Rebuilding A Broken Heart (Prologue part 3 added 11/5)

[demonix]

This is most likely going to be the most ambitious (I'd just have to hope that it doesn't go top gear on me) project I'm doing since it's based at least six years after events in the game (I think that is enough time to get through university and/or other things), but before anyone starts to complain about the lack of the games characters, I'm going to say that as of this moment Hanako, Hisao, Lilly, Emi, Suzu, Molly and Miki (with the latter of those featuring in the first chapter in probably the most unlikely job for her, but I think the one I've thought up for Suzu would be even stranger when it's known) will feature in the story with some of the other characters featuring in minor roles along the way (but those parts haven't been decided on yet).

This story uses Lilly's good end as a base with some inspiration from other stories to fill in some of the blanks (at least for how Hanako ends up where she is in this story).

I've decided to not start at the entering Yamaku for this one. The story will start with a three part prologue (with the early part of the first actual chapter in the story and the end of the third part of the prologue linking up) with each part coming from the viewpoint of a different person (the first being a detective, the second being a doctor and the third (spoiler in place because it does ruin part of the story) being a former messy haired transfer student turned science teacher).

I won't go too far into the story until I've made up a character list (students at Yamaku including their back stories along with any other people that turn up more often then not) along with the name of the main character (without that, I won't be progressing past the first part of the prologue since his name is mentioned in both the second and third parts).

Excluding the three stories that I haven't posted (one of which won't be posted until one story has been finished) this will be the last story I'll start work on until I've got at least one or more stories completed, so to make sure that everyone knows what stories are being worked an and which are on hold for one reason or another (along with any reasons for delays), I've created this handy project status file which will be updated whenever things change and when the other two (if I decide to continue on with one of them) stories are ready to be posted (they'll appear in the list around the time they're posted), and I'll also be posting that link in the first posts in my other stories (one thing I should say is that once I have enough ideas in my head for a story, I have to start writing it so it doesn't take over too many of my thought processes).

One thing I should say is that the original title for this story was rebuilding a broken life, but I decided to change it at the tenth hour after thinking that heart instead of life would be better considering the emotional state of the main character.

I think that I might have stretched reality to the breaking point here, but it should be the only time it happens in this story (well I hope it is).

Anyhoo, here is the first part of the prologue.


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Prologue Part 1
Emergency Run

I thought that this would be a night where nothing serious would happen, but all that ended a little while ago.

A call had come in stating that there was screaming and shouting was coming from a neighbouring property, and I thought that it was just a domestic until a panicked call from the first officers on the scene requesting more assistance came over the radio.

It seems to have been more then a domestic as they were trying to arrest a suspect who had started attacking them when he was discovered.

Now I'm racing to the scene just in case a detective is required there.

The lack of updates after that backup call have had me concerned since I'm not that far away now, but a call comes over the air that the suspect is now in custody made me relax a bit but a request for ambulances made put me back on edge.

The scene of the incident wasn't that hard to miss even if I didn't have the address because of the amount of police cars that are parked on the street, so I reported to headquarters that I'd arrived at the scene and got out of the car.

Four officers were standing outside the property, but neither of then had noticed my arrival since there were occupied with emptying the contents of their stomachs.

As I walked towards the property, a less queasy officer was standing at the door.

“I didn't think that a detective would be here so soon”, the officer said.
“I started heading this way after the assistance call went out”, I said “what's happened here?”
“The home owners were attacked”, the officer said “they're dead along with one of the first responding officers”.
“Where's the other officer”, I asked.
“She's keeping an eye on the only survivor”, the officer said “she has a few injuries, but they're only minor”.

I nodded to the officer who stood aside to let me in, and I could see why some of the rookies were outside emptying the contents of their stomachs onto the pavement.

It was absolute carnage inside, with the walls and some of the furniture covered in blood.

In one area were what looked like two bodies, but there were covered under a sheet of some kind and upon lifting the sheet then hearing another officer who was nearby heading outside to evacuate the contents of their stomach, I didn't really need any kind of medical confirmation of how they died since their heads have been caved in.

All of this reminds me of the stack of unsolved cases that have been stacking up on my desk over the past year.

