Brother of Mine

Ch. 24

It was a couple of months after the events on Mount Rich.

I had been bedridden inside the hospital due to my broken neck, but it wasn’t that bad. Kyle was with me five hours every morning, and came back in the evening, because he was only allowed ten hours a day.

In between the times Kyle came over, I was visited by many people. Bobby and his mom would often visit. After he had been checked by the doctors, and pronounced healthy a couple of days later, he was finally able to go home. The same for many of the kids. Besides in desperate need of a good bath, and maybe a few scrapes and bruises, they were good to go. But for the Experimental kids, they had to stay a little longer, though their families were called in to see the child. All the Experimental kids had the poison drained from their systems, and were given plenty of food and rest, and, soon, the color started returning to their skin. Sophie got so much better, and visited me the day she was supposed to leave with her mother. After we had talked for a little bit, she told me that there was one Experimental child for a specific country. Sophie was kidnapped in Germany, and told me that the other eleven were from France, Australia, Mexico, China, Japan, Switzerland, England, Persia, Africa, Canada (where Jake was from) and the USA (where I was from.)

I was shocked at this news, for I didn’t even notice that each kid was from a different country. I guess since they never directly looked at me, and they were so pale and dirty to begin with, I never noticed. Even if I had noticed, I wouldn’t have considered that each kid was from a different country. But now that I look at Sophie directly, without her paleness and dirt on her face, I could clearly see her German features that I hadn’t noticed before.

Unfortunately, Jake had not survived. They uncovered his body a few hours after mine, and they’re not sure if he was killed by being buried too long without enough sufficient air, or if he was killed directly on contact with the explosion. But either way, I still felt guilty, for not being able to save him. Kyle told me that it wasn’t my fault, but I still felt guilty anyway. I felt even more guilty that I wasn’t able to go to his funeral, nor Julia’s.

When I was finally released from the hospital, my dad and Kyle came to pick me up. Apparently, while I was locked up in the hospital, my dad and Kyle had gone over to our old house and found Hugh sitting on the couch, beer bottles scattered all over the place, trash and dishes thrown everywhere. In only the course of a few days, Hugh had trashed out the house.

Anyway, Dad sued Hugh for child abuse, and got him a few years of jail. Boy, was I happy about THAT.

Due to Dad bringing Hugh to court, he was able to gain enough money to buy a small house in the same neighborhood we had originally lived in. Kyle had continued his job at the donut shop, but got another small job working as a pet sitter. In his spare time he would help our dad pack our things from our old house, and move into the new one. The only thing Kyle was NOT doing was going back to school. He had decided on doing summer school, since the school year was almost over anyway. I didn’t blame him, neither did our dad.

Dad also got a job. Amaad had done a few good things, surprising to say. He had taught my dad a lot about how to make his “potion” and a few other things about chemistry. Dad also had a Master’s Degree from collage, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry, so he managed to score a job as a chemist for a nearby research institute. He even met a pretty lady at his job, and was starting to go out with her.

Anyway, it was a few days after I was released from the hospital. Things were starting to slowly return to normal. Due to our dad’s job, he was always gone all day. And as for Kyle, well, so was he. He worked harder now, doing as much as he could to help in any way he could financially. Our dad says he doesn’t need to, but he refuses to stop. Something about what happened on that mountain really changed him. I don’t know what yet, but he seems more, distant and focused. We hardly spend any more time together. Our daily I Spy games turned to weekly. And sometimes not at all. Our Super Smash Bros. game was hardly ever used anymore, and when we did play a game together, it was always half-hearted and depressing.