Upside Down – Alternate Destiny

[Sunday, May 5th]

The next morning, a strange sound wakes me up. I look around to see Mom standing in the doorway with a camera. “Good morning, Mom. What are you doing?”

“What else? Taking pictures of you two. You two were simply too cute not to do it. By the way, what time did you wake up?”

“Umm, around 3:30… Chi, wake up, you’re hurting me,” I say while nudging her, trying to get her to wake up, but that makes my breasts hurt even worse. I can’t move because Chinatsu has an arm and leg thrown across me, and is using my left breast as a pillow, which is rather painful. It would be great if they would stop hurting soon.

“Chi, please, wake up, you’re really hurting me!” I tell her while nudging her a little harder, which makes it feel like someone punched me hard this time, and she finally opens her eyes. “Come on, Chi, please, move your head, it’s really painful.”

“Chinatsu, get up! You’re hurting your sister!!” Mom snaps at Chinatsu, who quickly moves off of me.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s alright. It isn’t like you did it on purpose, and it didn’t bother me until I woke up, so don’t worry about it.”

I need to remember to ask a doctor about this. Of course, he might not have any answer either, but it’s worth a shot.

“What time did you two go back to bed?”

“Around 5:00, or so. Sora woke up hungry and thirsty, and then she wanted to take a bath. We talked for a while when we went to bed, so it was probably around 6:30 when we went to sleep.”

Chinatsu reaches over and turns the clock to face us. It’s already 11:15.

“You let us sleep in? Didn’t you have things you wanted us to do today?”

She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter that much. I assumed Sora needed the rest. so I let you sleep until now. Plus, it’s not like there’s a set time for it. Alright, then. You two get up, go wash your faces, and get dressed. Lunch will be ready in half an hour. Sora, if you need help getting dressed, don’t be shy and ask one of us for help.”

When I sit up, my breasts move, which takes them from tolerably uncomfortable to straight-up agonizing. “Ahh! Oww!” I cry out in pain, grabbing my breasts to stop them from moving, which again, is painful, but less so than allowing them to keep moving. What the heck? Why do they hurt so badly today?

“Sora?!”

“Sora, what’s wrong?” Mom and Chinatsu both ask me worriedly. Mom kneels down beside me, wearing a concerned expression.

“My breasts are extremely painful today. It was just uncomfortable until I sat up. Then it felt like someone hit me with a sledgehammer.”

She grimaces, then tells me, “I hate to make you move when it hurts so bad, but you have to let go so that we can take your nightgown off to see what’s going on.”

I nod and raise my arms. Oww! Damn it! Even moving my arms hurts them! Mom delicately pulls my nightgown over my head, and I slowly put my arms back down. This hurts! What the hell?!

“Mom?!!”

“I see it, Chinatsu. Sora, did your breasts hurt like this when you woke up last night?”

“No, they were just tender when Chi washed me last night, but it was nothing like… Ahh!!!” I gasp out and grab my breasts again as the floodgates for my tears open up.

“Sora?…Sora?!”

I can hear her; it’s just that the pain is bad enough that I can’t answer her. Hell, I can barely breathe at the moment. Desperately, I try to take a deep breath and pure, unadulterated agony rips through me. It feels like someone has poured gasoline on me, and lit it.

“Eiji!!! Get up here right now, something’s wrong with Sora!!!” I hear Mom scream for Dad and Chinatsu crying. I want to comfort her, but I can’t move. All I can do is pant shallowly. But even doing that much is absolute torture.

As the ‘thump, thump, thump’ of Dad running up the stairs comes closer, Chinatsu’s tear-ridden, terrified expression is the last thing I see before everything goes dark.

　◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

“Nnn~ Hello?” I call out while blearily looking around me, but for some reason, my eyes don’t want to focus.

“Thank God, you finally woke up.”

I see a blurry image come around the edge of a curtain. It’s Chinatsu’s voice though; I’d have to be brain-dead not to recognize it. I blink my eyes several times, and her image begins to clear up somewhat. I move my arm to lever myself into a sitting position, and Chinatsu holds me down by my shoulders.

“Don’t. They have you on some pretty strong painkillers. So, just relax.”

Well, that explains why I feel so dopey. On the plus side, I’m not hurting right now.

“What happened? How long have I been here this time?”

“You scared us to death.”

“Sorry. So, what happened?” She bites her lip and shakes her head. “Why won’t you answer me?”

“Mom ordered me not to. She wants to be the one to talk to you.”

“Ah, okay. Are you alright?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine now that you’re awake again.”