They were all similar with the adults in the house being bludgeoned to death in one way or another, and any children in the house were tied up and butchered with seemingly no motive or reasoning behind what had happened.

Whomever was doing that was very adept at keeping the amount of evidence to a minimum, but there was just enough evidence including stuff that couldn't be removed to connect all the cases to a single person.

One thing that was different here is that there was screaming and shouting that wasn't present in the other cases, but it could be that the suspect didn't get the drop on the adult members of the household this time which caused the more prompt response.

Suddenly remembering that there is a survivor, and that children were involved in the other cases, I headed for the bedrooms.

I could hear a lot of commotion coming from one room which is likely to be where the suspect was being held while they waited for the van to take him away, but a headless body dressed in a police uniform pointed me in the direction of the room the survivor.

The door seems to have taken a beating looking at the holes in it, and as I walked into the room I was greeted with a smaller scene of carnage.

However, the damage had been done, but not completed as I have seen many times before as the child who looked to be of the age where he would be entering highschool soon lay bound to his bed, but only his lower legs had been amputated as a tourniquet now tied on each limb made from what looks like a shirt are now making attempts to keep the blood in his body along with the pillows that had been placed under his legs.

At the foot of the bed there were several implements that could be used to dismember a body including some rather meaty meat cleavers which looked like they could cut through bone in one go given the right amount of force, however one other thing I did notice was the severed parts of his legs although I doubt that they can be reattached since they're now in several bits.

Sitting next to him was the survivor out of the two first responding officers, her right hand holding something against her left cheek and the stumped end of her left arm was placed in his right hand.

Almost all the officers at the time thought that someone like Miki Miura wouldn't make it as a police officer and would give the force a bad name because of her tanned skin, but she did succeed and became the most respected officers on the force.

“He's still alive, but I'm not sure how long he'll hold out”, Miki said “I think he was drugged so he didn't know what was happening”.

As I went to look at the contents of the table, Miki stopped me with some more information.

“He came at us with a large axe”, Miki said “I managed to avoid getting hit fully with the first hit, and I had to avoid a few more while calling for assistance then I got in here and locked the door. I'm just glad that the door had some serious reinforcement and locks”.

Suddenly remembering her athletic abilities, I decided to look at the door and even though I couldn't really see how it managed to stop an axe from turning it into nothing but splinters it did have a serious locking system which isn't surprising since the sale of locking systems increased after the news of the third set of killings hit the news, but I'm guessing that this one wasn't in use because his parents were probably still awake at the time considering their bodies are in the living room and not the bedroom like the other cases.

I then walked over to the table and took a mental note of the small bottles that were on it, but as I went to check on the child, someone else walked in.

“We just heard from the ambulance crews that have been sent, detective”, the officer said “they should be here within the next fifteen minutes”.

Fifteen minutes. After checking his pulse I'm not even sure if he has that long even if it might be the drugs he was injected with that's causing this, and if he did live long enough for the first ambulance to arrive, he could still die on the trip to the hospital.

“I'll make a quick record of the scene and I'll take him to the hospital myself”, I said “the hospital isn't that far away and doing it this way will increase his chances of survival”.

I quickly brought out my pocket notebook along with a digital camera I keep on me for situations like this, and I started by taking notes of everything I could see then I went onto taking any photographs I thought were necessary before untying his arms.

“You're coming as well”, I said “you need that wound treated and I'll need some help with him”.

I heard some movement from behind me as I grabbed a few pillows.

“Why did I become a police officer instead of taking that job I was offered”, Miki said “if I had taken that job, then I wouldn't have been here”.

I turned around ready to hand the pillows to her.

“If you hadn't been here, then this might have turned out differently”, I said “and I would have had another unsolved case on my desk. Your actions here might have saved a life as well as solving all of the unsolved cases I've been dealing with”.

The depressed look on Miki's face started to fade away ever so slightly.

“You're right about that”, Miki said as I helped place the pillows under her left arm “what's the plan for getting to your car?”
“We move as quickly as we can”, I said “once we get there, I'll see about putting some form of dressing over his legs to keep the bleeding under control while we're on the way to the hospital”.
“Sounds like a good plan”, Miki said as she headed for the door.

