Chapter 06 - Parahuman Parents

Disclaimer: I don't own Worm

Tuesday 18.08.2009

I stepped through the doors of the hospital main entrance two minutes after the visiting hours officially started. Unlike last time I decided to use the stairs to get to the third floor, in accordance with my intention to get my body into shape.

I was still sore from the wounds my body suffered. Nonetheless, I thought it to be a good idea to start as early as possible with it, and since they didn't substantially impact me, I saw no issue with it. I wouldn't want to break the promise I made to myself, that if I should survive my ordeal, I would become the world's most fit teenager.

And everybody had to start somewhere why not do that by climbing stairs.

I reached room 306 with the door standing open. As I stepped inside, I saw the backside of the doctor from the day before, bent over my Dad. I moved closer and noticed that he was holding a small flashlight and was using it to inspect the opened pupils of my Dad.

Before my mind was able to process what I was seeing, my feet were already in motion and brought me right next to his bed.

"Dad, Dad you are awake."

I happily shouted, barely able to contain my sobs as I was tearing up.

"Woah, you startled me, young lady. You shouldn't do that to the elderly who knows what might happen to their hearts."

He chided smiling. Probably to distract me from realizing, that despite the eyes of my Dad were open. He was apathetic, not reacting to what happened around him. He didn't even blink when I reached for him and held onto his hand. I would have thought him dead if not for the pulse I could feel.

"What is wrong with my Dad?" I couldn't help but wonder.

"To be honest, we don't know." Dr. Grenn told me. "After taking a second look at his symptoms, we reconsidered our approach and decided to stop sedating him."

I interrupted him.

"What, Why? Didn't you say just yesterday that you wanted to keep him sedated until you knew what was wrong with him as to not inflict any more damage on him?"

"Yes, yes, that was our initial assessment." He sighed. "But we revisited his diagnosis and decided we didn't know enough about his condition to risk not waking him up. Since there was a chance, that the MRI examination would come back negative.

We somehow had to narrow it down - there is a large number of possible ailments that fit with the symptoms your father showed so far. But in order to gain any more information, we had to stop sedating him."

"I see," I said crestfallen. "did you have any success so far?"

"Yes, and No, we were able to exclude a number of candidates, but we still don't know what afflicts your father." I said only to add a heartfelt "I'm sorry."

"What can you tell me about his condition?" I wondered.

"Well, as far as we can tell. Your father is awake, but he seems to be in some kind of vegetative state. Contrary to what usually defines this state, your father didn't experience a loss of higher brain function according to our EEG. Quite the opposite is true, they are off the charts, which we concluded was the reason why he had a seizure in the first place."

He took a moment to take a deep breath.

"We don't know what is responsible for his brain to be overloaded, but what we know is, that if whatever affects him doesn't stop in the next 24 hours, we fully expect him to sustain heavy neurological damage. This, unfortunately, would mean should we find no way to help him that his present condition will become permanent."

He made the two steps that separated us and placed his right hand on my shoulder. "Don't lose hope."

He squeezed my shoulder a gave me an encouraging smile and left.

I sorted my thoughts and went to work. Something that was made fairly easy since my father was the only patient in the room. I was quite sure I had Panacea to thank for that. So I only had to check for any kind of surveillance devices in the room after I closed the door. Fusing with mom allowed me to make use of her experiences with this kind of thing.

After checking the room twice, I was satisfied despite knowing that I still might have missed something, and that was without considering the more on the unusual side of things existing means to spy on someone. Hell, for all I knew, there could be a clairvoyant out there watching my every move.

But I was also aware of the futility of pondering something I couldn't affect, so I soothed myself with the knowledge that I did all in my power to prevent being observed.

I stepped through the curtains, I previously closed, hanging from the ceiling around every bed in the room to provide some privacy for the patients. Giving me another layer of protection and most importantly, provide me with the necessary time to send Mom back in the Abyss, should someone chose to enter the room without knocking.

I watched my dad, with the power of my mom at my disposal. It wasn't hard to identify the cause for his state. He had a power, and given the coloration of the aura he was surrounded in, it had to be a strong one. The temptation was huge to touch him, and take it away from him, but I didn't. I promised mom that I wouldn't.

I ended our fusion and summoned her. Once again, the feeling of inadequacy hit me after we parted.

