by Thea Chin
Jaiden (7:41): Good luck with your first day back! Text me if you aren’t feeling well and need a ride home!
Her heart wavers at that message. She feels bad for limiting conversation with him, and it does pull at her stomach when she recalls how hurt he looked the last time she kept plans like these from him. In the spur of the moment, Tsukiko unlocks her phone and types out a quick message.
Me (7:41): I’m going in for another head scan per Dr. Lawrence’s recommendation. I’ll see what I can find.
“Miss Tsukiko Tsujii?” calls a voice at the door. “Are you ready?”
“I am,” she replies, turning off the device.
Dr. Lawrence lets herself in and takes the basket. “Follow me.”
As they walk, the phone buzzes softly as the screen lights up. The doctor glances down at the illuminated device with a tight expression.
The two enter the scanning room. Behind Tsukiko, the doctor lets out a soft curse.
“It seems like the radiologist is not here yet. You are rather early today,” she says, looking at the glass panel that partitions the room. “Let me get you situated, and I’ll be right back afterwards.”
Tsukiko nods obediently and lies down on a metallic surface as told. Dr. Lawrence slides her into the tube and excuses herself.
Inside the transparent dome, Tsukiko shifts her eyes to look around her surroundings. The last time she was here was in her dreams. That thought and the memory of the monster that came after her sends a chill down Tsukiko’s spine.
Now moving her head to allow for a greater view of the place, she looks for anything that might give her a clue about the memory disappearances or the 42nd moon curse. She doesn’t spot any gas tanks, thus disproving her initial hypothesis. There are, however, some liquid containers connected to the machine she is in currently. More interestingly though is the file cabinet in the radiologist’s room.
She shifts her attention to how she can escape her current confinement quickly and return before Dr. Lawrence arrives. She figures she can worry about the latter part later when the clasp of the machine clicks and the glass dome pushes open.
Once at the cabinet, another problem presents itself in the form of a lock. It is four digits long, so Tsukiko tries the hospital’s street number then the year it was built, none of which work. Next, she tries combinations of the digits of Leiah’s hospital id. Still, she has no luck. Frustrated, she systematically goes through different digits while listening carefully to the clicks of what works. By some miracle, she hears just what she needs after a few tries. She recognizes the combination as Darren’s birthday but pays it no mind as she pulls at the handle and drags a number of files into view. Sparing no time, Tsukiko shuffles and reads through them.
Nothing Mark could have warned her about or anything she could have imagined would prepare her for what she reads off those manilla folders.
The first folder she grabs is labeled “Dust, Lauren,” someone she supposes is President Dust’s late soulmate. She opens it and the picture on the patient file nearly makes her scream.
“Well aren’t we the little prying Pandora?”
Through shaking motions, Tsukiko looks up to see the very eyes that were looking at her from the file—the very same eyes with the word “DECEASED” stamped over them.
“D-Dr. Lawrence? Y-you had a twin?”
The woman laughs dryly. “I suppose that is the easiest way to explain it, but no. I’m exactly what you think I am.” She pulls off her left glove, revealing metallic fingers. “Nice to meet you, Miss Tsukiko Tsujii; I’m what would have been your mother-in-law.”
Tsukiko can only sit there on the floor with her jaw hanging. “So there’s a cure? For the 42nd moon curse, I mean. Since you’re alive, there must be a way, isn’t there?”
“Unfortunately, you are wrong there, dear. As you can see from the report, Lauren Dust is dead.”
“But you’re—”
“I’m not Lauren Dust, now am I? I’m Dr. Lawrence. Always was and always will be until I die again.”
“Again?”
She nods. “See, our research had to be funded by the Council, and they weren’t about to fund something like keeping a soulmate alive when they have a new cub under the Dust family name. Thus, the research you heard about wasn’t about reversing the woe of the 42nd moon at all; it had to be something that benefited the Council as well, so in order to save myself, I proposed to be a subject to something the Grand Councilor has been looking into for a while now.” She points to a file that reads “Experiment: Lawrence.”
Tsukiko grabs it quickly and sucks in a breath when she reads the subtitle of the research.
“Re-biosuscitation,” she breathes. Then the subtext. “Resurrection.”
“Now you know,” Dr. Lawrence says off-handedly while moving towards the scanning machine once more.
“Are you going to erase my memories of this conversation now?” Tsukiko asks.
“Why of course, dear. It’s why we had it in the first place. Now if you would lay down on what I have spent my entire second life on please.” She slides the tray out for her. “I call it a ‘neuro repositioner.’”
Tsukiko bites her lip but lays down anyway, knowing she doesn’t have much of a choice, especially when the information she found is supported by the seemingly omnipresent Council.
“Since you found out what this is all about, I can just run the machine myself without putting on a whole show with that imbecilic radiologist.”
“Wait,” calls Tsukiko before she closes the door at her feet. “Was there ever research done? On reversing the curse I mean. Maybe ones burned in a fire?”
The doctor laughs again. “Oh, that? The only thing President Dust burned in his rage is the notification that the Council was withdrawing all its funding; the Council has a way of keeping its wolves under control like that. The only way Destiny stays afloat is by providing support to a lot of the Council’s research. Like you, for example.”
“Me?”
Dr. Lawrence smirks, and Tsukiko can feel a liquid seeping through her gown.
“Good night, dear.”
Tsukiko squeezes her eyes shut as she wills herself to remember at least some of the conversation as drugs in the liquid make her sleepier and sleepier.
Resurrection, resurrection, resurrection!
Her eyes flutter open when an incessant beeping fills the room. Her surroundings look underwater just like in her dreams, and to add to the similarity, a person in a white lab coat makes her way hurriedly to where she lays. She makes out Dr. Lawrence’s distraught face as another person approaches. The radiologist, she supposes. The two banter for a moment before they turn their attention back to her. Dr. Lawrence pulls a familiar pill out of her coat while the liquid is drained from Tsukiko’s chamber. Tsukiko is feeling extremely tired now like she has taken triple the dosage of her prescribed painkillers. As the doctors lift her out, she doesn’t even feel the medication going down before her whole world goes black.
* * *
“T-S-U-K-I-K-O T-S-U-J-I-I,” repeats Jaiden, leaning over the counter.
The front desk presses on a few buttons before looking up at him over her glasses. “No one by that name checked in today,” she says.
“Seriously? She even works here!”
“Maybe you’ve got the wrong hospital, Son. Now if I can please help the next actual patient in line.”
Jaiden lets out a groan as he returns to Darren’s side in the waiting room.
“Are you sure something happened?” the latter asks again. “My soulmark isn’t glowing.”
“The scanning room has bad reception. See how Matthew’s necklace is clear?”
“But this isn’t some wifi indicator; it’s a soulmark.”
“Then how do you explain this?” Jaiden shows his brother a string of messages between him and Tsukiko.
“What about it?” Darren frowns. “It’s just her saying that she’ll text you when she’s done with a smiley face emoji.�
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“That’s exactly it!” exclaims the shorter male. “The smiley emoji is the code we agreed on if she were ever in danger earlier this year.”
Darren feels his heart racing. “Maybe she just forgot?”
“I doubt it.”
Jaiden sends another text.
Me (1:35): I’m at Destiny. Wanna grab lunch? :) :) :) :) :)
A speech bubble pops up not a minute later.
Ki (1:35): I’m really busy today, so maybe next time? :(
Me (1:36): Aw, I’ll bring some take out home for you. Hopefully it’ll help you relax after a long day. :) :) :) :) :)
Ki (1:37): Thanks! :)
Did she forget making this code with Jaiden along with all her other forgotten memories? No, Tsukiko did not visit the scanning room for a long time after, and she couldn’t have sent the emoji on accident after all the hints Jaiden gave her.
The boys turn to each other with wide eyes before dashing to the stairs to make it to the basement lab.
“Hey! You can’t go there!” shouts several employees, but their cries fall on deaf ears.
Having been there before, Jaiden leads the way until they reach the door of the lab. They kick and claw at it, but nothing works. Soon, authorities catch up to and restrain them.
“No, you don’t understand! My friend—she’s being harmed in there!”
“In the storage lab?” scoffs the police.
“He’s telling the truth! You’ve got to believe us!”
A medical staff who accompanied the authorities scans his badge on the door and pushes it open after a beep.
The boys cry Tsukiko’s name at the same time as they break free from the police with their superhuman strength and burst into the room.
Unlike in Jaiden’s memory, the room is grey and dark with all its lights turned off. He quickly sees the glass machine though and a headache shoots through his brain. Jaiden ignores the pain and runs towards it.
“She was here,” he murmurs with fear. “She was here.”
“Alright, that’s enough.” A pop sounds from the direction of the police, and Jaiden registers a familiar electrical sensation in his ribs before he collapses to the ground.
* * *
It’s dark and cold when Tsukiko comes to.
Resurrection, resurrection, resurrection, she continues thinking to herself. When she is fully conscious again, her thoughts surprise her; she can still remember everything that went on in the scanning room.
“Awake now, aren’t we, dear?”
The second thing Tsukiko realizes is that she is tied up. She looks up frantically and sees Dr. Lawrence in the corner of a rather plush room.
“Where are we?” she shivers.
“The Council’s headquarters, of course. I’m sure by now you realize you still remember some of its most well-kept secrets. You didn’t think it would let you run around spreading that information, did you, dear?”
“I thought you were supposed to erase it from me.”
“I thought so too and is why I’m here awaiting trial with you.”
“Trial?”
“Well, it appears that although we have been improving our neural repositioner to be more effective and precise, we didn’t consider that the human body can build an immunity to it. Unfortunately, since you are our first subject tested with it, we did not know when it would become ineffective. As you may have figured, you have reached that point, and since I am the one who told you things I should not have, I am to stand in front of the Council for trial.”
“What are they going to do?”
“To me? They might kill me for good now since I was never of much use to them after serving as a subject for their re-biosuscitation research. They had me doing neuro repositioning afterwards, but you can see how well that went. To you though, I am less sure especially since you have friends who will remember you. Maybe they’ll frame you for something before killing you,” she answers casually. Since she’s already died once, there isn’t as much excitement the second time around.
By the time she finishes, a guard walks by their room and calls out both their names. Dr. Lawrence gets up to greet the door.
“You first,” the man announces, pointing at the older woman. She simply hums and follows him to who knows where.
Now alone, Tsukiko finally has the time to process all the information she has gathered. First, as absurd as the idea seemed on the drawing board, St. Valentine really was erasing her and her friends’ memories when convenient. How much of her life was erased by that machine? Did she really lose her memories from a concussion, or did Dr. Lawrence have something to do with that too? On top of everything, it is apparently possible to raise the dead, and the doctor is apparently President Dust’s late soulmate. Honestly, if she wasn’t living with eight werewolves, she would have scoffed at the information and turned Dr. Lawrence in at the mental ward. Surely, however, the doctor must be telling the truth if Tsukiko is now being held captive by the Council itself and possibly awaiting a premature death.
She doesn’t notice herself shaking until she spots a painting on the wall of a gentleman morbidly holding the severed head of a wolf in one hand and a crown in the other. That must be the revolutionary Jacque Taylor who took down the previous king, she realizes upon noticing the soulmark deliberately and detailedly painted on his wrist. She looks at her own mark to find it covered by a metal bracelet. She can only imagine that it blocks Darren’s mark from receiving signals from hers. Does that mean no one knows that she’s in danger? No, Jaiden must figure it out when she fails to return home tonight especially after what she’d texted him. She draws in a shaky breath. He has to.