I gently lifted the child off the bed and headed for the door, and once I'd told the officer standing in the hallway to notify the hospital to expect us along with making sure I was contacted once they had gotten the suspect to headquarters, we headed outside as quickly as we could.

It looked like my saying that I'd be taking the survivor to the hospital had made it to the officers that were outside as the cars that had been parked haphazardly on the road had been moved, and some of the officers were waiting at my car with one holding what looked like a stocked well beyond what was necessary first aid kit.

When we reached the car, Miki got into the car from one side whilst I and another officer moved the survivor onto the back seat from the other side after the pillows I'd handed to Miki had been put in a suitable place.

Once that had been done, I started to bodge something together out of what was in the supplied first aid kit and ended up making some dodgy looking sock things with dressing pads at the bottom.

After I did all I could to keep any further blood loss to a minimum, I headed over to the drivers seat and got ready for the emergency run to the hospital, and when I started to set off, two other cars started off with one in front and the other behind my car acting as an escort to get us to the hospital.

There wasn't any need to call for help when we got there, as they'd been notified of my impending arrival, and several people were waiting for us.

“What have you got”, one of the doctors asked as I got out of the car.

I started to reel off everything I could remember about the scene, including the cocktail of drugs that were used to keep him from waking up and that his parents were dead.

“That's likely to make our job that bit harder”, the doctor said as he did a quick examination “did you bring the amputated parts of his legs?”

I showed the doctor one of the pictures, which included what was left of what had been his lower legs.

“I doubt there would be any way we would have been able to put that lot back together”, the doctor said “we need to get this kid into an operating room now, tell the anaesthetist that we'll have to be careful when keeping him under and we'll need as much blood as we can get”.

Two of the people dashed back inside as the rest started to get the survivor out of the car and onto the trolley they had.

“She needs help as well”, I said pointing at Miki.

One of the people who was helping volunteered to take care of Miki's injuries, and as the two of them disappeared into the hospital, the rest of the team dashed inside with the survivor whilst the doctor told me to go to the waiting room.

At least an hour has passed with no update as to how the operation is going, with only a call from the crime scene guys asking for the pictures I took of the scene in the bedroom before I had to take the survivor to the hospital being the only distraction.

Miki entered the room a quarter of an hour later, her left cheek now sporting several stiches.

“They think that I'll have a scar there once it's healed”, Miki said “it'll just be a souvenir of my stupidity”.

Miki then started talking about her uncertainty about her future when she was in high school, going to university just to keep in touch with some of her friends and her decision to become a police officer after getting and refusing an offer to work at her old high school.

“But you managed to save that child”, I said “and you helped to get a dangerous person who has been plaguing my unsolved case pile arrested”.
“Your right”, Miki said with a slightly dejected tone “I could see if that job I refused is still available. As long as my friends aren't mad at me for refusing the offer in the first place”.

I think she talked about some of her friends before, one was a narcoleptic and another was a prodigy with no lower legs if I remember correctly.

“They also had job offers from Yamaku”, Miki said “even Emi is working there as a teacher”.

My shock about hearing about some Miki hadn't mentioned before was short lived as a doctor walked into the room.

“I would've chewed you out for not waiting for an ambulance”, the doctor said “but I won't this time considering the nature of his injuries along with the fact that the ambulance service has been stretched as of late”.

Miki started looking a bit more like herself upon hearing those words.

“So he's gonna make it”, Miki asked.

The doctor remained silent for a few seconds before answering the question.

“He might 'make it' with regards to his injuries, but I wouldn't be so sure about his emotional state when he comes around”, the doctor said “we were able to close the injuries to his legs with only the wait to see if there are any other problems from the loss of blood along with those drugs he was pumped with, but the one thing we can't really predict is how he'll react after being told about his parents”.

There would be no way to find out if he was awake or asleep when this started, so it could be a bout of depression or he could completely lose the plot and do something stupid.

A sudden ringing from my pocket broke me out of my train of thought, and once I took the phone out of the pocket it was in the number of the caller told me that it must be that call from headquarters telling me that they'd gotten the suspect to headquarters.

