A Realistic Dream

k"Ryuu... Ryuu wake up! RYUUU!!!!"

"NOOOOO!!!!", a young kid with black hair who was around the age of 11 screamed quite loudly.

"Huff huff...", he was panting and sweating a lot.

"Haha, what happened? Did you see a nightmare!!?"

He turned his head towards the soothing voice which he heard that made him comfortable.

He could hardly see the person standing before him since his eyes were blurry because of crying.

"Oh my, was the dream so scary that you started crying?", the woman slowly moved closer to him and wiped his face with a piece of wet clothing.

Then she sat beside him and started to caress him a bit.

He again looked towards the lady since his blurriness had now faded away.

"M-mom...?", he said in a low voice.

He didn't have to confirm it since he could feel the gentle touch from her that was comforting him.

"Yes baby? Is something wrong?", she looked at him with a worrisome expression on her face.

He then immediately said, "Mom, you are not dead yet!?"

"Eh?"

'Wack'

She hit on his head and pulled his chin.

"Looks like you want me dead!!!", she was speaking sarcastically with a smile which was rather scary.

"Ouch! Mom that hurts...", she immediately stopped and then patted his head.

"I am alive and perfectly fine! Ain't I sitting in front of you?"

He looked at her again and then slowly grabbed her hands.

"Ya... you are alive... but..."

"But?"

"But, why aren't you dead yet?"

'Wack'

She hit him hard again and said, "Looks like you are still in your dream world! Do you want another hit to wake up!!?"

"Ouch!", he immediately realized that it was not a dream and a reality that his mom was in front of him.

"So... that was...", he wasn't able to understand if he had watched a dream or something because the feeling was too real to be a dream.

"Haha, perhaps you had a nightmare. Don't worry, I am with you. Everything is fine now.", she smiled while saying this.

For some reason her consoling made him relax. He was finally able to accept that this was indeed a reality since he could feel her touch and everything else.

She kept on patting his back since she felt that he might have been worried because of the nightmare.

He too felt a usual love that was being poured onto him. It seemed as if he had lost all the memories of this earlier.

He fell asleep again in her arms because it was too comfortable for him without even realizing it.

"Eh? You slept again?", she wanted to wake him up since it was already noon, but he had been suffering from fever for two days so she decided to let him rest.

She slowly laid him in the bed again and went back to the small flower-selling shop of theirs.

Soon two hours passed by and Ryuu woke up from his sleep only to find no one near him.

The room was not well lit and it was a bit cold too. There were many holes in the ceiling from which rainwater used to easily leak in.

"Our house...?", he looked here and there and confirmed that it indeed was his house.

"Huff... then was that really a dream...?"

He tried to remember it and was able to tell everything that had happened.

"But, the feeling of death and sorrow... it was too real.", his heart was unrest and his mind too was wandering somewhere else.

He wasn't able to tell which one was a dream when suddenly his stomach started to hurt a lot.

"Argh! What's happening?"

He felt as if his stomach was about to burst anytime soon. There was a weird reaction going on in his stomach.

"D-Damn... my chest...!!!"

Immediately as his stomach started paining, his chest too ached. Slowly the pain spread throughout his body and all of the parts were in immense pain.

He couldn't even shout because of the extreme pain in his throat and neck.

He couldn't even lift a single finger and continuously suffered while gritting his teeth.

"Mhmm!", he was biting a piece of cloth in order to reduce the pain and not scream but it was unbearable.

He finally fell unconscious because of the sudden change that happened to his body.

Soon another hour passed and his mother again came back to take a look at him only to find him sweating heavily and breathing hard.

"Ryuu!!!?", she immediately rushed near him and started to pat him and wiped his sweat with a cloth after dipping it in the cold water.

"Baby, What is happening to you...?", she was not a doctor so she couldn't tell anything about his condition.

She couldn't even consult a doctor since she had very little to no money.

"What should I do?", she was panicking each and every moment. She gazed at the table made up of wood which had a drawer and immediately rushed there.

She opened the drawer to search for medicines if there were left any.

"No! No! NO!", there was only dust in the drawer and nothing else.

She was too tensed and worried. She immediately rushed out with the petty sum of money that she had to ask for a doctor to help.

"Please... my son... he will die! Please come and see what has happened to him."

In this era, there was nothing called mercy or kind heart. Everyone only aimed at name and fame and nothing else.

Finding a doctor was too hard in the world since very few people practiced the art of medicine and that was why they always asked for a hefty price.

"Kick her out immediately!", said the doctor near whom she had gone to beg. She was even ready to sell her body but the doctor who was too rich had more than enough money to get even more beautiful women.

"I would rather sleep with a bitch than sleeping with a skinny woman like you!"

The guards pushed her out and threw her out of the mansion right away.

It suddenly started to rain and all her clothes had become wet. She was almost broken and didn't know what to do next.

She remembered that Ryuu could have gotten wet and his condition might have gotten worse since their ceiling had many holes and thus she rushed back as soon as she could and reached her tattered house.

"Ryuu...?"

Some droplets of water had already started to fall on him on seeing which she rushed and lifted him up and moved him a bit to the side where no water would fall on him.

"I am sorry... I can't do anything even when you are suffering from the fever... your mother is totally useless!", she started weeping beside him when suddenly the locket that she was wearing flashed in front of her as it had become loose.

"This...", she remembered something from the past which suddenly changed her expression.

She immediately removed the locket from her neck and tied it around Ryuu's neck.

"God... please protect my son...", while saying this and praying she too fell asleep since she was already tired after running all the way to the doctor's place that was 3 miles away and returning from there without any footwear!

To be continued...