The Game Developers Son

Chapter Five

Damien's POV

There was a faint beeping sound ringing in my ear. Some parts of my body ached while the rest felt strangely numb. I could hear quiet voices whispering around me. They sounded extremely similar to what my own family sounded like. I forced my eyes open, wincing in pain as a sensation of stinging erupted across my entire face. It took me a few full minutes before I could move my head side to look around the room I was in. It was a hospital room, a small one at that, with most of my family members crammed inside of it. There were both of my parents, Connor, and all of my cousins. Oh yeah, they always visited during the winter holidays. I guess that they arrived after I got rushed here. The entire group were all talking to one another, not even realising that I had woken up. The only person that probably knew was Connor, who was sitting on a small, plastic chair next to the bed, staring up at me with watery, terror-filled eyes. I dreaded to know how long he had been worrying about me for. Judging by the state that he was in, he didn't have a good night's sleep; And it also must have been early in the morning, as well. His hair was sticking up all over the place, his face was pale, and he was still wearing his pyjamas. They consisted of a long-sleeved, dark purple shirt, bright pink pants with purple spots covering them, and slipper-boots that looked like a cross between an owl and a penguin. On the recent pyjama day that his school had, he was faced with constant ridicule due to them being 'girl's clothes'. I still found it annoying that society gendered pieces of material.

I weakly smiled at him before staring straight up at the wall again, trying to remember what happened, and what else had happened while I was asleep. The last thing I remembered is laying on a stretcher bed inside of an ambulance, staring up at Hunter and saying something to him. I do know that, before I was in the ambulance, I was in a crap-load of pain while playing one of my Dad's video games. What the hell happened to me? My memory seems like shattered glass. I could pick and piece together some pieces, but others seemed to be lost forever. I closed my eyes, trying my best to remember. I had to remember something about what happened after I started to feel the pain. Surely I just didn't black out and end up in an ambulance, right? I could ask Connor if he knew what happened; Something was telling me that he knew. I opened my eyes, rolled my head over to the side of the bed that he was sitting on, and made eye contact with him. Tears were dripping lifelessly down each of his cheeks, before slipping down his chin and leaving little, tear stains on his pants. I slowly removed my left arm from the sheets, gritting my teeth as pain spread through it. God, what the hell did I do to myself? Did I break my freaking arm? No, wait...That's impossible. If I broke a bone, it would be in some sort of splint right now. Ugh, I must've done something to it though. I eventually got my arm to rest against its elbow, before lowering my forearm and running my hand through Connor's hair. He got closer to me, resting his head against my mattress. I smiled. It had felt like forever since I last held him close to me like that.

The curtain that covered my hospital 'room' from the rest of the ward that I was on suddenly opened, and Hunter, out of all people, walked in. I instantly looked over at him, my smile growing bigger. For some reason I felt closer to him. He stared back at me, causing everybody else to have the same reaction. My parents instantly ran over to me, hugging and holding me close, while my cousins jumped up onto my bed, crushing my already pain-ridden legs. I cried out, tears coming to my eyes. My cousins yelled out apologies as they leaped off from the bed, and ran over towards the right corner of the room. My parents took a few steps back, staring at me up and down. Connor stayed in the exact same place, gripping to my arm tightly, as if somebody was about to drag him away at any given moment. I contained to rub his hair, looking at all the people in the room, wondering what they were thinking. Hunter was still standing in the exact same spot he stood when he came in. His dark green eyes stared right at me, seemingly being the only source of life within his body. I let my other arm escape from the madness of the tight, thin, hospital sheets, and held out my hand. He stumbled forward, fell down into the chair that was opposite Connor's, and gripped my hand tightly. Tears rose up in his eyes, and rolled down his face seconds later. Why was everybody so emotional? Did I almost die or something? All I remember is passing out along with a weird, achy pain in my chest and numbness in my limbs. Surely I couldn't have been close to death, right? Right? I guess the only way to find out was to ask exactly what happened.