Mom alighted from my shadow, a process, I was not sure I would ever get tired of seeing. I even was tempted to slow it down for this very reason. I noticed that the summoning took less time than it did yesterday, especially if I put my mind to it. It felt like a muscle that got stronger the more it was exercised. Since it already took less than a second, it was just a matter of time until it would be near-instantaneous.

Mom showed me a smile and then focused her attention on Dad, analyzing his power. I knew from what she told me about her power that it might take her a while, to get a basic understanding of it. So I tried to occupy my thoughts while checking that the door was still closed at irregular intervals by cribbing through the curtains.

I wondered about the dream I had, so far, I hadn't had the time to find out if the dream I had on the first night after I created my first three shadows was more than just my imagination running wild. The evidence strongly supported my going theory. My other female shadow was without a doubt the formerly known cape Iron Rain. But if I assumed for a moment, that I really was dreaming about them, their lives, their most intimate and molding moments they went through. Then wouldn't this mean my Mother was in love with Simone? The woman, otherwise known as Lustrum, currently an inmate of the Birdcage, the worst prison ever built, while she was pregnant with me.

And she loved her, of that, I was sure about. After all, I could feel what she felt, and there was no mistaking it, overlaid by regret but love nonetheless, and it was far stronger than everything she felt while talking and thinking about Dad. I couldn't get myself to stop pondering what might have happened between those two for them to break up; they seemed to be destined for each other.

On the other hand, despite having been in Mom's shoes and experiencing it for myself, I couldn't bring myself to endorse this love, because there was still Dad to consider, which led to the question of why mom got together with dad? I asked myself this question over and over; did Mom really love him when they got together or was he just a means to console herself over the break-up? Could I have been the reason that their relationship got as serious as it did, because they were expecting a child, or was I misunderstanding something?

What frightened me was the fact, that before I had this dream I thought my mother incapable of doing something like this.

But now I had to wonder If I even knew the real Annette Hebert.

In the past, she was my paragon, my hero. I always wanted to be like her or Alexandria, depending on the weekday. But mostly her, even though the notion of being able to fly was quite hard to beat. I couldn't suppress a smirk at that thought.

I had to admit that there was only one way to learn the truth, I had to ask her, but did I really want to.

I was weighing my options. Live my life blissfully ignorant, with the constant doubt regarding the nature of the relationship of my parents or getting the truth;

However painful it might be. And it would be the truth; I was certain that as my shade, she couldn't lie to me, no matter how much she wanted to. This train of thought created another problem, because if it was true that mom could talk to me because my power considered her loyal, couldn't me questioning her destroy the trust between us to a point at which my power no longer thought her to be so.

It could mean reducing her to the same state Aku and Kuro were in, and I couldn't be sure there was a way to regain her loyalty. This could mean she could become a husk, a slave in her own body until the end of time. Did my power even allow for my shades to become more loyal, or was the state in which I created them a permanent one?

Boah, this was so frustrating I could tear my hair out. Couldn't I have gotten an easy-to-understand straightforward power and not one, which necessitates a thousand-page user guide, which was forgotten to be delivered with the power?

"I'm done," said Mom in a tone bordering on frustration.

"So you know what his power is," I asked.

"Unfortunately not, I can tell that it is a very strong master power, stronger than I have ever witnessed a power of being before with a significant thinker component. The reason why I didn't get any specifics either means it also has a trump component, or it is broad enough for there to be no specifics. Be that as it may, I'm fairly sure the reason for Danny's condition are his powers."

I was confused.

"How can his power be responsible for this? I mean, it is his power, right? Why should it incapacitate him?"

"I can understand your confusion, Taylor," Mom said. "Unfortunately, it happens sometimes that when people gain powers that something goes wrong. Some of them end up in a similar state as your dad. It has been speculated that the strength of the power directly correlates with the effects it has on the person, from minor changes in their behavior or personality right up to vegetative states that barely allow them to function. A rule of thumb, of sorts which Danny seems to fall under."

"But how does that explain, Eidolon or Scion?" I asked, "aren't they the most powerful capes out there?" My mother gave me her patented `you should know better´ look. Right before she said.

"There are always exceptions to every rule, and I don't think Scion qualifies as an example for your argument on the contrary, because as far as I'm aware, he doesn't even talk."

"What does this mean for Dad?"

