Start of Fall

Leyon's mind was blank as he sprinted madly through the halls of the hospital. The only parts of his body that seemed to have a mind of their own were his legs.

"Don't run through the halls. This is a hospital!" An angry staff shouted at him, but he didn't care.

"Granny!" Shouting madly, Leyon tried to rush into the room where his grandmother was admitted but was stopped by a team of doctors who had been tending to his grandmother.

"What's this kid's deal? Get him out of here!" a doctor yelled angrily from inside the room.

"Boy, you shouldn't be in here. Let's go." One of the villagers who had been waiting outside held Leyon by the arm and dragged him out of the room after apologising to the team of doctors.

When Hikari and the man finally caught up to Leyon during the chaos, they saw Leyon being held by the villagers. But despite their best efforts to calm him down, Leyon thrashed wildly in their hands, demanding they let go of him.

Leyon was told Claire had a heart attack when she was out in the fields. From the wide, transparent glass screen fitted in the hospital room, Leyon could see everything that was going on inside. Wires and cords were attached to his grandmother's neck and chest. A heart rate monitor sat on a cart beside the bed with odd wires leading from it. One doctor got on top of his grandmother and performed CPR. A long, straight line ran across the monitor screen. The doctors tried everything they could to resuscitate her, tirelessly pumping her chest again and again but it was fruitless.

Ten minutes later, Claire was pronounced dead due to heart failure.

The team of doctors rushed out of the room and left after apologising to the others waiting outside. Leyon finally wrung himself free from their grasp and ran in to see his grandmother. A crying Hikari quietly followed him and stood a few steps away from him. The villagers watched him sympathetically from outside the room, not daring to enter, letting him have his privacy with his grandmother for the very last time.

A sharp pain went through his chest at the sight of his grandmother lying motionless on the bed. His heart thumped wildly in his chest as his breathing became heavy. Unknowingly, a lone tear slid down the side of his cheek.

"... Granny cooked chicken stew for you. It's your favourite, isn't it? I made vegetable broth too. This is good for your health. Eat up lots."

His grandmother's words flooded into his mind as more painful flashbacks of her followed.

"... I promise I'll stay with you for a long time, long enough to see you grow up and start a family of your own. So don't worry, dear. But are you sure you won't get tired of this old lady later?"

"... I'll cook your favourite dish for dinner when I return."

The scenes replayed themselves over and over again in Leyon's head. "Granny. Don't play with me. Get up," he cried, shaking his grandmother's lifeless body. "You said you'd cook my favourite dish for dinner when you returned. So, get up. Let's go home." He shook her body hoping she would respond, but he knew very well she wouldn't.

Before long, Leyon found himself crying. The strong boy who never cried; the strong boy who always held himself together; the strong boy who never let himself shed a single drop of tear even after losing his parents, was crying. His father who had taught him to be strong, taught him to never succumb to his tears but endure and fight back, that image he'd been trying so hard to keep up shattered into a million pieces.

How could he fight against something that was out of his control? How could he endure when his heart felt like it was being stabbed repeatedly with a knife? All he could do now was cry, cry without any restraint. And so, he did. He cried, a river of emotions flooding him. The anger, the disappointment, the grief, the sadness, everything that he had been holding in since the moment his parents died, his tears carried them all out, spilling them like raindrops on the cold white floor. This time he would cry for his grandmother, for his parents, for everything he was going through.

If only this was all but a dream, he wished.