Ten minutes later, after Charles awoke from unconsciousness and saw his wife's dead body:
The smell of the room burned Charles's nostrils and involuntarily caused his eyes to tear up.
Thump! Thump!
He placed a hand on his heart and measured its beat. 'Oh dear, it's much too fast.'
An unfamiliar state.
He had never experienced his heart beating this fast. His face had never turned this shade of red. His eyes had never gotten this moist. His breathing was usually systematic and calm.
What was this foreign feeling?
It was so bad he wouldn't have wished it on his worst enemy... If he ever had one.
"What… is happening? Who did this? Why?"
The grey walls on all four sides of the room closed in at rapid pace. Charles jerked his head to the side and put his arms out.
"Stop! Please!"
The walls kept closing in on him and the room. Now inches away from his body, the only things left were Isabelle and her bed. Charles pushed his wrists against the barriers. "Please, stop." He didn't want to yell anymore. He couldn't yell anymore.
"Mr. Vaughan!"
A voice woke Charles, snapping him out of the hallucination. The walls that previously enclosed him went back to their origin.
A smaller-than-average hand calmed Charles's shoulder. "Breathe, Mr. Vaughan. You were screaming earlier. Are you okay?"
The doctor brushed his short black hair to the side and spoke through a mask. "I know losing someone, especially someone as close as your wife, can hurt. But we can't scream like that. It's improper."
He sat Charles down on a chair beside the bed.
The doctor took Isabelle's cold hand and placed it in her husband's. "Here," he said. "Take a couple of minutes to calm down, then we can talk."
Charles squeezed Isabelle's hand, then brought it to the side of his face. Droplets of tears stained her white bed sheets.
He cried.
It was an ugly cry.
His voice cracked and his nose sniffled. Snot and tears ran down his clean-shaven face.
This went on for a couple of minutes before the doctor calmly interrupted him. He checked his watch worriedly before looking back at Charles. "Come in."
A female and male nurse came through the door and stood behind the doctor. The difference in their height was clear as day. The male nurse, who reached almost two meters tall, had short fuzzy hair and a small mustache.
His colleague was a short young lady of average looks. Her chestnut-colored hair was tied into two knots. Charles wiped the tears off his face, blew his nose, and hesitated. The nurses made eye contact with him.
They shuddered.
"It was... unexpected, to say the least," the doctor said. "We walked in here today, found you unconscious, and her deceased. We tried to resuscitate her… no use."
After sighing, he continued, "I'm going to give you some more space to deal with all... this."
His gaze shifted towards Charles's chin. "Your son, however, was born healthy and is in the nursery. The nurse can bring him over soon, after you are done with your mourning."
He tapped his chest in a strange pattern. It consisted of two pats on his heart, then subsequently on his upper chest. Each one higher than the last.
A totem.
"You should thank Liege Maisedes he was born with no troubles… We all should."
Charles made a half nod and let his eyes find Isabelle. "Thanks."
Not to Liege Maisedes, but to the doctor instead. Charles was not religious. He believed in the power of humanity instead of mythical entities.
This way of thinking alienated him from the cathedrals and citizens who were firm believers in Usurped Emperor Maisedes, one of the sixteen Lieges.
In Houtis, more than ninety percent of the commonfolk population knew of Maisedes. And most who knew of him, worshipped him.
As the doctor was about to leave, he signaled the male and female nurses with a quick wave. In a quiet tone that the mourning Charles would not hear, he ordered, "You. Get Emory and give him to the husband."
"..."
Dejection took over the doctor's face. "Oh no. Oh no. No, no, no." The two nurses became anxious.
"Doctor, what's the matter?"
The doctor seized the female's shoulders. "You! Notify the Minister's Office! Let them save me!"
He twitched and yelled at the male, "I said go get the child!"
The male and female nurses nodded and quickly left to complete the tasks issued.
The doctor ran out of the room with an anxious expression and huffed, "Oh, Liege. How have I displeased you? I would never distrust or abandon you and your reign!"
He looked at his hand. Parts of his fingers flickered in and out of visibility. "What have I done? I tried, Liege! I tried! I believe in the Totem! I believe in you, Liege!"
His body fragmented.
He disappeared. The clipboard and glasses in his hand and on his head, respectively, dropped to the floor.
. . .
Inside the dull hospital room, Charles heard something fall.
He didn't lift his head. He didn't bother to search outside. The unsightly appearance of his wife haunted him. How could he focus on anything else?
Just to make sure, he placed his index finger parallel to her nostrils. No air…
"Dagnabit!" Unable to contain anger.
"...I'm sorry." Charles felt bad for yelling in Isabelle's presence, even if she was dead. Her soul continued to live on, intertwined with his.
The room was quiet. Usually, Isabelle and Charles would have lively chats. Be it preparing for a baby, their wedding, or a simple date night, the two always sat face-to-face and talked.
When he lost the ability to freely chat with her, it felt as though Charles lost a part of himself.
Waking himself up to reality, Charles continued to hold Isabelle's hand and softly cry.
It wasn't like the previous cry. Softer, more delicate. A whimper.
Shortly after, he was rudely awakened by a knock on the door. His startled head hit the back of the chair.
'Ouch...'
The male nurse's apathetic tone broke the silence. "Mr. Vaughan, here is your son."
In his burly hands, the nurse held a small child wrapped in a blue blanket. The child was silent, presumably sucking on a pacifier. Charles paused. "Baby?"
The nurse rolled his eyes. "Your child, E–," he stopped himself from finishing the sentence. "–The child you had with Isabelle Vaughan."
He was eager to hand over Emory, likely due to the fact his hands twitched and itched closer to Charles.
A figurative light bulb flashed over Charles's head. 'I have a son!'
He had completely forgotten about Emory.
The nurse walked toward Charles, each step trembling the ground ever so slightly.
He forcefully (sort of) handed Emory to Charles, whose face was mildly sleepy. "T–Thank you." Charles took Emory from the nurse.
"Have everything prepared before exiting the hospital. We shall take care of the woman's body. Select a date for the funeral on the way out." The nurse sounded like he was reciting a script, monotone and choppy.
"O–okay…"
Charles looked down at Emory in his arms. The baby did the same, gazing at his father with piercing red eyes.
Emory was conventionally cute. He had adorable cheek fat and a small head of black hair.
"Emory…"
When he left the hospital room with his newborn, Charles walked up to a smaller desk on the second floor.
"H-Hello." His eyes were still red from earlier. It had been hard to say goodbye to Isabelle, and it took the nurse urging him to leave for Charles to function properly.
Even now, his mind wasn't in the right place.
He saw faint images of Isabelle walking beside him.
In some of them, she was pregnant and waiting in line for her favorite food. In others, she wore her regular clothes and walked with him hand in hand. And in the most painful ones, she wore a mesmerizing wedding dress and stood down a long aisle with a veil covering her head.
It took the disturbed glare of people who passed by to wake Charles up from his delusions. Emory simply watched his frantic father, silently.
After his conversation with the secretary on the second floor finished, Charles walked away and headed to the stairway. From behind, he made out the sound of something falling. He sighed but didn't look back. He could not.
The reason being: Isabelle's funeral was in just two weeks.