An Unpleasant Surprise

Capheus wakes up and realizes that he has returned to the living world, only to find an unexpected visitor who bears bad news that changes his thoughts on living.

Beep!

Beep!

Beep!

My ears perked at a familiar sound. It wasn’t sweet or soft, but rather loud and it made my ears grow sore.

Sigh…

Sigh…

Another familiar sound heaved beside me. I felt the weight of a mask on my face, sheets on my body, and I could smell chemicals infiltrating the air like fruit flies. I felt a tingling sensation in my fingertips and my mouth felt dry. My eyelids made an unconscious attempt at fluttering open, but they couldn’t. I lifted my arm, allowing myself to move again, and tried to open my eyes again. This time, I saw a small sliver of light shine as my eyelids parted and immediately shut them due to the intensity. I let them slowly adjust to the light until my eyes were finally open and I was able to survey the room I was held in.

I was lying in a bed of white sheets and there was a machine heaving and sighing beside me along with the familiar pips of another not far off from it. I turned my head to examine the far side of the room. There were two empty arm chairs, a window with shades drawn, and a potted plant in the corner. I turned to look at the other side and found an end table with a phone and a notepad sitting on top of it along with another chair sitting in the corner facing across the room. I looked down to see that I had tubes running through my arms and one was attached to my nose.

I breathed in and sighed in relief. This was the room I had been hospitalized in when I got sick. I still remembered when I was just a little kid and my parents had to explain to me what my illness was. Just like many other children in this hospital, I had cancer, only unlike them, I had lung cancer. My mother was a heavy smoker and she would often smoke around me, so I guess second-hand smoking was never really a myth and by the time I was ten years old I was already suffering from lack of breath and pneumonia. I once woke up in the middle of the night coughing and crying because I couldn’t stop.

That was when things became difficult, especially for my mother who was always stressing over my medical bills and drinking her money away. It was painful to see her like that actually and it made me wonder why I wanted to come back so badly.

And then I remembered.

“Because you’re young,” I whispered quietly to myself despite the pain in my lungs, “and you shouldn’t just leave like that.” I relaxed my body, releasing the tension so that I could focus on what was more important. Judging by how dark the room was and how there was no light shining from behind the curtains, it must’ve been pretty late at night and a nurse only checks in every half hour or so during this time, but since I did just die (unless it was just a dream), someone should’ve been here in a few minutes or so, so I passed time by closing my eyes and thinking about what had happened.

Had I been asleep this whole time? Was it all just a long dream that I was destined to wake up from? I tried to recollect my memories from before I landed in the hospital. I was at home watching the news when I started coughing again and checked to see if my air tank was working properly, only to see that it wasn’t and some of the air was being released at rapid speeds and in large amounts. I remember falling and coughing and screaming for my mom before she carried me in the car with my tank beside me.

That whole car ride I was watching the trees scraping the sky with their long branches and the light of the young sun rising high in the mid-day sky and smiling at me despite my painful struggles to breathe. For a moment, it felt like I was in a never-ending loop between drowning and trying to force myself to believe that I was at homeostasis.

It didn’t work. It never works. When you’re dying, you’re dying. There’s not really much you can do about it other than wait for it to pass or struggle to stay afloat. I didn’t have a lifeboat other than, of course, reaching the damn hospital.

The door creaked and I half expected a nurse to walk in and run to me when he or she realized that I was awake, but instead I saw the last person I thought that I would ever see at my bedside. He had his usually shaved head, tattoos, black tank-top, and blue baggy jeans. For once he didn’t have his piercings in, but if he did, I would’ve really made an attempt to rip one out.

Or maybe two.

Once he walked in, I immediately recognized him and closed my eyes to pretend that I was still asleep. If he had a reason to be here, I might as well listen. Who knows? Maybe he’ll give me his apologies and then I can surprised him with a punch or a “Shut up dumbass” but surprisingly, he just pulled up one of the armchairs from across the room and sat beside me in silence. What was he doing? Was he watching me sleep?

After a long minute of very awkward silence, his voice finally spoke from beside me, although it didn’t sound harsh as usual. I could already smell the cigarettes and alcohol on him. If my dream was real and when he died he would go to that town and go to trial, they would send him to the pits of hell in less than an hour.

“I know that you probably can’t hear me since you’re...you know....in a coma,” he added enthusiasm to the ‘coma’ part, “but…” he stopped and let out a very long and exasperated sigh. He sounded troubled by something, as though there was something he wanted to tell me but just didn’t know how to word it without harming me. Was he gonna tell me that he gave me a tattoo while I was sleeping? I swear to god.

“Last night, mom got drunk again” he began very steadily. That wasn’t new. She always got drunk, especially whenever I wasn’t home, so why was he suddenly telling me this? He sighed again, obviously trying not to sound like he was feeling anything. He was struggling. I could hear it.

Just tell me god damn it!

“She was in her car and...she…”

No. Don’t you dare finish that sentence. I will strangle you until you pass out if you finish that sentence. Don’t even think about telling me that she’s dead! I came back because I didn’t want her to cry anymore! Stop it! You’re a liar! A filthy and wasted liar! Burn in hell if that will make you leave that sentence unfinished!

