The x-ray showed hairline fractures in my bones. Many fractures. All over my body. “Look, here’s three more in your jawbone,” Dr. Martinez said. “How on earth did you manage that? We take our eyes off you for thirty minutes—”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, inspecting the thirteen little breaks in my arms. They were really starting to hurt.
She moved to another section of the full-body x-ray. My spinal column. “Jeez, kid, there’s some in your spine. What happened?”
This question again? “I really don’t know. Can humans be telekinetic?”
“Not that I know of. But we’ve got immortal beings walking amongst us, so I suppose anything’s possible. What was it like?”
I tilted my head back, trying to think back. “It felt like I was much bigger than my body, and very strong. I tore up the ground under the oak— sorry about that— but when I came back to myself, everything hurt like I’d been slammed into place.”
She scratched her chin. “Hmm. I’ve never heard of anything like this, so I probably can’t help you. But I can help to heal your fractures. You won’t be walking for a while, I’m afraid.”
I sighed. I’d seen that one coming from a mile away.
“Oh!” She turned her swivel chair around to face me and snapped her fingers. “You’re going to see the vampires, right? They might know something about this.”
That was something. I’d already asked Buck and came up empty, but he wasn’t the oldest vampire in Mythem. Not by a long shot.
“And you’re getting the Salvage performed,” Dr. Martinez continued. “That should help with the fractures. I’ll x-ray you afterwards to see how your bones are doing.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”
“Yeah? Great.” She closed the screen with the x-ray images and stood up. “I’ll wheel you back to your room.”
“I can do it—”
“Your arms are cracked in thirteen places, Willam. You’re not using them.”
I shut up and let her push my chair to the elevator. We rode it two floors up and travelled down the long hallway to inpatient care. My room was situated in the children’s ward. It was always sad to see other sick kids like me, some much sicker, cheery and goofy despite their impending deaths. Thankfully, I had a private room.
Dr. Martinez parked me outside my door. “I’ll talk to your parents about all this. You should sleep, if you can. Otherwise, read a book or watch some TV. Do not walk around. If you need to use the bathroom, page a nurse.”
Great…
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re amazing, kid,” she sighed. “I could tell you you’d be dead in six hours and you’d thank me for my trouble.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t say anything. She was probably right, anyway. Dr. Martinez opened the door and pushed me through. She helped me onto the bed and let me arrange the blankets myself. As I tugged the white hospital sheets up around my waist, she hooked me up to the heart rate monitor. This thing again.
“Well, I’ll probably see you in a bit. You rest here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She turned to go. “Be more careful, kiddo,” she told me, quietly, as she opened the door to leave. “You’ll break, otherwise.”
“Will!” Buck blasted into my hospital room. “Are you dead yet?”
“Oh, shut up,” I grumbled. “What do you want?”
“I got Lyre on the phone with your mom and dad,” he told me. “He’s going to come here instead, if you’re okay with that.”
I sat up. The bones in my chest ached. “What? Why?”
“Because you can’t move, stupid. Lie back down.” He waited, glaring, until I flopped back onto the pillows before continuing. “Anyway. Your parents are gonna come up. You can talk with them.”
I called out to him as he turned to leave. “Buck! Where are you going?”
“Home, I guess? Why?”
“Oh…” I really wanted him to stay. I was starting to get very nervous about the Salvage, though I’d do almost anything to get it done. “It’s just… well…”
Buck’s face opened in a rare way, and he smiled. “Or… I could hang around here for a bit.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That sounds good.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but my mother stepped into the room and cut him off. “Oh, Will. I assume Buck’s already told you…?”
“About the lord coming here? Yeah.”
“Well… what do you think?”
I shrugged and winced at the sudden burst of pain. “I mean, I think Dr. Martinez will go on a warpath if I leave the hospital, so it sounds like a good idea to me.”
“Also, you can’t stand up,” Buck added.
I hung my head in defeat and sighed. “That too.”
My mother nodded. She looked twitchy. It was starting to make me nervous. “Alright. Your father’s still on the phone with the lord. I’ll go… well, I’ll tell him your decision.” She left, her movements jagged. Her restlessness was tangible.
“Was it just me,” Buck began, “or was she acting really weird?”
I was still staring after her. “Yeah, she definitely was.”
