CHAPTER 54: THE SILENCE AT THE BARRACKS

Footsteps echoed around the wall with the cross sword as countless members of the city walked toward the barracks entrance, wanting to know what had caused the sudden silence. Even those who had smelled the air around the barracks wall joined in, all wanting to peek their noses into whatever had happened there.

No matter how much they tried or acted, Oin and five others held the gate tightly, not allowing anyone, not even the guards that had been positioned at the city’s gate or the warehouse, who had come there just to fill their ears with something to talk about.

Inside the walls of the barracks, soldiers, nurses, and patients that were all admitted to the hospital moved from one truck to the other as they were being transported to the nearby city’s hospitals and clinics to continue their healthcare so they wouldn’t die.

Even as they moved out of the narrow way Oin and the others allowed through the large gate, their eyes never left the poor boy now sitting at a slightly raised platform opposite the hospital and adjacent to the entrance.

Whenever their gazes fell on the poor boy clutching his fingers, their expressions changed from happy to sorrowful. Yet they still had the urge to know what had really happened to their most respected person, who had been working in the hospital for many years and had been helping people revive from any condition they carried quickly.

Wang, who leaned at the main barracks training center, his left leg crossed and arms folded at his chest, watched Kai with a strange stare, almost as if he himself wanted to rip the boy in two or even throw him out of the barracks that instant. But he smiled whenever the emotions were on the edge of making him act and tore his gaze to the birds floating high above the barracks, humming in the cozy air.

Gray remained in the entanglement of the nurses and patients as he made sure each and every last one of them had been listed and was part of those to be moved out to help look after those sent away.

After two hours of filling all seventy patients out finally and making sure they had reached the destinations assigned to them, he stopped at the open field where he could see both the citizens rampaging at the barracks entrance and also the boy sitting calmly.

With three deep inhales, he walked toward Max, tapped on his shoulder, and allowed him to move outside the gate, then gestured to them to move back as he began calming the nerves of the citizens and the podcasters down.

"Please, can you move back a little and lend me your ears?" he said calmly, moving his hands and letting them move back under his command. Though some protested, they later complied and gave him thirty percent of their attention, while the other seventy were tightly fixed on the faces of the nurses walking about, staring at the boy seated calmly and the faces of the soldiers.

"All we want you to tell us is just one thing. What really happened that all the patients in your custody have been moved to the nearest cities? We don’t understand, so let us understand," one of the female podcasters dressed in a full black suit with a cowboy hat said, pulling out a black book and a pen from the brown bag hanging around her left arm, from shoulder to waist.

Gray, who knew perfectly well that most of the podcasters weren’t from the city and had just come by to get bad news of the barracks and report them in their daily news to catch more attention on their platforms, had the perfect answer to give them.

He looked at them, smiled, then inhaled again, turning toward the soldiers and lastly onto Kai before speaking.

"There has been an emergency refurbishment in the building, and we needed to move all the patients out to be able to undergo this refurbishment; if not, there wouldn’t be any way we could do that. And since the number today was small, we opted to make it today and today only."

The moment he ended his statement, no one spoke or countered him, and they began moving back one after another. But just as he turned and was about to move, one of the podcasters turned, cleared her throat, and called to him.

"Sir, so... if that’s the case, why the outage? Why the strange stare on the faces of the nurses and the patients that were driven out of this very gate? And lastly, I—sorry—we overheard one of the patients saying they saw black smoke and shadows moving hastily, scattering and screeching their claws at the walls," she said, smiled, then tilted her head slightly to the man who had covered his head with a black hood and grinned.

Gray didn’t answer her; he just stood there staring at her movements and her reaction after her words ended. And when he saw her breaking the grin into a smile, he moved toward her, placed a calm hand on her shoulder, pulled her a bit forward, and pointed toward the road.

"What did you say you heard the patients say?" He simply smiled and acted as if he hadn’t heard her, but when the lady raised her head and saw the expression on Gray’s face, she shivered, moved back hastily, then began moving as if she had forgotten her own statement.

All the women, children, and men standing beside Gray and the men with hoods on began moving one after another, leaving the gate and returning to their various places they came from. But the three men in hoods stood there, strange lights popping out of the hood. They didn’t move until Gray tried to approach them, but even then, they kept on turning and nodding continuously until they finally turned left from the T-junction the alley road stretched toward and vanished.

...

"Hey, are you okay?" one of the new and youngest nurses said, kneeling and becoming the same height as Kai as he continued to watch the sky.

As the voice of the lady entered his ears, he turned his head slowly, his eyes wailing, and stared at her, crying heavily. The nurse, who knew nothing of the tears, sat beside the boy, wrapped her arms around him, and placed his head between her huge breasts, consoling him.

After two minutes of crying, Kai finally stopped, pulled his head back, and stared into the charming brown eyes of the lady, kept on smiling as she also stared back at Kai’s blue and red eyes.

Though he hadn’t met her anywhere before, he began to feel at home around her. And when Gray walked back inside, moved toward him, and stretched his hand to him, hoping Kai would stand up and walk with him, Kai didn’t; he simply sat closer to the lady, still staring at her calmly.

"Wow, seems you’re the one he has found love in," Gray said, cunningly teasing the lady and winking at her, then walked toward Wang, who couldn’t stop staring at Kai.

The nurse stared at Gray’s back and smiled, then tilted her gaze toward Kai, moved her right arm, and brushed it over Kai’s wet cheeks, drying them completely.

"Are you hungry?" she said, clutching Kai’s face in both arms. And when Kai nodded, she stood up, stretched her hand, and walked Kai to the large cafeteria, making sure he got the best meal being served there.

In the late afternoon, when the chaos in the barracks had died down, the nurse walked Kai to an ash-colored door, opened it, and gestured to him to enter, but Kai didn’t; he simply stood there, still staring at the lady.

’Why does it always have to be me to take care of the kids? How will I get time to catch the eyes of the young men of my age and mingle with them?’ she thought, tightened her jaw, but smiled when she spotted Oin moving toward them from afar.

"Okay, let’s go inside," she said, entering the room, and surprisingly, Kai followed and even sat on the bed, slowly lowered himself on it, and closed his eyes.

As the lady thought the boy had fallen asleep, she tried moving out, but when a soft cracking sound echoed as she opened the door, Kai moved, jolting his upper body from the bed and staring at the lady.

"Fine," she said, throwing her hands in the air, then walked back inside, picked up the chair placed at the window, moved it to the bed, and sat on it, frowning.