6.

Five days of unconsciousness pass before consciousness returns. It returns only to a degree for when Samuel Lemmontine Fontaine opens his eyes, he does so with the oddest of sensations. Sammy is as numb as numb can be. He has been seriously medicated and will need to be for the rest of his life as things are.

Within those five days his wounds have been treated as well as possible and will need much more attention and many more surgeries. It is not just severe skin burns that he suffered but internal damage too. It will be an awfully long time, if that, before he may see the outside of the hospital again such is the damage. Upon opening his eyes, the first sight he will see is that of his mother. She has come to stand by his hospital bed in the moment his eyes have opened. Someone else is quite near in this moment too.

'Jim ... Jim ...' she says in an exited kind of panic. 'He's awake ... our boy is awake.'

'What?' he asks in a moment of waking before shuffling up and out of quite the comfortable chair he'd been using for sleeping and for waiting in over those past few days. 'Son ...' he says having come into Sammy's still groggy line of vision. 'He's not a boy by the way', Jim says to Estelle, reminding her as if she needed to be reminded. 'He's a man ...'

'What's this?' Sammy wants to speak out loud, but he can't, obviously enough due to his current circumstances. 'Mother and Father in the same place at the same time? Jeez, I must really be in poor shape for that to happen. What did happen?'

It takes a moment or two then it hits. He remembers the incidents of the Ball, if it can even be considered to have been a Ball. He remembers the confrontation with Majella, as unfortunate as it was, then remembers feeling as if he were burning from the inside out. There really must be quite the amount of damage. His inability to move or speak adds to that assumption.

'Will you get the nurse, or doctor, tell them our boy is awake?' Estelle asks of Jim.

'Me? Why can't you do it?' Jim just has to look over at Estelle to know he is already beaten; no point in questioning any further, besides Sammy may be in need of aid. 'Alright I'll do it.'

James 'Jim' Fontaine makes his way to the room's exit half looking back in the hopes that Estelle will have a change of heart, she doesn't. Doesn't matter, for Jim doesn't get to make it all the way to the door by such a moment a lady enters the room. She is clearly not a nurse or a doctor; she is not wearing any kind of uniform.

'Excuse me ...?' says Jim wanting to question this lady as to who she is and as to what her business in this room may be.

This arriving lady can't be a friend of Samuel's. If she were then why has Jim not seen her in the few days prior to this one and why did she just walk right on into the room without so much as offering a greeting or an introduction as to who she may be. She moves to Samuel's side, the opposite side to where Estelle is still standing. This stranger still does not offer a greeting or an introduction. What she does do is place both the palms of her hands onto Sammy's chest.

'How odd?' Estelle speaks while glancing back over at Jim. 'Excuse me ... what are you doing?' she asks now speaking directly to the stranger.

The stranger's eyes begin to roll. Her irises have moved behind her eyelids. Estelle was about to move around the bed in some sort of protest when something very odd indeed stops her in her tracks. The stranger's hands begin to glow. Noises sound out and as it would seem; those noises are coming from Sammy. Those noises they don't ... sound right. Is Sammy ... in pain?

'Excuse me' Estelle says once again and once again she begins to move with the intention of getting around to that stranger and stop her from doing whatever it is she is doing. But before she manages more than a step or two ...

'Wait ...' Jim calls out. Estelle looks his way. 'Just ... wait', so wait she does.

The seconds pass, seconds which feel much more like minutes, and when these seconds which feel more like minutes have passed, the stranger simply removes her hands from Samuel's chest, assumes a composure that may suggest indifference to the current moment, then moves to exit the room still with no introduction, greeting or salutation.

Both Estelle and Jim follow her out of the room but go no further than a few feet past the door. Estelle is about to question Jim as to what he meant by speaking 'wait' but she doesn't get to as when she and Jim turn to re-enter the hospital room they see that Sammy is no longer in his bed and appearing as if he were not a victim of serious trauma ... guess he will be seeing the outside of the hospital again and quite the bit sooner than anticipated.

Only moments before, Sammy woke for the first time in five days having suffered trauma so bad that he is lucky to still have his life and indeed when he woke, he done so in a manner where he was unable to speak let alone do anything else. Now he is not in his bed at all, in fact he is out of his bed and looking for his clothing while also looking and acting as if he had been through nothing at all of consequence.

His skin too, what is visible anyhow, looks absolutely fine. Any bandaging, gauze and the likes will all be coming off soon enough and will indeed reveal him to be fine as fine can be ... well almost anyhow.

'You guys look great' he tells parents, both of whom are way too far gone with shock to respond. 'No, time to waste, we can catch up on details later. C'mon, time to get out of here' he tells them once he is fully dressed.

His voice had been struggling, rusted and gargled, improving as he speaks, and he feels the miracle still doing its magic upon him. Once they do get going away from his room and off to an exit, Sammy would have to tell his parents to 'be calm' and to 'not look at me as if I have two heads. We don't want to draw any unwanted attention ...'

Doesn't want to draw any unwanted attention? Only moments ago, his survival remained in jeopardy and now he doesn't want any unwanted attention? Jim and Estelle do not understand what is happening but comply with what their son asks of them.

Majella Smith had been away from the hospital when the fun had occurred so when she returned there and found Sammy Fontaine's bed empty, she initially thought him dead or perhaps rushed into some kind of emergency surgery or other, though she soon knew this not to be true.

When she stood at the entrance of what was Sammy's room and having brushed away a fly that came in close proximity to her, she should have guessed something else was up. This is a hospital, one of the few places you would not expect to encounter a fly so when a second fly came along not all so long after the first then Majella definitely knew something was up, something other than Sammy not being where she expected him to be.

A little ways down the hall and to her left there stood a girl of the same age as Majella. Majella recognizes this girl from the Ball as being one of the Daughters of Darkness, a girl she has yet to meet. This girl is Ruby Roux. She walks with determination towards Majella. In an ordinary world this may seem or feel menacing but in Majella's world and in the here and now Majella knows that this will not be an encounter to fear or an encounter to lead to confrontation.

'Your friend, a woman came earlier and healed him. He has left of his own free will. If you want to know more then you will need to find my brother ...'

'Who are you? What do you want from me? Who ...?'

'... Don't ask questions, just listen. My brother, his name is David Roux. You will know him when you see him ...'

With that the girl turns and leaves. Nancy soon comes to Majella's side.

'What did Ruby want?'

'Her name is Ruby? I guess she has some sort of an ability relating to bugs perhaps ...? She wants me to find and speak with her brother ...