Buck was quiet for long enough that I turned to look at him. He was staring off into space, looking vaguely uncomfortable. Buck didn’t like to talk about his vampirism. It wasn’t that it made him embarrassed, but he liked to pretend he was human. I could see that fact in the way he pursued a high school education, though he’d never need a college degree. The way he rode the bus to school, despite the fact that he could beat the bus if he sprinted. Or the way how, regardless of a world of strong, immortal, nearly unkillable vampires, he stuck to a dying human as his best friend.
But now I was pulling the reality of his species into the human world he’d created. It didn’t bother me, but I wondered if Buck felt our differences distancing us. I felt a little bad. It wasn’t my fault, but just like it couldn’t have been easy to have me as a son, it couldn’t have been easy to have me as a friend.
I opened my mouth to say something apologetic, then thought better of it. Buck would’ve hated anything I’d say.
Instead, I waved my hand in front of his face. “Helloooo? Can you hear me, Major Burkhart?”
“Don’t call me Burkhart— it makes me sound like a grandad.” He caught my wrist. “And stop using your broken bones.”
“Isn’t Burkhart a last name?” I said. “Why is it your first name? Unless you’ve been lying to me this whole time—”
“Jeez, it’s Burkhart Alroy Müller, and don’t make me say it again.”
“Why? You say my full first name all the time.”
“But your first name—” he paused, then, “—is cool.”
“Wow. That pause in the middle made me feel really great about myself.”
He huffed. “Whatever. I meant it.”
“The pause?”
“No, idiot—” He glared. “You’re doing that on purpose.”
“Who, me?” I—” I tried to lift my hand to my chin in an angelic, innocent gesture but realized Buck was still holding on to my wrist. “Uh, dude? You can give me my hand back now. I promise I won’t do anything dangerous—”
He dropped my arm like it was on fire.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Buck stared at the ground while I stared at him, trying to puzzle him out. After all my observation, all I could come up with was: “You’re pretty weird, dude.”
He finally raised his grey eyes to mine. “I think you’ve said those exact words to me about fifteen times.”
“They must be true, then.” I shifted on the mattress, trying to get comfortable. It was hard to do when most of the bones in my body were cracked. “Man!” I sighed. “This sucks.”
“Are you hurting?”
“Not really. I’m doped up.” I pointed at my IV drip. There were some nice, juicy painkillers in there. “It’s just kind of uncomfortable.”
“Dude, wait. You’re drugged right now? If we play Call of Duty, I’ll totally beat you.”
“Ha. I could beat you in my sleep.”
He eyed the clear liquid. “What’re you even on? You don’t seem fuzzy.”
“I’m not. They’re pretty low-key. Ugh, I gotta move—”
“How many times do I have to tell you not to sit up?”
I glared at him, pushing myself up off the pillows. “My back’s killing me. It feels like I’m lying on rocks. Raise the top of the bed to upright if you’re worried.”
He peered at the metal bed frame. “Wait. How do I do that?”
“There should be a button around some… where… heck.” I hit the deck as the heart rate monitor went haywire. I stared up, inspecting the criss-crossing frame of the drop ceiling to give myself something to focus on. Four, seven, eight. You’ll be fine. Just breathe.
Four, seven, eight. This has happened before. This has happened before, and it passed. You’ll be fine. You’re fine.
The beeping of the monitor was really starting to stress me out. I get it! I wanted to shout. You can shut up now!
Buck’s face replaced the ceiling. His fiery hair tumbled about his cheeks, nearly brushing my nose. “Willam,” he was saying. His hand gripped my shoulder. “Willam. Say something.”
“This. Freaking. Sucks,” I spat.
“Yeah, I know. Breathe, okay?”
Fear made me irritable. I wanted to shake him. What do you think I’m trying to do?
But his words were more for his benefit than mine. He was doing his best to stay calm; any panic on his face would only serve to unnerve me.
“Do I need to call the nurse?”
“Wait— just a moment. It might— pass soon— usually does—”
His grip grew tighter. I could feel his hands trembling, but his face remained neutral. “I’m not waiting for long, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
I sucked in a deep breath, then another. Four, seven, eight. The manic beeping of the monitor began to calm, slowing to a more normal rate. I watched the tension drain from Buck, and he slouched in relief.
“Are you good now?” he asked.
I frowned. “I… don’t know.” My mind felt disconnected from my body in an unnerving way.
The monitor was getting real slow, now. Resting-heart-rate-slow. Sleeping-slow. Too slow.
Black edged in at the corners of my eyes.
“Buck,” I gasped. “Buck. Call the nurse. I’m losing consciousness.”
“What?”
“Button on the wall. Now. I— can’t breathe— I can’t breathe—”
Oh—
a flatline—
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, inspecting the thirteen little breaks in my arms. They were really starting to hurt.
She moved to another section of the full-body x-ray. My spinal column. “Jeez, kid, there’s some in your spine. What happened?”
This question again? “I really don’t know. Can humans be telekinetic?”
“Not that I know of. But we’ve got immortal beings walking amongst us, so I suppose anything’s possible. What was it like?”
I tilted my head back, trying to think back. “It felt like I was much bigger than my body, and very strong. I tore up the ground under the oak— sorry about that— but when I came back to myself, everything hurt like I’d been slammed into place.”
She scratched her chin. “Hmm. I’ve never heard of anything like this, so I probably can’t help you. But I can help to heal your fractures. You won’t be walking for a while, I’m afraid.”
I sighed. I’d seen that one coming from a mile away.
“Oh!” She turned her swivel chair around to face me and snapped her fingers. “You’re going to see the vampires, right? They might know something about this.”
That was something. I’d already asked Buck and came up empty, but he wasn’t the oldest vampire in Mythem. Not by a long shot.
“And you’re getting the Salvage performed,” Dr. Martinez continued. “That should help with the fractures. I’ll x-ray you afterwards to see how your bones are doing.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”
“Yeah? Great.” She closed the screen with the x-ray images and stood up. “I’ll wheel you back to your room.”
“I can do it—”
“Your arms are cracked in thirteen places, Willam. You’re not using them.”
I shut up and let her push my chair to the elevator. We rode it two floors up and travelled down the long hallway to inpatient care. My room was situated in the children’s ward. It was always sad to see other sick kids like me, some much sicker, cheery and goofy despite their impending deaths. Thankfully, I had a private room.
Dr. Martinez parked me outside my door. “I’ll talk to your parents about all this. You should sleep, if you can. Otherwise, read a book or watch some TV. Do not walk around. If you need to use the bathroom, page a nurse.”
Great…
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re amazing, kid,” she sighed. “I could tell you you’d be dead in six hours and you’d thank me for my trouble.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t say anything. She was probably right, anyway. Dr. Martinez opened the door and pushed me through. She helped me onto the bed and let me arrange the blankets myself. As I tugged the white hospital sheets up around my waist, she hooked me up to the heart rate monitor. This thing again.
“Well, I’ll probably see you in a bit. You rest here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She turned to go. “Be more careful, kiddo,” she told me, quietly, as she opened the door to leave. “You’ll break, otherwise.”
“Will!” Buck blasted into my hospital room. “Are you dead yet?”
“Oh, shut up,” I grumbled. “What do you want?”
“I got Lyre on the phone with your mom and dad,” he told me. “He’s going to come here instead, if you’re okay with that.”
I sat up. The bones in my chest ached. “What? Why?”
“Because you can’t move, stupid. Lie back down.” He waited, glaring, until I flopped back onto the pillows before continuing. “Anyway. Your parents are gonna come up. You can talk with them.”
I called out to him as he turned to leave. “Buck! Where are you going?”
“Home, I guess? Why?”
“Oh…” I really wanted him to stay. I was starting to get very nervous about the Salvage, though I’d do almost anything to get it done. “It’s just… well…”
Buck’s face opened in a rare way, and he smiled. “Or… I could hang around here for a bit.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That sounds good.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but my mother stepped into the room and cut him off. “Oh, Will. I assume Buck’s already told you…?”
“About the lord coming here? Yeah.”
“Well… what do you think?”
I shrugged and winced at the sudden burst of pain. “I mean, I think Dr. Martinez will go on a warpath if I leave the hospital, so it sounds like a good idea to me.”
“Also, you can’t stand up,” Buck added.
I hung my head in defeat and sighed. “That too.”
My mother nodded. She looked twitchy. It was starting to make me nervous. “Alright. Your father’s still on the phone with the lord. I’ll go… well, I’ll tell him your decision.” She left, her movements jagged. Her restlessness was tangible.
“Was it just me,” Buck began, “or was she acting really weird?”
I was still staring after her. “Yeah, she definitely was.”
Buck was quiet for long enough that I turned to look at him. He was staring off into space, looking vaguely uncomfortable. Buck didn’t like to talk about his vampirism. It wasn’t that it made him embarrassed, but he liked to pretend he was human. I could see that fact in the way he pursued a high school education, though he’d never need a college degree. The way he rode the bus to school, despite the fact that he could beat the bus if he sprinted. Or the way how, regardless of a world of strong, immortal, nearly unkillable vampires, he stuck to a dying human as his best friend.
