Chapter Seven: Harder and Harder, I Break My Bones

Vesavius's hospital experience

Chapter Seven: Harder and Harder, I Break My Bones

Vesavius had already begun moving. He was awake and he remembered everything. Of course, his first notice was that Timlin was not in the room with him, neither was his “loving” mother. He wasted no time in ripping the needles from his veins. The medicine burned, as did his chest, and his wrists, and his head that also ached. 

He stood to his feet, fighting dizziness upon standing. The alarms began panicking. They were missing their host in which they feasted from. His hands met the windows, immediately imprinting themselves upon them. He could not get a grip on his vision. He blinked several times before looking out into a bright world that lived several stories below him, eight to be exact. For some reason, he heard cracking. It sounded like-

The glass shattered. He fell from it, being intercepted by a stone covered rooftop halfway down. The ground was not comforting or welcoming at all. He started crying more and more, not only blaming it on the physical pain but on the pain of losing his brother. Though he could still not see anything clearly, he witnessed the stones that floated around his body. They were unnaturally levitating… They were part of Vesavius. They began to near him as he stood, several of them that surrounded him. Scared from his wits, he leaped from the rooftop, left to fall another four stories. In this landing, he wasn’t so lucky. Blackness met him gallantly.  

He was found. Attempted suicide? After all, no one knew this boy at all. He could have been suicidal after all. His brother had been killed… by him. The doctors ran more tests as the scarcely damaged body lay still. They scribbled statements on their clipboards. It was nothing important. The only astonishing fact that was scratched onto the thin piece of paper, was the fact that the young man survived an eight story downward fall. Not only had he survived, but he had sustained a near-perfect stature. 

No bones had been broken in the scrawny body and no bruises displayed themselves, though there were cuts. They also noted the swollen state of his flame tattoos. The flames seemed to ensnare his forearm and tangle around his bicep. That seemed to be the only place that was not shredded and injected with bits of glass.

Vesavius’s eyes opened and they burned. He did not react to any one of the doctor’s prodding around in his personal space.

“Mister Knepler,” One doctor fiddled with his identity, only eyeing his photograph as he spoke.

Vesavius cleared his throat. It wasn't as dry as he expected. The IVs assured he was hydrated.

“Can you tell us how you managed to fall out of the window?”

He rubbed his dry eyes, focusing on reality. His head turned toward a shattered window, left of his bed. “I did?”

“Yes. You fell eight stories down,” the one white headed doctor, waved off the rest of his colleagues as he sat on the bed by Vesavius’s feet. “I am quiet baffled by your incomprehensible ability to resist death.”

He did not respond. He was thoughtless. He had no opinion on anything, especially death at the moment.

“Now, you began in a car wreck and fell from eight stories, and now you are here in the Emergency Room at Lilith Nubert.” The doctor patted his legs. “Now, do you mind explaining what happened?”

“I don’t remember anything.” This was only a partial lie. Vesavius remembered his brother’s mangled body lying before him, but as to anything else, he had truly convinced himself to forget. 

“Are you sure?” The doctor’s crisp blue eyes that shone through thick glasses beckoned for the revelation of truth.

“I said I don’t remember anything!” Vesavius’s voice was weak, but it was easily agitated.

There was a moment of silence in which that the doctor sighed. 

“Can I go home today?” Vesavius inquired with a type of ignorance to all that happened.

The doctor pulled his spectacles from his face and looked to him with a hint of disappointment. “I guess that would depend on how you are feeling?”

“I am feeling well enough to leave.” Vesavius sat up, hiding all of his aching pain.

“Well,” the doctor pulled up a page and pretended to read over the pages. “none of your bones are broken. No critical health conditions… I would urge you to stay, but I assume I won’t have much luck with that.” He cocked an eyebrow.

“You are correct, doc.” Vesavius immediately corrected his broken posture into his egocentric default posture. He began to effortlessly pull the needles from his arms. 

The doctor grimaced, but once he was finished, he said. “Can I at least convince you to come back in a week, for another test or two?”

An aggravated look grew in Vex’s eyes. “Yeah. Sure, whatever.”

The doctor read the annoyance and knew the truth of his promise.

Vesavius walked home in tattered clothing. This was a reminder of the car wreck. His mom had never shown up at the hospital, and he had lost his cell phone in the wreck. He could not call and vent his anger beforehand. Instead he returned home. He walked in the wind, leaves falling around him, reminding him of the dead. Not only reminding him of his dead brother, but his dead ancestors. Do the dead truly dissipate as he had, all his life, suspected? 

He felt his brother calling for him in the wind. The wind was blowing his tears from his cold face. He was truly not crying, but mourning. He was going to long for his brother, though he was already longing him. He disdained emotions. They were figments of imagination… simply chemical reactions in the brain. A response to stimuli: that is what he attempted to convince himself that his brother’s death was to him. It was more… It felt like so much more. 

Vesavius stormed into his house. The rain had just now begun. Thunder rolled and lightning flashed as the door slammed shut. Regina was lying on the ground, enfolded in an ocean of empty wine bottles. Vex only ignored the anger that wrought a storm within his veins; instead he ran into his deceased brother old room, throwing hardened fists into the drywall. He allowed himself to be overcome with rage. It felt good!

He threw over bookshelves and grabbed the bed with strengthened fingers of ferocity, flipping it! It was there, his eyes instantly betrayed him. Though the crumpled bill that lay before him was no mirage, as he wished- no prayed- it to be, he disapprovingly grabbed it in his hands. Tears instantly fell and at once the rage was gone. He was disappointed, mainly in himself. Within him, the more he tried to resist, the more the fire overwhelming his veins hurt him. He fell to his knees, clutching that dollar so tightly. His head rammed into the wall and his body tightened itself as he cried out in frustration. He felt the crumpled dollar taunt him as a remnant of the innocence lost that year. It felt wretched.

But inside his body there was a stir. Vesavius could feel literal heat erupting from the arteries in his heart as if the vessel was a volcano in his chest. Not only was his chest aflame, so were his arms, and his tattoo, but that is more than could be said for the remnant, which became ashes.

Reviews

[Jerry Bustin]

The story seems genuine. I like your imagination. I am just a newbie, but I think you are one of the better writers. Could you take a peek at my stories? I would like that very much. SEE ya!
Jerry Bustin