Ever Fall [✔️ 2016]

Chapter 8 (END)

It was a very cold object being pressed to his forehead that woke Timothy. His head was fuzzy and his body ached everywhere. He no longer felt strong. In fact, he felt the weakest he ever had before. He couldn't even raise up his hand. Just blinking alone was difficult.

At first, he didn't really see anything, not fully processing his surroundings, but after a while, his eyes focused on the doctor's wrinkled, aged face. His hand was pressed to Timothy's head, seemingly ice cold. He didn't like it; the hand brought chills forward to race across his skin.

The doctor said nothing and that was fine with him. The sooner the strange man was gone, the better.

He shook his head, standing and walking over to Timothy's father, pulling him aside to talk quietly.

With his hearing, seeming a little duller than usual, he picked up snipits of what they were saying.

"Fever... maintained... a week now..."

None of it made sense to Timothy and so he paid it little heed. He focused more on his awful headache and body pains, mostly those in his chest. Breathing was hard and made him take shallow breaths instead of full ones. The smaller they were, the less they hurt.

He wanted to ask his father what had happened and tried to call his father's name, but his voice died in his mind as his vocal cords and throat denied him any control whatsoever.

What had happened to him?

His father sat down on the side of Timothy's bed, startling him from his thoughts as he glanced around his room for the doctor.

He was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey little bear, feeling any better?"

Timothy wanted to say that he hurt, that all of him hurt, but he couldn't. His voice wouldn't work. Then again, he didn't want to worry his father.

He barley moved his head in the slightest nod imaginable, the effort a gargantuan one on his side, though it looked like nothing.

His father smiled, a sad look on his face. Timothy suspected it to be because he was worried. He'd be fine; he always got better.

"It's alright, Timothy," he said, gently brushing Timothy's sweaty bangs off of his head.

He blinked, looking up at the rather gaunt man. This did not register within his mind, though, since the doctor seemed rather thin and hollow looking, too.

"You fell asleep without knowing it," his father chuckled, patting his son's shoulder as the strained look on his face thinned with a falsely amused smile. "I found you and took you back here. The doctor was just making sure you hadn't caught a cold or anything like that."

Timothy's brows knitted together slightly and his father laughed softly, though they sounded like strangled sobs.

"No, no, my son. You're perfectly healthy." He smiled, his brows furrowing slightly for some odd reason before repeating himself again.

"Perfectly healthy."

Was he? His father didn't seem too good. Perhaps he needed to sleep more, especially when he was always so busy.

He kind of admired his father and how dedicated he was. The man always stuck with a project while Timothy often abandoned a game before it's ever over in pursuit of another that interested him more.

His father's dedication near ran him into the ground, but Timothy didn't know this. He only saw what his father let him.

He didn't know anything about being born prematurely, or hardley anything about his mother's death. He didn't know anything about having an older sister.

He knew nothing of true love or saddness, of heartbreak or joyous elation of sharing his life with someone. All he knew was what he'd made in his world with Sophie. He knew everything in the books his father would read to him at night, but nothing from true experience outside of his forest.

He didn't know what other people were like, or what it was like to eat seafood or a churro.

He would never do or learn any of this because he wasn't meant too. Most people are placed on this world to serve a purpose, but others are placed here as a gift- a gift of being.

They are allowed time on earth to grow and live, to have a life that they otherwise wouldn't have, but when their time comes, there is no escaping it.

That night, as Timothy's father tucked him into bed for the last time, he kissed his forehead and told the boy he loved him, then once again said it as he closed the door behind him.

He didn't open the door again that night.

Timothy woke up, though, and it wasn't in his bed.

When he next opened his eyes, he found himself in the forest, the sun high in the sky and trees in bloom.

Sophie was crouched at a stream in front of him, watching the current flit past.

He sat up, all his pains gone and his mind clear. What had changed to make him feel better? He didn't know.

It was his fastest recuperation ever.

"Sophie? What happened?"

She turned around with a bright smile.

"You fell asleep, silly. Now you're dreaming and we can do whatever we want in this dream."

"Can I fly yet?"

"No, silly, you cannot fly. But you can go through things and talk to animals and play as long as you want."

"When will I wake up?"

"Not for a long time, so come on! We have lots of playing to do."

"Are you asleep, too?"

"Timothy, come on. Don't be such a spoilsport. There's this lady I want to show you. She said she knows you."

"I don't know any lady. Only my father and you."

"It's alright, Timothy. She said that you wouldn't know her. She knows you, though, so I think you should meet her."

END