Well, it's believed there is a garden in the centre of the world. One which never withers. One which can never die. It is said everyone in their lifetime visits this garden—those who do walk away with mythical powers. The Garden grows forever. But it's said five individuals were given powers far greater than anything imaginable. They became so powerful they became the embodiment of human emotion. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.”
”The five stages of grief… the garden of grief,” Alton muttered.
”Come to think of it, wasn't that what Alton was muttering before kicking into overload. You don't think.”
Iris laughed, wiping her eye. ”You can't seriously be suggesting this made-up fantasy land at the centre of the world is the cause of these mental overloads? Like I said, it's just a story.”
”Pretty cool story,” Emil spoke, closing his eyes again.
”Yeah. It's my sister's favourite. It's funny that I remember this now but when we were kids. About six or seven, Alice made plans to run away and find the garden. We made this crazy plan as she was so fixated that it was real. I was in no state to tell her no. I was having fun, so I just followed. We went looking for only six hours before we ran out of food. We were found by our father in the park just around the corner from our home digging! Bloody digging to the centre of the world hoping to find the garden. Ah, what fools we were.”
Everyone gave a small chuckle. ”Kids will be kids,” Percy stated.
”Yeah.”
”Why was she so obsessed with finding the garden?”
”Well, in the story, it's believed if you go past the five stages of grief, the garden shall offer you salvation. Ideals beyond your wildest imagination. Guess Alice got a bit too inspired.” She snickered, sitting down next to Alton. She glanced over his shoulder, seeing him holding a business card with the number 4562 on. She looked shock muttering. ”Wait, isn't that…”