"He's been WHAT!?"
And then I remembered Father's role in society.
"Where is he? Is he still alive?"
"I don't know. I saw him getting rushed to hospital in an ambulance and then I realized you were missing. I was really relieved when you called me. The crowd was even bigger than before."
"Which hospital?"
"Probably St. Ashinuu's."
"Driver?"
The chauffeur rolled down the window.
"Yes, Your Highness?"
I rolled my eyes.
"Take us to St. Ashinuu's Hospital please. Stat."
"Very well, Your Highness." He started the engine.
Christopher, meanwhile, was looking up the KUA News on his iPhone.
"Yup, it's St. Ashinuu's. Twitter has gone absolutely wild."
"Tell me something I don't know."
"Okay. One tweeter put up a random screenshot of Mufasa from The Lion King falling to his death."
Time to roll my eyes again. I swear I was actually biting my nails with nerves and this time, it seemed disrespectful to watch a funny YouTube song on my iPhone or see what Pewdiepie's been up to to calm myself down.
Please let him be OK... Please... Don't die...
"Do you know which ward he's in?" I asked Christopher.
"Ak 2."
"Why do they put the letters in Kotesh?" [a minority language]
"Dunno. Let's go."
"Duh."
We raced up the stairs to the third floor and found the ward, but apparently he was having emergency surgery so we had to wait outside the operating theatre.
"Probably the most dramatic play I would've ever witnessed." I tried to make a joke about it to Christopher. Then I saw two nurses coming out of the door wheeling a bed with a body bag on it.
"NO!"
The nurses looked at my face. "Relax. It's a different man." They unzipped the bag to prove it. I shuddered.
"Phew."
We weren't the only ones there. Father's wife was sitting closest to the theatre door, with his mother sitting next to her. Their bodyguards got to sit down too, and Mary was furthest on the right. Her bodyguard had to stand. She was gnawing her nails with nerves. Edward rushed in about 15 minutes after me, puffing and panting.
"What the fuck happened? Is he OK?"
"Wash your mouth out young man," Grandma said sternly.
"We don't know." I told him.
He knew a tiny while after we saw a facial shadow against the theatre door's square window, which stayed there for a while until Edward asked what it was doing. A young surgeon swung the door open and chatted solemnly to an Asian nurse for a bit, then she pushed him forward. He gave her the finger and took his mask off. He sighed.
"Oh shit will the suited guys kill me if I tell you he's dead?"
Mum burst into tears.