But now I was pulling the reality of his species into the human world he’d created. It didn’t bother me, but I wondered if Buck felt our differences distancing us. I felt a little bad. It wasn’t my fault, but just like it couldn’t have been easy to have me as a son, it couldn’t have been easy to have me as a friend.
I opened my mouth to say something apologetic, then thought better of it. Buck would’ve hated anything I’d say.
Instead, I waved my hand in front of his face. “Helloooo? Can you hear me, Major Burkhart?”
“Don’t call me Burkhart— it makes me sound like a grandad.” He caught my wrist. “And stop using your broken bones.”
“Isn’t Burkhart a last name?” I said. “Why is it your first name? Unless you’ve been lying to me this whole time—”
“Jeez, it’s Burkhart Alroy Müller, and don’t make me say it again.”
“Why? You say my full first name all the time.”
“But your first name—” he paused, then, “—is cool.”
“Wow. That pause in the middle made me feel really great about myself.”
He huffed. “Whatever. I meant it.”
“The pause?”
“No, idiot—” He glared. “You’re doing that on purpose.”
“Who, me?” I—” I tried to lift my hand to my chin in an angelic, innocent gesture but realized Buck was still holding on to my wrist. “Uh, dude? You can give me my hand back now. I promise I won’t do anything dangerous—”
He dropped my arm like it was on fire.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Buck stared at the ground while I stared at him, trying to puzzle him out. After all my observation, all I could come up with was: “You’re pretty weird, dude.”
He finally raised his grey eyes to mine. “I think you’ve said those exact words to me about fifteen times.”
“They must be true, then.” I shifted on the mattress, trying to get comfortable. It was hard to do when most of the bones in my body were cracked. “Man!” I sighed. “This sucks.”
“Are you hurting?”
“Not really. I’m doped up.” I pointed at my IV drip. There were some nice, juicy painkillers in there. “It’s just kind of uncomfortable.”
“Dude, wait. You’re drugged right now? If we play Call of Duty, I’ll totally beat you.”
“Ha. I could beat you in my sleep.”
He eyed the clear liquid. “What’re you even on? You don’t seem fuzzy.”
“I’m not. They’re pretty low-key. Ugh, I gotta move—”
“How many times do I have to tell you not to sit up?”
I glared at him, pushing myself up off the pillows. “My back’s killing me. It feels like I’m lying on rocks. Raise the top of the bed to upright if you’re worried.”
He peered at the metal bed frame. “Wait. How do I do that?”
“There should be a button around some… where… heck.” I hit the deck as the heart rate monitor went haywire. I stared up, inspecting the criss-crossing frame of the drop ceiling to give myself something to focus on. Four, seven, eight. You’ll be fine. Just breathe.
Four, seven, eight. This has happened before. This has happened before, and it passed. You’ll be fine. You’re fine.
The beeping of the monitor was really starting to stress me out. I get it! I wanted to shout. You can shut up now!
Buck’s face replaced the ceiling. His fiery hair tumbled about his cheeks, nearly brushing my nose. “Willam,” he was saying. His hand gripped my shoulder. “Willam. Say something.”
“This. Freaking. Sucks,” I spat.
“Yeah, I know. Breathe, okay?”
Fear made me irritable. I wanted to shake him. What do you think I’m trying to do?
But his words were more for his benefit than mine. He was doing his best to stay calm; any panic on his face would only serve to unnerve me.
“Do I need to call the nurse?”
“Wait— just a moment. It might— pass soon— usually does—”
His grip grew tighter. I could feel his hands trembling, but his face remained neutral. “I’m not waiting for long, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
I sucked in a deep breath, then another. Four, seven, eight. The manic beeping of the monitor began to calm, slowing to a more normal rate. I watched the tension drain from Buck, and he slouched in relief.
“Are you good now?” he asked.
I frowned. “I… don’t know.” My mind felt disconnected from my body in an unnerving way.
The monitor was getting real slow, now. Resting-heart-rate-slow. Sleeping-slow. Too slow.
Black edged in at the corners of my eyes.
“Buck,” I gasped. “Buck. Call the nurse. I’m losing consciousness.”
“What?”
“Button on the wall. Now. I— can’t breathe— I can’t breathe—”
Oh—
a flatline—
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