"If had to take a guess, given his symptoms, I would say the thinker component of his power is overwhelming him." She elaborated. "He probably is unable to process the data he receives to a point where it is starting to hurt him. Most thinker powers I encountered put a strain on their user most common are headaches, which get worse through continuous use to a point where they can result in an aneurism. What I think was exactly what happened to Danny."

"Okay, now that we know the cause, we can do something for him, right?" I offered hopefully, "Right?" Given her facial expression, she didn't share my enthusiasm.

"Taylor, it is not that easy," she dampened my expectations. "I can see only ways that he could get better. Number one, Danny starts adapting to his power, but since it didn't happen already, I don't think it will. Number two, he starts to control the aspect of his power responsible for his problems, but that isn't something we can help him with, for all we know it might be impossible."

"Can't we just, I don't know, steal his power for good?" I asked desperately.

"As far as I'm aware, there isn't and has never been a known Para-human with an ability like that. I'm probably one of the few who have an ability that comes the closest to a genuine power remover. Of course, there are others like Hatchet Face, but what we all have in common, no matter how our powers achieve that outcome, is that they are temporary." She softly caressed Dad's cheek. "I would love nothing more than to help Taylor, but it is not within my power."

Despite knowing all this, I had hoped that we, I could somehow do something. Mom's words just reaffirmed, that there was a difference between wishful thinking and reality. Nonetheless, I wasn't willing to concede defeat that easily.

"You said, there might be the chance, that the reason for his condition is him being unable to control his power or him lacking the knowledge that it is even possible. Can't we just tell him how to do it, use your power to momentarily steal his, and when he returns to normal explain everything to him before giving it back?" I hopefully looked at Mom after presenting her with my idea.

"Yeah, at least it might give him a chance to overcome this problem on his own. Assuming my second theory is correct." She mused. "I would recommend that we limit the number of news that we present him with as much as possible. For one, I can't be certain of how long I can hold onto his power, and I can't know for sure if I will be affected in a similar way. So we should make use of every second I can provide us with. Add to this that we can't know for sure, that even without his power, he will be responsive and in a state of mind that allows him to comprehend the situation. That is why I think it reasonable to only focus on the matter at hand. Meaning, we shouldn't confront him either with me, his dead wife that mysteriously was resurrected or with the fact, that this was done by your parahuman power."

"Why?" I inquired.

"Because I don't think, even a healthy Danny take well to the news that you became a Parahuman. Stress, of any kind, which this would definitely cause, could be bad in his condition. Taylor, you have to keep in mind, it might also be possible that my first theory is true and there is no way to control his power."

"I understand," I said, trying to sound determined.

"Good, then let's get started."

Mom walked to the head of his bed. Out of his peripheral vision, and placed her hand on his forehead, the moment she did, she froze on the spot. Meanwhile, Dad started to blink and groan. It reminded me of how characters in movies awoke after having drunk too much alcohol. I nearly got a panic attack, because Mom was still standing motionless at the exact same spot, slightly touching his head. I basically could already picture him either seeing Mom through his changing point of view while he was shaking off his dizziness or him noticing the hand on his head. I got so desperate that I was already considering to unsummon Mom and only refrained because I didn't know what this might mean for dad's power mom was holding onto. A power, which I was aware of, was now firmly in her grasp. However, I couldn't help but notice it was still somehow outside of the reach of the Abyss.

I could feel how there was something new connected to Mom, but despite her being my shade, I had no direct access to it. It felt like being burrowed encapsulated inside Mom. Furthermore, I could feel that this power was still loosely tethered somewhere else.

That could only be Dad, and it was in conjunction with how Mom described her power to be working. This must be the rubberband she was talking about. But contrary to what she described, this tether seemed weak and fragile to me, as if it could be severed by the slightest use of force.

That made me think if I could somehow reach the power now buried deep within Mom and let the Abyss touch it would I be able to sever it and let the Abyss try to consume it, to remove this power for good from Dad?

I discarded this thought. Since I wasn't able to reach it in the first place, this train of thought was pointless. Considering the limited control I had over the Abyss when I allowed it to reach out, I doubted I would be able to stop it if it followed along this tether to get to Dad. I wouldn't, no I couldn't, risk it, even if I somehow could get to his power.

Dad repeatedly blinked, dampening his dry eyes, trying to take in his surroundings. Before my worst fears came to pass and I had an act, my Mom came out of her stupor and took a few steps backward traversing through the curtains surrounding us, thereby getting out of sight.

I took a deep breath I only now realized I was holding, being glad that I wasn't forced to unsummon Mom. To be honest, I wasn't sure I would have. So it was good that I didn't have to find out the hard way if I could make such a decision in the spur of the moment.

The good thing of my indecisiveness and it working out in the end, I managed to avoid having to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why a shade of Mom was standing next to his hospital bed. A revelation that could potentially threaten his already frail health. Bullet dodged for now.

"Dad, are you alright?" I asked.

He groaned back

"Taylor, is that you?"

"Yes, Dad, it is me. I'm so glad you are alright."

I had to fight back tears from leaking.

"Why shouldn't I be?" he asked puzzled.

"You don't remember?" I interjected.

"Remember what?" He paused for a moment and then added. "Where are my glasses?"

I reached for them lying on the bed stand and handed them to Dad. He put them on and then took in his surroundings.

"Taylor where are we? I can't remember your Mom ever buying such a disgusting-looking curtain." He joked.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, I couldn't help but chuckle at that. "We are in the hospital. After you had a stroke or what the doctor believed to be one, you were brought here and were unconscious for the last 24 hours."

"What do you mean they believed? Don't they know what is wrong with me?"

"No, they don't. That's the reason I woke you Dad," I told him.

"You woke me, Taylor, what are you talking about? You don't make any sense." He said in response.

I was just about to answer his question, explain to him that he triggered with powers, which were the reason he was in the hospital, and that he should try to control them when I heard the door handle being turned and fast-paced steps getting closer. I barely had time to unsummon Mom when the curtain was abruptly parted, and a scowling nurse came to a stop right next to me.

I saw her open her mouth, no doubt attempting to chastise me for playing around in a hospital room. When I noticed Dad's eyes roll up in his sockets and before his head could plummet into his pillow, he started to go into a seizure.

I immediately noticed a stream of blood leaking out of his nose, which didn't compare to the first time this happened; because it was so much worse. In seconds, through his wildly thrashing around his whole face was covered in blood. And all I could do was standing there, watching as the nurse call for help and doing her best to hold down my dad.

As I was repeating the same question over and over again in my mind

`oh my god, what have I done?´

I was ripped out of my reverie when I was nearly run over by approaching nurses and doctors flooding the room.

I heard someone shouting to get the kid out of here. I didn't even register how someone must have dragged me out of the room and placed me on a chair in the waiting room.

The next thing I consciously perceived was being softly shaken out of my stupor by two hands on my shoulders.

"Hey Kid, everything alright with you." I heard a familiar voice ask.

It took me a moment to make out the reason, why everything looked blurred. At first, I thought I had misplaced my glasses only to realize I was already wearing them. The wetness trailing down my cheeks gave me the hint, I needed so out of it as I was.

I rubbed the tears away with limited success, my efforts just smeared them all over my face, and with the seemingly never-ending stream of new tears, I got nowhere. I must have been not the only one to notice this because I was offered a handkerchief by the person kneeling in front of me. With it, I was able to make some progress in getting cleaned up.

I was able to get out a meek.

"Thank you."

"No problem Kid."

The bald doctor with glasses from yesterday said to me. Come to think of it. I couldn't keep calling him that in my mind, not after having talked twice with him already. My eyes drift towards his name tag on his white doctor's coat.

"Thank you, Doctor Green," I said with a cracking voice.

"Don't sweat it, kid." He said with a hint of amusement.

"How is my Dad?" I asked.

My question smothered the slight uptick in his mood, I could see at the corner of his mouth. Somber, again, he answered.

"We were able to stabilize him, but we didn't get any closer to solving the mystery surrounding his condition. The only thing we can be certain of is that he gets worse and whatever caused this incident, I don't believe he is gonna survive another one. Sorry that I'm the bearer of bad news."

My thoughts started racing again. This meant even if talking to Dad and telling him about his power could have worked. It was now a path locked, and for all I knew, it was my only and last chance to save him. Damn, how could I have been so stupid and not considered that somebody could interrupt us before I was able to tell him anything?

After all, it was a hospital. Of course, there would be someone looking after him, making rounds in order to check on the patients.

How could I be so stupid? All it would have taken to prevent this from happening would have been to make sure that nobody would have come through that door. Instead of doing that, I was more concerned about somebody seeing me use my powers than my dad's health.

Damn it. I clenched my fist at my sides.

