Whatever happens, I'm here

                                    

                                          
I can hear an irritating sound of a monitor, the smell of various medicines, the soft mattress I am lying in right now. I also feel someone holding my hand.  Where am I? I slowly opened my eyes.
                          
White ceilings? I roamed my eyesight inside the room. I saw Hiro lying next to my bed holding my hand. In my left arm, there's this what seems like an IV drop. So the hospital huh?
                          
Pero.. anong ginagawa ko dito?
                          
"Hi--"
                          
"You're awake?"
                          
Hiro stood up para pindutin yung button na mag-a-alarm ata sa mga nurses parang intercom. I tried to get up but it was only then that I noticed something in my neck. I tried calling Hiro pero tulad kanina, impit na tunog lang ang lumabas sakin.
                          
"Shh the damage around your neck affected your vocal cords"
                          
Damage!?
                          
What damage?
                          
And as if there was a magic word, the events that happened before reoccurred. 
                          
I grabbed Hiro's arms and tried to make out the only words I need to know.
                          
"Ma.....mama"
                          
Hiro looked at me bago siya naupo sa tabi ko. Hinawakan niya ang magkabilang braso ko.
                          
"Eris I'm sorry, Mommy Mika is.."
                          
No
                          
Please no
                          
"She's gone. She didn't make it. Pagdating namin doon you were already unconscious and Ashimika was already dead"
                          
I grabbed Hiro's arms tighter, I was shouting. Amidst the thing in my neck and the pain everytime I talk, I shouted at the top of my lungs. It was painful but nothing can top the pain I'm feeling inside right now.
                          
My mom's dead.
                          
She shouldn't die but now she's dead.
                          
That was not supposed to happen.
                          
"Eris calm down, NURSE"
                          
I was still shouting nang may mga nurse at doctor na dumating at tinurukan ako ng parang serum na pampatulog because I was slowly losing my consciousness again.
                          
I saw mom.
                          
The smile she showed me the first time we met. The way she laughed at my attitude. When she asked me if I wanted to be her daughter. That time when everyone laughed at her sa school. When she congratulated me for having friends. 
                          
All of those times that she hugged me and kissed the top of my head. Those moments where she'd whisper how much she loves me. They were playing like a broken record inside my head.
                          
I lost my mom. She's gone, I never got the chance to hug her for one last time. 
                          
Now all I can do is cry.
                          
****
                          
"Eris don't worry the doctor said you can now talk freely."
                          
"Where is she?"
                          
Hiro stopped cutting the apples in the bedside table. It has been a week already.
                          
"Your grandparents took her"
                          
My brows furrowed and I decided to stand up from my bed.
                          
"Eris where are you going"
                          
"They don't have any rights to take her"
                          
Lalabas na sana ako ng hawakan ako ni Hiro sa braso. He then made me look at him.
                          
"Yes they do"