Netway: Evolutions

Chapter 14: Flaming Craze

Firey was an interesting person to say the least.

Not many people would sit in front of a building and think about what the best ways to burn it down would be.

It looked so innocent, someone just standing there and admiring the architecture or at least that's what it looked like.

A fire burned within him, in his soul, that's what his father used to say.

He missed him, he missed him every day but he had always been told not to linger, he needed to focus on living his life, not wallowing in death.

It had always been known to him that his father would die while he was still young, he'd been bed ridden for as long as Firey could remember but that didn't stop the man from trying to be a father.

Firey had good memories, memories that he often looked back on with a smile and a heaviness in his heart.

His dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness and was prescribed medication that the family couldn't afford but by scrounging what little they had together they were able to get what he needed.

Or what he was told he needed.

It happened years ago, his father had died a while ago but this still felt too raw and real.

He was taking the meds, doing everything he was told in the hopes of making any kind of recover but with each passing day it was as though he was getting worse and worse.

It got to the point that he couldn't even speak, forced to stay in his bed with this horrible, far away look in his eyes and Firey was forced to watch as he slowly lost the man he held so much admiration and respect for.

They were told he had another few years left to live, with possibilities of recovering if he stuck to the medical plans.

Unfortunately, he passed away ten months after being prescribed the medication, leaving Firey all alone.

The doctors said that the illness must have gotten into his bloodstream quicker than they had anticipated and had reached the point of no return.

Basically, what they meant was "there's nothing else we could do, stop blaming us,"

For a while, Firey accepted that as his reality, he moved in with his uncle and worked in his shop in the criminal market, earning a bit of money and trying to make a life for himself.

But all of this would change, everything he knew would he messed up and he would lose all of his progress.

It happened when he had snuck out and gotten a drink at a bar where he began to chat with some guys so he didn't look suspicious.

Somehow the topic of medicine came up and someone mentioned the same pills his father had taken and how there was a controversy surrounding them lately.

Like the idiot he is, Firey wanted to know more, his curiosity getting the better of him.

...

After hearing what he did, his drink suddenly tasted stale, the world felt dull and distant and all he wanted to do was go home.

Gradual neurological degradation.

His father's mind had been slowly deteriorating, slowly losing all function.

They had been paying for something that only sped up the inevitable.

Those pills were never meant to help his father, all they were doing was making things worse.

In a recent scandal that the pharmaceutical company faced, it was all revealed that these pills were given to people who "didn't have a chance" so the doctors didn't have to waste time on them.