Borders of Fiction

Chapter 4: Decode

From the hallway, furrows of concern creased Diaz's brow as his gaze fell upon the still form of his student Alessio, lying motionless in the private room where the only view was through a tiny crack in the door.

"Will Alessio be alright?" he asked worriedly, his gaze still fixed on the unmoving student. Trying to assuage Diaz's concerns, Alessio's assistant spoke in a comforting tone from the hallway.

"Yes, the doctors said he'd recover soon."

"The principal has really had it in for your master lately, eager to get him for this contest."

"It's alright, he'll be waking up soon. I'm sure he'll be excited." Diaz reached to him to give the baskets to him, saying, "These are from his classmates, and some of them are from the school club he's in. Nothing is from the faculty or the school." People aren't allowed to accept any form of gift from the teacher or vice versa. It's the code they must never break.

"Thank you." He accepted the baskets with courtesy, hesitating for a moment as curiosity and gratitude warred within him over the gift that was not his. Though every instinct told him to abandon the basket and flee from the worms, he found himself transfixed, staring at the squirming pink and gray mound inside the wriggling worms like a rat king scenario. Suddenly, a cry of revulsion escaped him, and he dropped the basket to the ground. The worms spilled out, swarming over his shoes and crawling up his trouser legs. He then noticed the jelly-fruit-shaped container he had brought was also filled with worms, causing him to panic at the realization that worms were now covering his feet and legs. He drops the basket and gets as far away from those worms as possible, as the worms spill out to swarm over his shoes and up his trousers legs as they begin to swiftly crawl to him. "Ah! Mister Claude!" Diaz immediately bent down and picked him up.

"Don't pick those up!" Claude ordered in an anxious tone. He approached Diaz to help remove the worms from his foot.

"What?" Diaz's eyes blinked in confusion. He stared blankly at Claude for a few seconds before speaking in his usual, lighthearted tone. "Sorry, what did you just say?" he questioned. This... start. Why does it look like... No, it's not.

"There are worms."

"Wait, here?"

"Sorry about that, I'll just buy new ones."  Diaz smiled as he picked up the fruit but the moment he touched it returned to being some fruit. Claude scrunched his eyes trying to see it once more. "Why? Did you see something else, Mr. Claude?" He stared back at him intently as if they were the only ones in the hallway. "Where are they?" he didn't flinch an inch.

"Should I be staring at something else?" Diaz's smile faded as he stared intently at Claude, a cold, calculating look in his eyes. The air suddenly felt heavier and charged with menace. Claude met Diaz's stare unflinchingly, his expression stoic. After a tense moment that stretched on, Claude finally replied in an equally deep voice. "Nothing, sir. I'll just pick it up for you. You don't have to..." Diaz's eyes narrowed slightly as he considered Claude for a long moment.

"Okay then." Claude grasped it and felt it for a moment. The fruits were clean and dry, and there was this absence of movement that his skin expected. I must be hallucinating... or must be jet-lagged. He shook it off.

"Bye then." As Diaz bade farewell, Claude reflected on his master's missing hand—the reason for his hospitalization. Right now, his master's hand is already cut off. That's why he's here, plus the old man asked him to be here.
Drifted in and out of consciousness, Alessio's head was in a haze, trying to come to terms with the events that had recently occurred. Trying to connect things piece by piece with little evidence around in a hospital room that was sterile and devoid of any warmth or personality.
The only source of light was the sunlight that filtered through the blinds, casting a soft glow on his battered body that heated his cold skin. His memory was shrouded in a haze of confusion and disorientation, the events of the past seeming distant and surreal, yet the first thing he thought of was, "Did my sister help me get out? Or was it just the police?" As he traced all his memories back to what happened, he was bewildered at the sense of mystery and emptiness wrapping around his head.
There were so many questions in his mind. Anyone would be frustrated in such an annoying situation, especially since he had lost a part of himself. He recalled that he was escaping from a killer after his only friend, his aunt. The memory was entirely uncomfortable to remember, but he needed to recall the details. Just like the television it occasionally loses its signal.
The door opened, and a young man in his 20s with a French crop haircut, a white long-sleeved shirt, and a black tie entered the room carrying a lunch bag in his hand. "Ah, it seems you have finally awakened, Sir."