"May I ask which hospital this is? Has my aunt been informed about my accident?"
Even though the doctors and nurses kept showing kindness, Amara felt uneasy and confused.
When they approached, she first looked at their badges. As expected, the badges had rows of letters she couldn't understand.
Their eye and hair colors were almost the same—dark red, lead gray, amber, light blue—like characters from an anime world.
Amara didn't hear them answer. She nervously sat up and carefully asked, "Are you filming some kind of prank show?"
The doctors and nurses remained silent and gentle. The room was full of people but so quiet it felt strange.
"I already know. You don't need to keep pretending," she said.
She watched them closely, trying to find evidence of colored contacts or wigs, but found nothing.
Her lips pressed tight. She clenched the blanket on the bed and waited quietly for them to speak.
"Dark Red 88888 will answer your first question." The lead female doctor blinked her dark red eyes. A calm, gentle voice came from under the blue mask. "You are in the hospital at District 9, City C, 68th floor. The whole floor is open only for you. Please rest assured."
"Lead Gray 88888 will answer your second question." The male doctor stepped forward. His lead gray eyes looked kindly at Amara. His steady voice came from under his blue mask. "The hospital has no information about your aunt. We cannot locate her or send her news about you."
"Amber 88888 is assigned as your personal nurse and will answer your third question." The nurse's amber eyes shone brightly. Her excited voice came clearly from under the blue mask. "The surveillance on the 68th floor is to ensure your safety, not for a prank show. That is the answer."
After hearing this, cold sweat broke out on Amara's back.
"Why am I here? How is my body? When can I go home? Is my phone still working? Who sent you to take care of me?"
They answered every question, so she asked all her doubts at once.
"On July 5, 3035, at 2 a.m., Sebastian and Michael escorted you here." Dark Red 8888 answered and explained, "You arrived with many broken bones and a mild concussion. During the exam, your brain's translator chip was lost, but it has now been replaced. Your muscles shrank slightly due to inactivity, but your body functions are normal."
"As a human, we serve you unconditionally. This is why we exist in this world." Lead Gray 8888 replied.
"After searching, the phone is an old, low-level tool from a thousand years ago. You had no phone when you arrived. If you need to contact others, you can use the most advanced light brain device." Amber 8888 clearly looked down on the device called 'phone.'
After hearing this, Amara felt weak and sank back into the blanket. Though many things were still unclear, she knew one thing—
She had come to another world, and the doctors and nurses here were not human but naturally kind to humans.
Her mind was a mess. After asking the doctors and nurses to leave, she sat alone staring at the clean ceiling for a long time, slowly regaining her reason.
She got up slowly and dragged her feet to the large window. Pulling aside the pink curtain, she looked outside.
Under a gray sky, endless tall buildings spread out. Twisting roads were complicated, with floating tracks weaving through the buildings. Occasionally, flying discs zipped through the air.
She truly had come to another world, a highly advanced technological world.
Suddenly, she remembered something. She looked down and pulled back her shirt to check her belly. As a child, she had a scar from an injury, but now her belly was smooth, and the scar was gone.
She looked at her left hand carefully. The scar on her index finger from a knife injury had also disappeared. Her heart tightened.
After searching the wide room, she found a button like a light switch by the door. Pressing it changed the wall's color and revealed a small door. Opening it, she found a washing area.
The washing room was fully equipped and clean with no strange smells. She didn't care much for that and went straight to the mirror.
Her long black hair was smooth. Her eyes were round and shiny like obsidian. Under her straight nose were slightly pale lips. A small red mole marked her delicate chin, visible only on close look.
This body was definitely hers. As for the scars, Dark Red 8888's words made sense. The high-tech society here probably repaired them during treatment.
She relaxed as she sat on the toilet, letting her bladder empty. After knowing she was safe for now, she carefully reviewed what happened since she woke up. More questions came flooding back.
Why did the doctor with smoky purple eyes show hostility to her? Why were all the doctors' names so strange? Why didn't the doctors answer her question about "going home"?
The doctors here treated patients very well. Could it be because this highly developed world had very few patients, so doctors believed serving humans was their meaning?
One more thing… she had no money. How would she pay for the hospital fees?
When Amara left the bathroom, half an hour had passed. Because she had not moved for half a month, even walking a little made her very tired.
Amara was not the type to give up easily when facing problems. Since she knew she would face a large hospital bill, she planned to recover quickly and leave the hospital soon to explore this world and find a way to pay back the money.
After deciding this, Amara pressed the button at her bedside. Soon, Amber 8888, her personal nurse, arrived.
"Do you have any instructions?"
Amber 8888 spoke cheerfully and warmly. Amara carefully looked at her amber eyes and noticed the same joyful and gentle expression as when they first met. It felt like a trained receptionist's fixed smile, which made a good impression at first but seemed strange to keep it all the time.
"I'm a little hungry."
Amara lowered her eyes and stopped watching the nurse. She still did not understand the rules of this new world well and worried she might accidentally be rude.
"Okay, what flavor of nutrition liquid do you like? We have strawberry, grape, peach, braised pork, beer, roast duck, spicy, salty, sweet, bitter..." Nurse Amber 8888 started listing endlessly.
Amara only wanted a bowl of preserved egg and lean pork porridge, so she fell silent. The nutrition liquid the nurse mentioned must be the two drinks the smoky purple-eyed doctor gave her when she woke up.
If so, she was sure she could not drink it. Not at all!
"Strawberry, please."
Being alone in a strange place made her cautious. Although the nurse was polite, Amara did not share her true thoughts. With so many flavors, she chose one normal one, hoping she could force herself to drink it.
The nutrition liquid arrived quickly. Amara smelled it and was glad there was no oily smell. It was a bit thick and jelly-like in texture but not as bad as she had imagined.
After drinking one tube, Amara felt full. Her trembling body calmed down. She obviously had low blood sugar symptoms before.
She looked at the backs of her hands. When she woke up, she saw no needle marks and did not know how the hospital supplied energy to her body for half a month.
Since waking, Amara started to train her limbs intentionally. When she had enough strength to walk out of her room, she found she seemed to be the only patient on the whole 68th floor.
Amara felt lucky. After that, apart from her nurse bringing nutrition liquid on time, no enthusiastic doctors or nurses came to see her. She once asked Amber 8888 and learned the device on her wrist monitored her health continuously, giving her much freedom.
At dusk, Amara walked slowly through the quiet hallway. She did not know what button she pressed, but suddenly a door opened in the wall. Inside was a cylindrical space with several rows of buttons opposite.
This was the world's elevator.
Amara hesitated briefly at the door, then stepped inside without hesitation.
The elevator door closed silently. Standing before many buttons with strange symbols, she guessed they were numbers in this world, but she could not understand them.
Her eyes stayed on the top and bottom buttons for a moment. Finally, she chose the top one.