"Hey stop that."

Doctor Green commanded and reached for my hands and unclenched them. "Kid, there was nothing you could have done. Sometimes despite our best efforts, bad things happen even to the ones closest to us."

It would have been so much easier to accept this situation if he wouldn't be so wrong in his assumption. Not only was I the reason that he gained powers in the first place, no I botched it to help him deal with it. It all was my fault, nobody else's. I considered telling him how wrong he was. I couldn't stand his sympathy I didn't deserve, but what difference would it make. It wouldn't allow him to help Dad. It would only serve to make me feel something else than guilt for causing both my parent's deaths.

"How long have you been here kid?" Dr. Green asked.

"Since the start of the visiting hours."

"Of course you were. Did you eat anything in that time?"

I didn't answer his question. My growling stomach did that for me, Dr. Green just smiled at me. "Come on, let's get something to eat, my treat. It won't do us any good if we have to give you the bed next to your father just because you don't take care of yourself, and what kind of hospital would we be if we allowed this to happen."

He gave looked at me in such a way that clearly conveyed that every protest on my part would be useless. Given that I started to really feel hungry, I accepted my fate and followed him down into the cafeteria.

He tried to make some small talk on the way, but for the most part, I did my best to ignore it. He caught on to this fact rather fast and stopped his attempts to cheer me up.

When we arrived in the cafeteria, he already guessed that I wasn't too keen to occupy myself with the question of what to eat. That was why he just asked me.

"You like tuna?" I just nodded along. "Good, they make the best one you will ever eat. How about cheesecake?" I nodded once more. He walked up to the guy manning the register and ordered. "I would like two of the big tuna sandwiches, two large pieces of cheesecake, black tea with honey, and orange juice."

We waited for the young woman to prepare the order, and Doctor Green paid for it. With a tablet in hand, Dr. Green led me to a table next to the window facade, which had a good view outside towards the small park in the back of the hospital.

We sat down opposite each other, and he was about to take a bit out of his sandwich when the speaker activated.

"Doctor Green, please report to the emergency room immediately." After a short pause, the announcement got repeated, "Doctor Green, please report to the emergency room immediately."

"So much for a break," he sighed, "that just means you have to eat my fill too. Don't let good food go to waste you hear me Kid."

He stood up and left me to brood. I halfheartedly bit in my sandwich, and I had to say he was right this sandwich was great as was the tea he originally bought for himself. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to really enjoy the meal.

Since my thoughts drifted back to my problem at hand, how could I help Dad? My, so far most likely to succeed, approach failed spectacularly, and I deemed it far too risky to try it again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a girl roughly around my age wearing some strange-looking alabaster-white robe with a red cross on its back sitting down at an empty table next to me. She placed a plate with a piece of cake and a large cup of coffee in front of her.

That had to be Panacea. I vaguely remembered her public introduction as the newest `powered´member of the New Wave. It was televised shortly after Mom's death. For this reason, I didn't remember much about what was said about her and her powers. But I remembered what I overheard yesterday; Apparently, whatever my Dad `has´, it exceeded her abilities to fix.

Under different circumstances, I might have been tempted to talk to her. After all, she was the first cape of which I knew, to actually be one, being this close to me; thanks, mom.

Sure throughout the years, in cape-capital Brockton Bay being one of the cities throughout the country with the largest capes per capita, I had met other capes in the vaguest sense of the word. There were always public events, where the Protectorate and Wards presented themselves, and not to forget the annual Wards visit at schools, but this was the first time the cape in question wasn't surrounded by a huge mass of people with me in it.

Although there were a lot of things my motormouth self would have liked to ask a bonafide superhero, I suppressed the urge. I didn't want to impose and interrupt her surely well-deserved break.

Nowadays it got harder and harder to find this excitable, and without pausing for breath talking Taylor in me.

Most importantly, I had more pressing concerns she was unable to help me. So I decided to focus on my food, at least that was my intention when a nurse approached her table.

"Hello Amy, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in the outdoor swimming pool and tempt boys with your curves, instead of wasting your time in here with us old folks, and all the gloomy patients?"

She smiled at that

"You aren't that old Cynthia."

"Not that old, girl I'm thirty-two, my life is essentially over, over I tell ya. My best years are long past and will be forgotten, in short order. There is only work, slow aging, and then dying ahead of me. No more fun and games, no more boys longing for my wrinkled old body, no girls envying my perfect figure, skin, and hair." She dramatically played up her agitation in a mocking good-hearted manner.

