The Explosion

Chapter 16

Mia placed the wet cloth on Luna's forehead as the girl took a few sips from one of the water bottles Lily had brought in her backpack from the shop. Lily had taken the reluctant Kenny over into the opposite corner of the Doctor's room to play with the toy there. She'd had to stand it back up but other than that it was fine. She watched and congratulated him as he pushed the bead over small loops and joined them back with their colours; it was nice watching him – she had played with the same type of toy herself when she used to go to the hospital when she was little. She kept looking over to Mia to check that everything was okay but Mia had her back to her so it wasn't giving her much insight. It had been fifteen minutes since she had found Mia with Luna and Kenny – Zoe and Max still hadn't shown up. They'll be fine. It's a big hospital; they are probably still searching.

*

Rosemary stared out of the window on the opposite side of her room. The blue sky felt lifeless and Rosemary felt empty. She tilted her head to look at Vivian and Thyme. Vivian had Shelly cuddled tightly to her chest and Thyme had his arm wrapped around Vivian. They her both asleep with their heads on the bed's soft pillow and it gave Rosemary a sense of warmth to watch them. Thyme had always wanted a younger sister to be able to take care of and so had Rosemary – it was a shame that it was under these circumstances that they were able to get that wish.

As slowly and quietly as she could, Rosemary lifted herself off the bed and picked up the forgotten wok. The door softly slid open, scraping almost silently over the pale carpet as Rosemary slipped though and closed it behind her again.

"Shh," she said to Bailey when he ran to greet her after her painfully slow trip down the stairs. She gave him a ruffle of his fur before placing the wok lightly on the kitchen counter. "I don't think we'll be needing that," she said to herself. "Yet."

*

"I think maybe we should leave," Gary said to Sam, who still looked pretty shaken up.

"What about your shoulder?"

"Mia seems to have done a pretty good job of it. We can say thanks to her before leaving and make sure that she thinks I'm alright to go,"

"Yeah," Sam said, biting her lip with guilt.

"What's wrong?"

"I Just- I was really horrible to her. She did so well and I yelled at her."

"You've been through a really hard time, Sam."

"And who's to say she hasn't? She could have had the most perfect life or she could have had a life that was the equivalent of Hell. I don't know. And I treated her like that! No 'thank you'. I just yelled and told her to leave. I acted like a monster."

"Then we'll find her and you will apologise."

Sam seemed to consider that for a moment before reluctantly saying, "Fine."

"Great! Um, where is she?"

"Yeah, that's the thing. I don't have a clue."

"Right. We'd better start looking then."

"You think I can walk on this? I couldn't even get out the door of the last room."

Gary's face suddenly brightened with excitement. "We'll get you a stretcher!"

"No. That is the last thing we are going to do, Gary. No, no, no. Absolutely not."

"Back in a sec!" Gary said, running from the room.

"Gary! No!"

But Gary had gone and Sam was about to go through one hell of an embarrassment.

*

"Ugh!" Zoe moaned. She must have been searching the hospital for half an hour now and she hadn't found anyone. No Mia, no Lily, no Max. And no Sam or Gary. As much as she was angry at Sam; she hoped they were okay. Maybe she should head back to them and check? Should she? Or shouldn't she? She had no clue what to do. Ughhhhhh. "Let's split up!" She said, mimicking Max's voice – not rudely, but in a very exhausted voice – "What a great plan that was."

"Yeah, wasn't my best."

Zoe nearly jumped a mile when Max's voice materialised out of thin air behind her.

"Jeez, Max! You scared the hell out of me!" Max sent her a mocking face in return and sped up to walk next to her.

"How are you finding this lovely walk?" He said, keeping his head facing forward.

"Absolutely splendid," Zoe replied sarcastically.

"It was technically a good idea. Mia wouldn't have felt as overwhelmed with just one of us."

"That is true. I'm just glad I found one of us," Zoe replied with a faint smile. "I was starting to get pretty fed up."

"Haha, yeah," Max replied, hiding his beaming smile. One of us? Zoe just called me one of us!

"Better find the others I guess," Zoe said, speeding up her pace slightly. "Places to go, people to see and all of that."

Max nodded and matched his pace with Zoe's as they walked in unison.

*

"Do you know what's wrong?" Lily said quietly to Mia. She had left Kenny on the other side of the room, playing with his toys. She kept looking back to check that he was alright and, so far, he seemed pretty engrossed in his activity.

"I'm not overly sure," Mia replied, "but I think it may be a bad case of the flu."

"That's good, right? That it's just the flu?"

"Not really. When I say bad, I mean it could be really bad," Mia said, emphasizing the 'really'. "She could end up being fine but... she could also not." Mia was talking quietly as well and, with a pained face, she leant closer to Lily and put her mouth to her ear. "She could die."

Lily's eyes widened.

"She is showing some severe symptoms and she isn't really responding. Lily, I'm not sure what to do. She could be fine within a week – I'm not experienced at this, Lily. I don't know what I'm doing. I... I shouldn't even be doing this. I'm dangerous."

"What do you mean?"

"I need to monitor her longer to see what the case is, really," Mia said abruptly. "I could be being way over reactive. So far, she is acting irritable, unresponsive, and she doesn't seem to want to stay awake that much. I'll see what I think a bit later. She could just have a really bad stomach ache and therefore she's feeling rubbish. I don't know. I'll see. Having abdominal pain is a life-threatening symptom for adults, not children. At least that is what I read on some website a while ago. There was a list of symptoms for adults, babies and children; severe abdominal pain was just in the adult section."

"Wow. I probably wouldn't even remember that. You're smart, Mia. You need to respect yourself more."

Mia didn't say anything for a second but then replied with, "Thanks," and a brief smile.

"So, what do we do now?" Lily asked. "Find the others or wait here?"

"We might accidentally miss them if we move," Mia said nervously. "Plus, we have water and stuff for Luna here."

"Yeah, you're right. So, I guess we just sit and wait."

The two girls shared a look before sending their eyes separate ways as they waited to be found, wishing with every bone in their body that, somehow, everything was going to be alright.

Author's note:

Thank you to everyone who is reading, voting and commenting on my story! And also, please make sure to check out Pingupotato's work – it is amazing! I hope you are all doing well. See you in the next chapter!