“I've got to get back to the investigation”, I said handing the doctor a business card “call me if there are any changes in his condition”.

I left the room with Miki following behind.

“So you're just going to leave”, Miki said.
“Until he recovers the only thing I can do is focus on the investigation”, I said “and I wouldn't be that much of a father figure since I'm still single at my age”.
“Then who is going to keep him company”, Miki asked.
“I've got an idea on one person who can do that”, I said “since she'll have enough time to do so since she'll be off duty for a while”.

I think Miki got what I was saying, but I couldn't really be sure if she will remain in the force after all this.

[Oddball]

Why do people put up long author's notes explaining the story before people get a chance to actually read it?

Other than then note, what you wrote seems fairly good so far. I just hope it's not one of those stories where absolutely everybody comes back to teach at Yamaku.

[Mirage_GSM]

Okay, first of all the beginning needs a proofreader, and badly.

Secondly, if you ever come upon a person with amputation injuries - I cannot stress this enough - don't drive him to the hospital yourself!!!
There's a reason hospitals send out ambulance cars instead of asking passersby to drive injured people to them.
The reasons include but are not limited to:
- An ambulance car carries personnel that is more qualified to dress a wound than a police detective.
- It carries medication that will help keep a patient alive on the way to the hospital.
- It carries a stretcher which is a better mode of transportation for someone with such injuries than sitting them upright in a police car.
- Almost certainly the ambulance will be at your place faster than you will be at the hospital.

If you aren't a doctor, you are NOT QUALIFIED to assess whether a patient will survive until the ambulance arrives.
Even if you are a doctor, and you can see he likely won't survive that long, you won't improve his chances by not waiting for the ambulance and driving him in your car. (But if you are a doctor, you hopefully know this.)

In first aid trainings we always tell the participants that no one will be sued (or at least convicted) for trying to help, but this might make an interesting test case...

Just for completion's sake, her's what you should do:
1. Stop the bleeding as best as you can.
2. Find the amputated limbs, put them into a clean container - if possible somewhere cool (not freezing)- and hand them to the medics when they arrive.
3. ... You'll be busy doing the first two until the medics arrive...
Chances are the limbs can be reattached in the hospital - but not if some idiot drives the patient to the hospital leaving the limbs behind and quite possibly having the patient die in the process.

Finally, the guy is a police detective, and somewhere there's supposed to be a dangerous mass murderer who's been just caught, and he doesn't seem to be interested at all...

I was going to comment on the decapitated policeman, but a few lines further I decided not to bother about something trivial like that...

[Oddball]

- Almost certainly the ambulance will be at your place faster than you will be at the hospital.

No idea as to the truth of this, but I've heard that in Japan, ambulances call the hospitals to see if there's room for the patient before going there and if there isn't, they end up calling another hospital, and so on and so forth. In some case they end up just driving around waiting for something to open. There are several cases where people have died just waiting for a space to open. However if a person shows up to he hospital by themselves (or carried in by others or in a cab or whatever) the hospital won' turn them away.

Just something I've read about in various guides to Japan. No idea the truth to it.

[Mirage_GSM]

Of course ambulances will call ahead to a hospital - though probably the dispatcher in the radio room will do the calling rather than the medics themselves. The dispatcher will contact the hospitals, and inform the ambulance where to take the patient.
Sometimes that won't be the closest hospital, either because another hospital is better equipped to deal with a special kind of injury or because there is no room in the closest one.
Of course a hospital won't turn away anyone in critical condition, but
1. As I wrote above, a patient is more likely to survive a longer trip in an ambulance.
2. While the patient will be treated in any hospital, it is better to arrive in one where the emergency station is not currently occupied by half a dozen other patients.
3. An ambulance calling ahead means that the doctors at the hospital know that a patient will arrive and what condition he is in. They will have time to prepare, which will easily compensate for a few more minutes of transport.

I seriously doubt that a significant number of people died in an ambulance car while waiting for a place in a hospital.* Of course it is always a possibility that complications occur during transport, but the chances for that would be A LOT higher without an ambulance.