Amy looked at her baffled, doing her best to suppress her laughter at the antics of the nurse, but failed miserably and then broke down laughing. In the time it took to regain her bearing and wipe the tears off her eyes the nurse sat down on a chair opposite of Amy.

The playfulness vanished, as she asked.

"Seriously Amy, what are you doing here? You have been here yesterday for hours, and in the week before that, you missed not a single day. You are a child. You shouldn't be here and spend every free minute of your life healing people. You run the risk of forgetting what the meaning of the word fun is. You should start to live your life. You are only young once, you know."

"You know I can't, nobody..."

She was interrupted before she could end her sentence.

"Nobody can do what you do. If you don't heal them, they will die. Yeah yeah, I already heard you say that dozens of times, but what about you? Despite what some of the doctors or others might think, you matter, too. Never forget that. Honestly, there should be laws preventing you from even being here. Those who allow you to be here, thinking it okay to let you shoulder that kind of responsibility, should have their heads examined. For god's sake, you are just a child. I have met people several times your age who broke down under far less."

After her tirade, Cynthia inhaled deeply and forced herself to smile.

"Sorry, you know how I get when I see you here. Seeing how your happiness is slowly sucked out of you."

"It is okay." Amy waved off.

"No, it really isn't. You shouldn't be here, and I shouldn't remind you of that every chance I get." She said. There was a lull in their conversation only the nurse to pick it up again. "So you didn't answer my question, why are you here? Didn't you say your family had something planned for today? I remember you saying, you and your sister even got excused from school."

"Yeah, we were supposed to visit Dad's parents in Boston, his father is celebrating his seventieth birthday," she said.

"How come you aren't with them, then?" Cynthia wondered.

"The PRT called during breakfast, they apprehended a Case 53 cape they found in a freight container coming from Russia and because this cape lacked the ability to control its power" Amy explained.

"They asked you to look into it in the hopes you might be able to help it. So they could get one more little soldier in their cape-army." Cynthia concluded.

"They aren't that bad." Amy defended.

"You keep telling yourself that, honey. But one day you will see the truth, like me. So given that you are here, this must mean you went there and what your family went ahead without you?" Cynthia guessed.

"More or less," the healer admitted, "it would have taken too long to see the cape and still be on time."

"So you were left behind and I'm sure the mighty PRT couldn't wait another day for you to see an imprisoned cape, because reasons." She lifted both her hands to put quotation marks around the word reasons.

"Yeah, they said they would send her to a special facility able to contain her tomorrow. So I only had today, if I wanted to see her because the special accommodations necessary for her transport couldn't be postponed."

Cynthia mockingly rolled her eyes at hearing that. "Wow... special accommodations... their excuses get better and better"

Amy ignored her objection. "You should have seen her. She didn't even have what you would consider a body. She was just a head with tentacles. She had more in common with an octopus than with a human being. The girl was so frightened of herself and what she did. Her own body, not under her conscious control, acting by itself. After I've been told, what she did, what her power did. I just couldn't ignore it."

"Of course you couldn't." Cynthia exhaled slowly. "Am I right to assume that you weren't able to help her?"

The downcast look on Amy's face didn't require a verbal response.

"No."

"So instead of going home and make use of having your home all to yourself, you had to soothe your guilty conscience because you shattered her hopes and came here to make up for it by healing dozens of terminal patients. Amy, what the hell!"

Cynthia stopped herself before she could really take off with her rant when she saw tears leaking from Amy's eyes.

"She was just a little girl, probably a lot younger than me, not remembering anything before she was ripping people apart while being a passenger in her own body. And I was powerless... " Amy sniffed.

Cynthia stood up and embraced Amy.

"Schhhh, It wasn't your fault. You did all you could. We can't help everybody. Sometimes we just can't."

At hearing those words, I grabbed the remaining food in front of me, half of a tuna sandwich, and left the cafeteria. Because I simply wasn't willing to accept failure, not when it was about saving my Dad.

Authors Note: I will also post outtakes today (2nd chapter later or tomorrow depends on how far I get...); so to say a different version of this story. With a different original premise. It will be a two-shot since I don't intend to continue it ... but perhaps some of you might like it nonetheless ... to see what my first draft of this story amounted to.