Invoking the heritage

For a moment, the hospital room returned to just how silent it should usually be. Instead of shouting, banging, and lecturing, there was this pristine silence created by one confident and two shocked faces.

"What are you…" Cleo started, only to be cut short by Marvin.

"Took you long enough, brother," he said, looking at Tom with a straight face.

"Hey! We shouldn't…" Cleo once again attempted to say something, only for her attempt to end up the same way it did the last time.

"Don't. Just don't," Marvin ordered his sister, shedding the usual kind and meek front he was using to fool everyone around him. At the same time, Cleo did the same, turning into the meek and kind girl she truly was.

In a sense, the two of them swapped their roles. But putting it in this way was wrong. They simply returned to how they actually were. They returned to how Tom now remembered them to always be.

"If I may ask, what did you guys think that happened to me?" Tom asked the heavy question. 'Did they think I lost my memory? Or maybe that I had a split personality or something?'

At first, the two siblings looked at each other, clearly trying to come to some kind of a silent agreement. Ultimately it was Marvin to release a deep sigh before shaking his head and looking Tom directly in the eyes.

"Two days before your father went missing, he came to our home," he announced in a conspiratorial tone as if he was revealing some deep, dark secret of the local society. "He claimed that you fell from the tree while hunting and struck your head against a random stone. As such, you suffered from a partial loss of a memory… Or rather, your memories became tangled, disordered." Marvin looked down at his own bandaged feet as if trying to come up with the proper words to continue.

"Partial memory loss? But I remembered the two…" Tom said in disbelief before suddenly realizing something. "Don't tell me, your act…" he started, only to stop his words before they could leave his lips.

The look of awkwardness on the faces of both of his friends was more than enough for an answer.

"When we rushed to see you, back then, something weird happened. When Cleo approached you to ask how you felt, you were clearly scared," Marvin said before looking at his sister.

"You asked if I was scheming something. At first, I had no clue what you meant, but then you ran off to Marvin and hid behind his back as if trying to use him as a shield against me," Cleo explained the rest of the situation.

"Don't tell me..." Tom spoke in a soft voice, barely capable of producing any voice at all.

"Yes," Marvin didn't allow his friend to doubt the situation even for a moment. "At least now we can bill you a truckload of beer for what we did for you," he said while putting a wide grin on his face.

"Stop it," Cleo bashed at her brother only to turn her head back to Tom and nod it. "We switched our acts. While it was hard at first... Now that we... Now that I'm already used to it, it's not much of a problem."

"But still," Tom protested, "how could you guys go so far for me? I'm aware we knew each other from when we were all in the cradle, but to do something like that," he said before shaking his head. "I still find it hard to believe it..." Tom shook his head even stronger before suddenly grinding those movements into a half. "No, that's not it. Guys," he looked up at his friends, "thank you. That's the first thing I should say."

"Don't mind us," Cleo winked at her friend before averting her eyes in a clearly joking manner, "But we will hold you accountable for that truck worth of beer, though!"

For a moment, the room turned silent again, only for the three of them to burst out laughing in the very next moment.

"Okay, now that we are done settling up the past, let's talk the current matters," Tom suddenly announced before looking at Marvin. "While I'm almost certain the company behind the bikes had nothing to do with the malfunction and the accident at large..." as he reached the point where he had to give his verdict, Tom's face soured, "I believe we still need to trash them. I'm sorry," he said.

"Huh?" Cleo looked at her friend as if he lost his mind from all the joy and reveals that took place in the last few moments in the room. "Didn't you just say that they are likely to...-"

"Cleo," Marvin said before slowly shaking his head to the sides. "Tom, does it have something to do with what I believe you to be troubled with?" he asked, turning his happy grin into a dead-serious expression.

"Indeed, it does," Tom confirmed Marvin's guess while nodding his head as well.

"Ah, I really hate to be that guy..." Marvin suddenly complained before scratching the side of his head and looking up at Tom's face. "Tom, I'm happy that you are now fully back. But as happy as I am, I'm also sorry. I'm sorry, but I don't believe you have neither the qualifications nor the right to make such an important decision."

In an instant, the joyful atmosphere in the room turned still. Yet, even though Cleo was clearly driven to keep up her truly natural act, she remained silent and even went as far as to hang her head low.

"Just like you, brother, I hate to be that kind of guy, but I don't think our group will really have the choice this time," he announced before standing up and rolling up his sleeve. Then, he looked around the room in search of something before picking up a scrap of wood that fell out of the doors when Cleo was banging on them.

"Don't tell me," Cleo whispered while opening up her eyes as wide as her eye-sockets allowed.

"That's right," Tom said before slicing the sharp piece of wood all the way across his arm. In an instant, the shallow wound he made from his elbow all the way to his wrist turned bloody. "I hereby invoke my right of heritage. As much as I hate to do it," Tom shook his head and bit his lips, "I can't afford you guys to get involved in this matter. Not with what's going on right now beneath the scene."