*in a modern country like Japan, Europe, the US etc.

[demonix]

Now correct me if I'm wrong (since my info is from a reliable source), but I'm certain that ambulance crews in Japan don't have any medical training and are only responsible for getting the casualty to the hospital even if they expire on the way to the hospital (there was a scene at the end of Lilly's good end where the doctor said that they were able to keep Hisao alive because he was so close to the hospital (at least I think that is mostly goes)) which is why the detective takes him to the hospital instead of waiting for the ambulance to arrive (which meant waiting for another fifteen minutes, and is why the doctor half chewed the detective out for bringing him in his car).

I should probably edit some parts of the first chapter (mainly the description of the bedroom and when he's taking the survivor to the car) to better explain why he didn't bother bringing the amputated limbs.

As for the extended notes, I wanted to make sure most of the story progression without too many questions being asked (this I feel was needed this time since this story is based after the events in the game).

[Mirage_GSM]

I question the reliability of any such source.
Japan is a modern country, and the Hospital per capita rate is three times as high as in the US. (Note that this statistic is for the number of hospitals not the number of beds.)
Yes, I also found reports about a case where a patient was rejected by 14 hospitals before being admitted, but that is probably either a failure of the paramedic to emphasize the severity of the patient's condition or an unexpected complication in an otherwise stable patient rather than a general fault of the Japanese health care system.

I was going to comment on fifteen minutes being an awfully long response time for Japan, especially fifteen minutes after the detective arrived at the place and inspected the site which probably took more than fifteen minutes in the first place.
Here in Germany the absolute response time in urban areas is at most fifteen to twenty minutes, and I expect Japan's figures to be at least as good.

[demonix]

I question the reliability of any such source.

How about an American who lives in Japan and also started one of the more well known companies where anime related good are involved (I think that I still have the e-mail with that information, but it's going to be a pain in the neck going through all those e-mails at this moment since I'm preparing my laptop for a windows 8 upgrade), hence why I decided on this course of action in the first chapter.

I did think about that a bit, which is why when the doctor mentioned during that slight chewing out that the service was a bit stretched in regards to the ambulance service.

I was going to post the edits to the first part of the prologue, but I forgot to add one bit to the latter part of it (it's getting to be a bit regular for me considering I forgot to write in something I was going to put in) plus I seem to be getting hit with cloudflare site not available messages.

[Mirage_GSM]

I don't quite see how running an Anime Store in Japan would make anyone an expert on the qualifications ot paramedics there...

[Catgirl Kleptocracy]

I can't comment about the ambulance situation in Japan, but I know that here in Detroit--a city in a modern state--the ambulance response times are obscene, if an ambulance shows up at all. There are news reports of people having to wait for up to (and possibly more than) half an hour for an ambulance to respond to a call. I know of stories where people have been driven to the hospital by responding officers because no ambulances were available, and of one story where six firefighters had to be taken to the hospital after a burning home collapsed on them in squad cars because an ambulance couldn't make the scene even for them. On paper, response time is supposed to be within 8 minutes, and on paper, a modern state can reach that benchmark. In practice, it's not always that clean. I can't speak for Japan specifically though. My only experience comes from living in a shithole like Detroit

Nice start to the story. I think Oddball pretty much summed up most of my comments. Don't put up long notes explaining your story. Let it speak for itself, and if it can't stand on its own power without an explanation, adding an explanation isn't the solution. Get all the information you need to put into the story in the story. I think what you have written so far explains itself well enough without the author's note. I'm pretty excited to see where it goes and what everybody is doing. I also didn't think Miki's job choice was that unlikely, but that's all character interpretation. Can't wait to see everybody else, too (though they better not all be teachers at Yamaku!)

Almost forgot: As a final note, it'd be nice to know who the narrator is.

[demonix]

Almost forgot: As a final note, it'd be nice to know who the narrator is.

Considering the fact that two of the narrators in the prologue don't even feature in the main story, it would be pretty pointless to name both of them.

