This hospital was much nicer than the last ; lighting, clean floors, and actual walls, for one. He didn't get nearly as bad of a vibe from this place. He slid his coat off and threw it over his shoulder. He raised his arm to check his watch. It appeared it was just past midnight. He had been walking for nearly three hours , now that he thought about it. He began walking around seven , shortly after he arrived at the hospital after the accident. He kept his eyes cast straight ahead now until he finally came across the front desk. He stopped , and set his coat down on it. "Uhm, excuse me."He spoke up to the women working behind the counter. His voice was a tad hoarse, by now. The secretary glanced up, offering a small smile to him. "What can i do for you , sir?"She asked softly. This was a younger woman. Not as old and decrepit as the one at the other hospital. The uniform even looked civilized and official, too. Not bad. At least he knew that Dominik was in good hands now.
Mattias managed to offer a tired smile in return to her. "I'm looking for a man who was supposedly transferred here from Vivantes Klinikum Am Urban about two or three hours ago. Do you have a patient named Dominik, by chance?" He explained. She didn't even have the check the clipboard of patients, nor any files. She answered him just as easy as that. "Oh, yes, he's the only patient that he have in our Intensive Care Unit at the moment, actually. We usually don't get patients in this bad off here."She said with a short sigh. He couldn't help but to feel his heart beat pick up significantly at what she had to say. He was still alive. Not in good condition, maybe, but he was still alive. And that was all that mattered to him. Nothing else mattered, as long as he was alive. "Do you think i could see him?"His voice sounded desperate and pitiful, really. He looked ill with exhaustion and fear, unfortunately. He hadn't slept. Hadn't ate. And spent hours just walking to get here.
"Visiting hours don't start for another hour, i'm sorry about that."She frowned. "But, we do have a nice waiting room with coffee and a telivision. Big ol' comfy chairs, too."She smiled at him once again as she spoke. She'd clearly delt with a lot of distraught visitors coming through before. Enough to where she still tried to find the bright side of things, when she could. Mattias fell silent for a few moments , glancing down. A shaky sigh fell from his lips. He wasn't sure if he could take even another agonizing thirty minutes of waiting to know if Dominik was going to be okay. He ran a hand back through his hair and looked at her once again. "Could i at least ask how he's doing?"He murmured. Well, he did cut right to the chase, now didn't he?
He could hardly focus. He could hardly even breathe, just wondering how he was doing, where he was , if he was dying. It was agonizing, to be quite honest. And he really didn't think that he could go on for another moment without knowing. "He did break a few bones, and shatter a rib or two. Poor thing is dealing with a bit of a punctured lung, too.. Kid was already born with just a lung and a half, breathin' was already a bit of a rough task for him as he was before."The secretary explained to him. "The nurses around here have been talking about him all evening ever since he got here. It's a miracle he's even still alive."She tacked on absently. Still alive. Those words echoed through his mind. A few broken bones? Broken ribs? Punctured lung? His amber eyed boy was broken, completely and utterly broken. And there was nothing that he could seem to do about it. Despite how she was trying to look on the bright side, Mattias couldn't help but to feel worse. He faked a smile, nonetheless, and agreed wit her. "It's a miracle indeed."He agreed, voice wavering as he spoke.
"Well, come along then, i'll take you back to the waiting room. I'll send a nurse to get you when it's time to go back and see Dominik."She assured him. And with that, she followed him along to where he'd spend his next hour or two.
Mattias soon sank down into the hard, tan leather chair of the waiting room. He leaned his head back against it with a wavering sigh. He felt sick. What kind of sick joke was it to show him his soulmate, just to have the universe threaten to take it away like that? It wasn't fair. Then again, what was fair? Jack shit. His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling above him.
English sector of Berlin, 20 years ago
Mattias : 8 years old
"Momma, when did you start to see color for the first time?" The little voice of Mattias chimed out. "You told me you'd tell me on my 8th birthday." And it just so happened that today was that day, too. He sat up eagerly in his seat and watched her move around the kitchen from where he was at the kitchen table. She cracked a weak smile and glanced over her shoulder at him for a moment. "Well, your father had just gotten back from working in the military."She began , a bit timidly. She glanced back down at the dishes in the sink whilst she watched them. "They were all coming back on this big, beautiful ship, you know? Those pretty cruise liners that come in here sometimes."She explained vividly to him. "He was one of the first to come off of that ship, and i began to see colors right then and there. Oh, it was so beautiful....I saw his eyes first. Big, deep blue eyes. Just as blue as the ocean. Just like your's, actually."She tacked a giggle on to the last of what she had said.
"I saw so many colors that day. The red of the ribbons swaying in the breeze where they hung on that ship.....The gorgeous white of the ship itself. Pasty white clouds , gorgeous yellow sun, pretty sand....But the most beautiful color i think i had seen that day was the color of your papa's eyes."She went on. She did tend to speak with a lot of gestures and hand motions. Little Mattias watched curiously as his mother's slender hands sloped and moved to describe the scenery around her at the time. He smiled. "Do you think papa saw colors too?"He asked.
That was when her chipper demeanor was cut short. "I think he did, at first."She murmured. Her voice sounded more grim now. More sad. She glanced away from her son once again. "You know, there is a such thing as....moving on, even from your soulmate."She said with a weak laugh. "As unfortunate as that is..." The little boy frowned. "Momma?"He asked after a few long moments of silence between the two of them. "Yes, baby?"She managed, voice shaking a tad. "Do you think i'll ever be able to see colors like you can?"
His mother had the warmest smile on his face in that moment. "Oh, mein Meer Kind..."She sighed. "Of course you will."She said sweetly to him.
"I don't think so."
His eyes remained on the ceiling for what felt like forever to him. Waiting. Wondering. What if Dominik did die before he even got to see him? Or worse, what if he died after? Everyone knows what happens when your soulmate dies. You could be seeing a world full of color because of them, then just like that, your world could go back to black and white. Soon , he began to drift off. He found himself drowning in the black, the silence.