“She hit another car.” His voice became unsteady. He had been trying so hard to stay calm up until this point but my brother was terrible at bottling up emotions. Even when we were kids he would cry whenever my mother scolded him but he soon grew out of that. I was the cold one, not him. Even though he was an a*****e, I was too. I still am. I just don’t know how to admit it in the end.

“Just wake up soon. I know that you hate me because I’m a huge dickhead but this isn’t the time for it. Mom is…..” He trailed off. Perhaps he was right. I was already about to clench my hands into tight fists just listening but hearing him say those words made me relax a bit.

She’s what?

Say it.

“....dead. The collision killed her almost instantly. If she were still alive, she would be in prison with a DUI and an extended sentence for the murder of a father and a child.” That was the most blunt he has ever been to me about anything. The way he sobbed when he spoke and the way his voice seemed to break down made me relax into the unearthly bedding of grief. I wanted to pound my fists on the floor until they were drenched in my own blood and I wanted to scream so loud that the whole world fell apart and died around me.

I wanted everything to be gone, vanish, wilt, and burn. A fire that could consume the universe filled my lungs and pushed my heart so the blood in my veins was pulsing and boiling out of control. I opened my eyes and let the tears trail down my pale face. I could feel them seeping into the pillow as I wept for a moment, thinking about what I should do from this moment forward.

I thought that I had won the battle. I thought that I had beaten death but death has now taken it’s ficious toll on my already wounded mother who suffered far worse than I had. I came to end that suffering and bring her the light that she deserved but all was lost. I was lost. Everything was lost and it shook me to the point where I could barely hold myself together.

“Capheus!” I saw my brother rush to take my arm and look me in the eye. He must have been wondering whether I had been awake this whole time.

“Are you awake? Can you hear me?” He sounded desperate for a response. For once, I was willing to give him something that he was begging me for.

“What are we gonna do?” my voice croaked. He must have known now. He must have known that I had heard everything he said and he must have felt like such an idiot. He leaned back, surprised by my choice of words, and he looked unsettled by my question but he eventually sprung up again and spoke.

“We’re gonna find ourselves” he said so confidently.

“We’re gonna change our names and move out somewhere far away and maybe we’ll even find dad if that helps us. I’ll stop selling drugs and I’ll stop being a dickhead and we can just live the way we want” his proposition seemed very promising but how could I? My mother is dead and my father left for a reason. My brother has done imaginable things including beating me, so how could I possibly accept this?

How long have I been in a coma?

“Think about it and come talk to me once you’ve recovered. I-I don’t think that I’ll visit you anymore since you’re awake now and you have people to take care of you. Just…” He trailed off again. It was difficult to distinguish his guilt and his pain. He was probably doing this because he felt extremely guilty.

“...don’t hate me. It’s okay if you don’t forgive me since I’ve done a lot bad stuff that give you every right to hold against me but don’t hate me. I feel like what happened to you and mom is my fault and I don’t want anyone else to die because of me” he suddenly broke into a sob. He was so desperate. He looked like he would crack at the touch of light or break at the pressure of a feather. I’ve never seen my brother so delicate and broken.

For a moment, I didn’t who he was. He just looked so distant and blurry and he seemed to be speaking a whole other language. It was a bit confusing actually. I don’t think it’s ever happened before.

“What did you do?” I managed to speak up even though my throat felt like it was a stone tower being torn to shreds. He looked up but he wasn’t looking at me. His tearful eyes were staring at the bedsheets and he swallowed deeply before taking a shaking breath and holding himself together.

“While I was out smoking and gambling, mom was suffering. After what happened to you, I guess she was devastated. I was too stupid and didn’t do anything to help her. I only made her feel worse and I wish I could have just taken a moment to talk to her. I killed mom. I killed her because I was so selfish and ignorant and didn’t care when she got drunk and angry. I just don’t know how to help when people are hurting and that’s why I’m such a dumbass” his sobs became longer and his voice sounded as though he was the weeping killer, although now I suppose that’s how he felt as well.

A weeping killer. There was no way my brother could have caused this.

“It’s my fault too” I began, struggling to keep my eyes from tearing up again. “If I wasn’t sick then she would be okay. She would’ve never had to struggle with the medical bills and she would’ve never had to worry. She may have neglected me but now I understand why. It was because she didn’t want to see me like this and she didn’t want to hurt me like father did. She got drunk because she was worried about me and now it’s killed her.” I felt my chest heaving for air as I cried so hard my lungs started stinging.

The pain didn’t matter to me, only the terrible feeling that grew inside of me mattered. Only mom mattered. This whole time, I was only killing her. Coming back to a world where she wasn’t in it was the one thing that I didn’t want yet there I was, in the hospital bed, my brother weeping beside me, tears burning the sides of my face, and her absence hovering over me where the mocking darkness once was.

She was the mocking darkness.

A sudden realization then sparked within me and a vicious anger rose in my throat as it came rushing in.

The butler had said that the council will be looking for me once I’ve escaped and once they’ve found me they will make attempts to kill me and bring me back.

The council has found me.

And they killed my mother before I could even continue living my life.

My young and fucked up life.

Author's Note

I worked hard on this chapter so please share and review because it would make me feel all warm inside (: