Dragon Ball Z: Paradise Found

Gotta Go The Fastest!

A young boy dashed over a glass tunnel on the left side of a road. One of multiple comprising the gas giant planet on which he and his family lived. The blue-skinned boy raced with speeding cruisers, but he always ended up losing. None of that matter for the delight came from the thrill of the race itself.

"Not too fast, Burter!" a blue-skinned alien of thin build and disproportionately enormous head for her body and red eyes exclaimed in light maternal worry. "You'll trip and fall."

Burter turned back with a rich smile. It was as if a rainbow ring of light gleamed off of his red eyes as he observed his mother press her head against his father's shoulder. The crossed, blue antennae present on the foreheads of the female members of Burter's species moved aside as the frail young thing pressed herself against her husband with an adoring smile as she looked at little Burter waste his childish vigor.

*****

Little Burter pressed his head against the white mechanical door to listen in on the audible mumble from his mother's ward. His little heart pounded all across his chest as if looking for a way to get out. In such a state one couldn't have blamed him for prompting the door to open up, causing him to tumble inside where the blue-skinned doctor holding a widget in his hand and reading its data out to Burter's father and Burter's father turned at him.

"Burter!" father yelled out. His voice sounded unfamiliar from how it did not too long ago, just two months earlier when they were all leaving for long walks and mother and father were happy.

"Please... Let Burter stay... It's so lonely in here," mother muttered in a weak voice. She laid in the hospital bed in a strangely asymmetrical position. It must have been because of the spinal fracture. The antennae on her head also seemed separate now instead of connecting two different points of her forehead together. The doctors appeared to have covered up the loose ends in an adhesive medical gel to prevent bleeding and further nutrient loss.

"It's not like your mother could have been here. Your sister also passed away last year," Burter's father reached out to hold his wife's hand, but it froze there. He knew that if he touched his wife at this stage, he risked fracturing her hand and leaving it to crumble off her hand. "I guess it's just us here now..." the alien covered up his face, sinking it into the front of his elbow.

"As I was saying, we can't do too much. This is natural for females of our race. They aren't built for longevity. Their bones and body structure are fragile and their pores close up not too long after giving birth, leaving them to dry out eventually," the doctor scratched the back of his head, straining the medical bodysuit he wore with his strong musculature inherent in all male members of young Burter's species.

"You just had to pet that deer, didn't you?" Burter's father moved his elbow down to wipe the snot that just sort of ran down in a torrent into his mouth since his species didn't have an extending nose, just two breathing holes in the center of a flat face.

"I regret... Nothing..." Burter's mom closed her eyes with a smile. "Plus, Marjerrien fell apart exposed to strong winds when her husband opened the window. Seeing my son grow up was never in the cards..."

Burter cried out, jumping up to hug his mother, but he wasn't fast enough. The doctor rushed in and caught the anxious child in mid-air, subduing him and putting him down. He tried rushing through words and medical jargon that would have explained that even the lightest contact might have caused his mother more pain before her passing, but none of it passed through the stubby ears at the sides of little Burter's head. The young one just bawled his heart out as if it had only hit him now that he was seeing his mother for the last time.

"Bye, Burter. Listen to your mom, okay?" Burter's mom smiled with her eyes still closed.

"I will! I will listen to my mom, mom!" Burter yelled out, clenching his fists and tensing up his entire body. A delirious, hopeless attempt to activate any latent superpowers he might have had that could have healed his mother somehow. He'd have gone for anything now.