Ima's Kingdom

Part One: Chapter Five

We arrived at our designated part of Umbras and headed to the first street of houses. We walked hand in hand up to the first house. He rang the doorbell and we waited for somebody to answer. A few seconds later, an old lady appeared from the other side of the door. She was very short and had a walking stick in her right hand.

"Can I help you?" She asked quietly.

We explained the situation to her and she kindly let us in. We were led into a living room which looked as if it had been decorated centuries ago. We sat down on an old leather sofa and the old lady sat opposite us on a patchwork arm-chair. She began to drink from her tea-cup, and gave us a weird sort of look. It was an unexplainable sort of look that made me feel awkward inside. Thankfully, Fortis created the first conversation which took away from the awkwardness of the situation.

"So are you able to provide us with any evidence Mrs.. um.."

"Brown." She said filling in Fortis's pause.

She went on to discuss what she had experienced when she was recently in hospital.

She said whilst trying to hold back the tears,

"I was in hospital just last month as I had terrible pain in my chest. When I arrived they asked me loads of irrelevant questions about my past, my home and how many children I have. They were separating patients into different groups. They didn't tell me about all of the groups and they only gave me information about the group I was placed in. I was in group three. Luckily for myself I wasn't placed in group four, I had previously heard from a few friends that group four was normally the group that had the most deaths, or the weakest group.

Group three wasn't much better though, I would say more than five people died everyday whilst I was there. Imagine how many would die in the lower group. It was awful, I couldn't believe how badly patients were being treated. so bad I considered suicide."

At that moment I knew this wasn't just one person sabotaging Umbras, It was a whole gang of people. I just wanted to find out who was in charge of this horrific scandal.

We asked Mrs. Brown a few more questions and then we left her home and headed to the next. I prayed what she had told us wasn't true. But all the other houses seemed to have similar stories to tell. We had been out visiting for what felt forever.

We arrived at what could only be described as a fairy-tale cottage. It was the most adorable house I had ever seen. Again we walked hand and hand up to the front door, I slammed the knocker against the white wood and took a step back. Suddenly it opened and inside stood a tall, fancy looking man who had a perfectly combed brown quiff. He was quite good-looking and had a deep voice. He invited us into a massive dinning room and we sat around a grand oak table. We explained the situation again and just like before the man was kind enough to give us some valuable evidence.

He said,

"I was admitted to hospital due to what appeared to be an incurable illness. Thankfully it wasn't but at the time all the Doctors were convinced that I couldn't be cured. They told me on arrival I'd be in group four. Which I had heard rumours about before I had gone to hospital. I had already told myself that I was going to die. But I was determined that if I didn't die I would get whoever was behind this whole thing sued. Better yet killed. I want to make their life misery just as they had made mine.

The ward was like something from a horror film. There were dying people everywhere and some were taking their last breaths when I was brought in. The nurses didn't care. They just let people die. They told them that they were incurable just like they had told me. That was a lie and the Doctors knew it. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. What type of a monster is your Sister to let this happen!"

By this point I was crying, I was done with being strong.

"She didn't know it was happening!" I yelled back at the man.

I wept so hard that I thought I would run out of tears. Thankfully Fortis was there to support me. He held me in his arms and apologised to the poor man I had just screamed at. He explained that we would be taking his story very seriously and giving it as evidence towards the case.

We then left his residence and headed back towards the castle.

It had been a long and tiring day just as I'd expected. But I knew what I had been expecting all along, Fortis did have feelings for me and I felt the same way back.