Princess Callie

Chapter 3: Hospitalized

My eyes slowly opened. I found myself laying on a bed. I heard beeping from a nearby heart monitor. It looked like I was in some kind of hospital. I looked around the room and saw some dark shades sitting on a nightstand to my right. I turned my head towards the window and saw it was night outside.

I then turned my head left and saw a nurse sitting on a chair holding a clipboard. She looked up and was startled when she saw I was awake. She quickly jumped out of her chair and rushed over to me.

"How are you feeling princess?" She asked with a concerned face.

"Princess? I... I don't understand. What's going on?" I was confused.

The nurse looked surprised. "Please don't try to move too much. I'll be back with the doctor." She said before rushing out the door.

I was left alone with my thoughts. Why did she call me princess? Why am I in a hospital? Why can't I even remember my own name?

A few minutes later, the nurse came back with a doctor. He went to the right side of my bed. "It's great to see you are still alive princess. You gave the entire Shogunate quite a scare. Shogun Octavio would be very pleased." he seemed relieved to see me awake.

"Shogun... Octavio? Who's that?" I asked.

Both the nurse and the doctor suddenly had surprised and worried looks. The doctor quickly regained his composure and asked, "What do you remember?"

I looked straight up at the ceiling and thought for a while but kept coming up blank. "I don't really remember anything at all." I answered.

The doctor grabbed the clipboard the nurse was holding earlier and started reading it frantically. "Oh no, this is terrible." he whispered to himself in a worried tone. It was barely loud enough for me to understand. The doctor looked up from the clipboard. "Nurse! Go get the Shogun immediately!" the doctor ordered. The nurse sprinted out the door.

"What's... going on?" I asked nervously.

"Do not worry. Your condition is not life threatening. However, you appear to be suffering from a severe case of amnesia." the doctor explained calmly.

The moment the doctor finished his explanation, an old man that looked to be over a hundred years old wearing a large crown came into the room. The doctor noticed him and the two whispered to each other. The old man seemed rather irritated. I tried to listen to their conversation but their whispering was almost unintelligible. All I managed to discern from their conversation was the old man saying, "this changes nothing. Stick to the plan. The Shogunate still needs an heir." What did he mean by that? What plan? Was he referring to my memory loss? The old man turned his attention to me.

"Callie, I am so glad to see you are okay. Everyone was so worried when you didn't wake up." He said while leaning over me, he seemed relieved to see me.

I didn't know how to react so I just stared at him. "Who are you?" I asked.

He looked disappointed. "The doctor said you had amnesia. I didn't realize it was this bad. You can call me Octavio. You are Princess Callie. You are my adopted daughter and are next in line for the Octarian throne. Do you remember any of this?" he asked.

"No... I don't remember any of this." I answered.

"Well hopefully you will remember. The doctor told me you can leave soon. So for now get some rest and just in case. If you feel a headache, those shades on that table will get rid of it for you." Octavio pointed towards the dark glasses next to my bed. "Try them on sometime, I think they look good on you. It's really late right now so good night Callie." He left the room.

Once Octavio was gone, the doctor turned off the lights and pulled a white board in front of me. "There are a few things you need to know tonight. I already told the Shogun about this but I believe you need to know what happened." He picked up a folder and grabbed the first image in it. It was a diagram of an inkling but there were markings on the wrists and ankles. "We did some tests. Made sure your injuries healed. Your head had suffered a severe blow but there are no visible injuries in that region right now. However, your wrists and your ankles were not so fortunate." He then pointed towards the markings. "For some reason your wrists and ankles have healed much slower than the rest of your body. We are not sure what caused these injuries. We are still running some tests which should be done by tomorrow. Luckily, the injuries are fading so your arms should fully recover soon."

I pulled my hand out from underneath the bedsheets and noticed they were bruised. I rubbed them a little bit and thought I felt a small bump on my left wrist. It was probably nothing. Suddenly my head began to feel like it was being crushed. I groaned loudly and grabbed my head trying to get myself to focus. The doctor grabbed my shades and handed them to me. I quickly put them on my face. The headache immediately went away and I was able to focus. "Thank you. That headache was terrible." I told the doctor.

"You're welcome Princess. You did take quite a blow to the head earlier. We think that might be the cause of both your headache and your amnesia. We're currently working on ways to restore your memories. Those shades are a temporary solution." the doctor explained.

"I like the way they look. I think I would like to keep them." I replied.

The doctor smiled. "Just try not to lose them. Now, aside from your headache and your amnesia, your condition is stable. After these next few tests, we'll see if you are ready to leave. I will be back in the morning, until then try to get some sleep and please don't go anywhere." The doctor left me alone in the room.

There wasn't anything else to do so I took off my shades, closed my eyes, and tried to fall asleep. I felt another headache coming but tried to ignore it by daydreaming about something else. I didn't want to put the shades back on and risk accidentally breaking them in my sleep. For some reason, I imagined an inkling in a black and green dress. She was almost my age and her tentacles were mostly gray with a few green spots on the end. I didn't understand why I thought about her or why she made me feel safe. I was hoping she would save me but what was she going to save me from? All I understood was, thinking about her made me feel comfortable enough to fall asleep.