Speaking of texts, she wonders where her phone is. She wonders if the council has it, and if they are aware of the frantic messages her friend must be spamming her with. Never mind her phone though; Tsukiko cannot even tell what day or time it is. Maybe they’ve knocked her out for months and already dealt with the Mu Alpha boys without her or Dr. Lawrence knowing. Maybe—
“Tsukiko Tsujii.”
Knowing that she is tied up, the guard does not even wait before opening the door and entering. With a few quick cuts with his claws, he releases her from her constrictions and brings her to her feet.
“The Council is ready to see you,” he says.
The Council’s courtroom is no less eerie than Tsukiko had expected. She squints at the spotlights directed at her as she makes her way to the podium at the center of the floor. Around her, she vaguely makes out opera-style balconies lining the walls.
“Name?” one of the side balconies calls.
“Tsu—”
“Tsukiko Tsujii.” There are footsteps in the direction of the largest booth directly in front of the podium, the booth reserved for—
The Grand Councilor.
A gasp of surprise ripple through the walls. Is this case really serious enough to warrant the presence of the Jacque Taylor himself?
“Skip the introductions,” he orders, his voice booming through the hall. “We all know she is guilty of holding illegal information.”
“His Grandness has issued his verdict. Now for the sentence?” the booth on the right of Jacque Taylor’s announces.
Everyone is quiet, awaiting his decision instead of talking amongst themselves like usual. Jacque Taylor is silent for a while before asking, “She is the experiment soulmate, yes?”
Experiment for what?
“Yes, your Grandness.”
A hollow chuckle can be heard. Suddenly, a figure leaps from the balcony and approaches the defendant. Tsukiko can hear the soft landing of agile canine paws before the echo-y tapping of a cane bounces around in her skull.
“Tsukiko Tsujii…” he says again. “The Dust boy’s mess up.”
He flicks forward his cane to lift her chin. Tsukiko is oddly calm at the moment despite being in the middle of a literal wolf den. She knows it is no use fighting against the Council; they have even her friends wrapped around their fingers. Instead
, she has decided the moment she stepped into the room to not let anything faze her. She sings a familiar song in her head to keep her composure.
Each night I seek, yet each night he hides…
“Another one who broke away from my perfect system. As you filthy humans often say, like father like son,” he continues. “Their soulmates do interest me, I must admit, hence why I had Lawrence be reborn. She has failed me, however.”
Tsukiko nearly loses her control when they toss in the bloodied body of the said woman on Jacque Taylor’s cue. She painfully cranes her neck to look at Tsukiko. The girl meets her gaze as steadily as she can. Her body is dragged away immediately after.
… leaving at the altar his broken bride.…
“As such, I will allow you to choose your own sentence. Do you think you can replace Dr. Lawrence’s previous position in the basement of the hospital under a new identity,” the Grand Councilman offers, “or are you more interested in her current one?”
“If I may speak, I do think I am dead either way,” she says calmly.
Eyes shift to her metal bracelet. They can all imagine a fading mark beneath it all.
… seek him, hold him, don’t let him flee…
“We here at the Council treat our members well. Besides, it will be a waste of a soulmark if we had to just dispose of you; it isn’t easy to find a compatible body, you know. If you take my offer, we will grant you the opportunity to continue Lawrence’s projects as well as a guarantee to revive you after your current soulmark brings about your demise.”
Waste of a soulmark? Compatible body? Tsukiko digs her nails into her palms as she fits what she just heard into previous hypotheses. As she does so, an uncomfortable feeling churns in her stomach.
“And my friends? They’ll look for me.” They can’t bring them all to St. Valentine’s.
Someone in the side booth speaks up. “Are you bargaining with the Grand Councilman? Your audacity!”
Jacque Taylor puts a hand up to silence the speaker.
“You will make them forget you yourself.”