She says that, but now that my vision has finally cleared up, I can see the tear stains on her face. I sigh as I think, ‘Yet again, I’ve hurt her.’ I reach out my arms to her and tell her, “Come here, I want you to cuddle with me.” She glances at the IV in my arm on her side and walks around to the other side before crawling into bed with me, snuggling up close, and laying her head on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Yet again, I’ve scared and upset you. But, I’m okay now. See, you can touch me, and it doesn’t hurt,” as I’m saying this, I take her hand, place it on my breast, and add a little pressure to prove to her that it doesn’t hurt anymore.

I let go of her hand, roll over onto my side to face her, and reach around her to pull her a little tighter against me. “It’s okay now. I’m awake, and not in pain anymore. I have no idea what happened, but I promise you: I’m not going anywhere. We still have all those things to do together that we talked about before, remember?”

“I remember, but you can’t promise that,” she murmurs. “You have no idea what’s going on with those damn nanites. For all we know, they could kill you.”

I hate to admit it, but it’s true. We have no idea what they’re supposed to do. However, I can’t see Mother and Father making nanites that would do this and then kill someone. My parents were a lot of things, but they never did anything crazy, or maybe, saying they were the most logical people I knew would be the more appropriate thing to say. So, it would just make no sense. My parents were all about making the world and people’s lives better.

“Chi, come on. You don’t seriously think my parents would ever do anything like…” I cut myself off when I hear the door open and close, then turn to look and see Mom come around the curtain. “Hi, Mom.”

“Sora! Thank the Lord that you’re finally awake! How do you feel? Chinatsu, get up. Right now isn’t a good time to bother Sora.”

“I asked her to cuddle, so she isn’t bothering me. Besides, I’m fine now, no pain at all. How long have I been here this time? Do they know what happened?”

Mom looks at me as if thinking. “You remember how they took blood from you before we left the hospital?”

I nod as I think, ‘Hello! It’s me we’re talking about. How could I possibly forget?’

“Well, they thought the nanites would break down when they finished your change, but that turns out not to be the case. They’re still active, and they caused this. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but your breasts are a bit larger than they were.”

I look down at my chest, not that I can tell much since I have Chinatsu against me. Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll look later. Cuddling with her is far more important to me than how big my boobs are.

“Okay, that answers that question. How long have I been here?”

“Three days.”

“Only three days this time? I’m getting better at this,” I say wryly and bark out a short, mocking laugh.

Mom’s brow furrows, and she frowns for a moment, then snaps, “It’s not funny, young lady!”

I stop laughing and sigh heavily, then murmur, “No, it isn’t, Mom. But I can either laugh or cry about this whole thing. Truthfully, I’d much rather laugh because I’m absolutely sick of crying.”

Even with that said, I can still feel my eyes getting hot as tears begin to well up no matter what I want. I squeeze my eyes closed to hold them back while taking several deep breaths and slowly letting them out. Mom sits down behind me and gently rubs my back.

“I’m sorry, Sora. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. It isn’t your fault, and you’re the one going through the worst of this. I’ve just been so worried.”

“As you can see, I’m alright. Umm, I hate to ask this so soon after waking up, but do you know if they’ll release me anytime soon?”

“The doctors said they don’t want you to leave the hospital until they know more about what the nanites are doing. That said, your father isn’t having any of that. He told them that they may never know what they’re programmed to do and that you aren’t a damn lab rat. So, when you’ve woken up, and feel up to it, you’re going home, whether they like it or not. If he had to, he would kick all of their asses and carry you out of here.”

While imagining Dad doing that, I laugh. That sounds exactly like something he would say and do. “Does that mean I can leave, then?”

She shakes her head. “No. Not quite yet. Let me call a nurse to have them take you off the painkillers. Then let’s see how you feel. I don’t want to take you home, only to have to bring you right back because you started hurting like that again, okay?”

I nod while thinking, ‘I want to go home. I hate this place.’ Although, that brings up another question. “Umm, why did they have me on painkillers if I was out?”

“Until they put you on painkillers, you were thrashing around so much that they were concerned you would hurt yourself.”

“Uhh… Yeah, okay… I suppose that makes sense,” I murmur while wondering just how painful it had to be to do that while unconscious.

She gently pats my hip, “Well, I’m going to go to the nurses’ station, tell them to take you off of those, and then go find your father. I shouldn’t be gone too long.” She leans over, kisses my temple, murmurs, “Please, stop worrying us like this,” and then leaves.

It isn’t like I chose whether this happened or not. Whatever… For now, I might as well indulge myself by cuddling with my favorite person.