Also, since this story happens well after events in the game (and most people do prefer to have stories with some or all of the games characters in it), I wanted to make sure that everyone knew who out of the games cast would be featuring and what path and ending I was basing it on with some of it just to make sure certain people know how I think when an idea for a story comes to me (since I'd already had a complaint for having several stories on the go at once even though two are currently on hold because I can't get out of the part I'm stuck at).

I should have the corrected prologue part 1 up by tomorrow since I want to go through one part of it to make sure everything reads properly (I can't do it now since I'll be hitting the windows 8 upgrade trail once I've finished on the web).

[griffon8]

I can't comment about the ambulance situation in Japan, but I know that here in Detroit--a city in a modern state--the ambulance response times are obscene, if an ambulance shows up at all. There are news reports of people having to wait for up to (and possibly more than) half an hour for an ambulance to respond to a call. I know of stories where people have been driven to the hospital by responding officers because no ambulances were available, and of one story where six firefighters had to be taken to the hospital after a burning home collapsed on them in squad cars because an ambulance couldn't make the scene even for them. On paper, response time is supposed to be within 8 minutes, and on paper, a modern state can reach that benchmark. In practice, it's not always that clean. I can't speak for Japan specifically though. My only experience comes from living in a shithole like Detroit

Wow. Makes me glad I live—and worked, since it was at work that my accident occurred—as far west of Detroit as you can get and still be in the same county. Took only four minutes for an ambulance to arrive.

[Catgirl Kleptocracy]

Nice man! Three cheers for Wayne County. A lot of metro-Detroit is really nice. I'm actually right on the southwest border of Oakland County right now out in RO. The ambulance services are strained in the city, but you still have to have love for the D. Even when we get swept.

My question then is if the narrator for the first section won't appear in the rest of the story, why was he chosen as the PoV character? The first chapter works as a hook--it grabs the readers attention and determines whether or not they'll continue reading. A person who isn't interested after the beginning probably won't continue on. At the same time, though, it also sets up the reader's expectations. If a character appears in the beginning, especially prominently, the reader expects that they'll play an important role through the rest of the story. This section definitely grabbed my attention, and you did an awesome job with that. It's got action, I feel for the characters, and I want to know what happens with the aftermath. It's a good chapter, but if the PoV character isn't going to play a role in the rest of the story, I'm kind of wondering why he was deemed important enough to be a PoV character. I'm going to use my powers of Catgirl Foresight (72.8% accurate) and say that the victim of the crime is going to be attending Yamaku in the coming story. Could he have been used as a PoV instead? Not as written, as he was unconscious, but if he were conscious, I think that might have been a possible way to write it while keeping the major players in the spotlight while keeping walk-on characters off to the side where they can exit without notice. Miki could also have worked if she was going to be a player in the story, but I don't know if she will or not. As I said though, it's a good chapter, and this isn't an issue that I'd lose any sleep over, or go back and change the entire chapter over. Just as a word of writing advice, keep your major players in the spotlight--especially in the very first part of the story--and keep your walk-ons in places they can exit without leaving gaping holes.

Looking at the chapter as a singular bit of writing, I do have to say you did a good job of making me like the characters in the short time they'll be on. I've got a soft spot for detectives. I'm picturing Jimmy McNulty from The Wire as the unnamed detective. He might be out of place in Japan, but hey--that makes it even better. Keep on writing, looking forward to seeing where this goes.

[demonix]

Technically, this isn't the first chapter in the story and I wanted to start this from a different viewpoint before eventually starting the first chapter from the main characters viewpoint (also starting from the main characters viewpoint in the prologue would have made it shorter, and I wouldn't have been able to start it in that way without the main characters name which I haven't sorted out yet).

Doing things this way would at least give me enough time to think up a name for the main character (which is needed before I can start work on the next part of the prologue), and the names of any students the main character meets beyond the games original characters.

Also you can raise the accuracy of your catgirl foresight to 100% here.


I've now updated the first part of the prologue to include some parts I missed out, and the reason why the amputated parts of the survivors legs weren't taken.

[demonix]

I've finally decided on the name for the main character and the second part of the prologue is currently being written which should either be posted in the next few days or weeks depending on now much time I have on my computer during the day (there's always something that cuts down on my computer time).