Dead End

Back to Earth

       Apollo hears a warble of noise, like hearing a really quiet radio from beneath a dozen blankets. But the sounds begin to get louder and he can distinguish voices and the beeps of a really annoying machine. Where am I?  Apollo swings his blurred gaze around him and sees people in white coats standing around him. His first thought is that he is having some horrible dream in which he is a test subject in a laboratory, but then he realizes that this is what a hospital looks like. It seems so long ago that Hulk man and his friends came in here. Like a dream, as if it happened in another world. I need to find Lilly. Apollo tries to raise himself, but feels limp and his arms shake with the effort.

       "No, stay down. You're weak and you need to rest." The doctor places a firm hand on his chest to keep him down and turns back to his nurses. "Yeah, I think he's good. Keep on checking up on him, but I need to go perform the surgery now, or the patient is going to be upset-" and he leaves the room with a flurry, a few nurses following him out and leaving him alone with a nurse taking notes on a clipboard. Apollo watches her set the clipboard down and put things away. "Excuse me," Apollo says and the nurse swivels her attention to him, "what day is it?"

       "June thirty first." She says, then takes the clipboard and goes to the counters next to the wall, preoccupied with her calculations. Apollo suddenly remembers Lilly. He raises himself again and this time the nurse drops her clipboard on the counter to push Apollo's shoulders down with both hands. "No. Stay down. You're still healing."

       "I need to see Lilly."

       "You can see her after you're better."

       "No. I need to see her now." Apollo pulls the bandage off his face and is surprised to feel nothing. His arms don't hurt. His legs don't hurt. The nurses eyes boggle out of her face. She grabs the clipboard and is busy taking notes as Apollo unwraps himself and jumps out of bed, then realizes he's naked. CRAP. He ducks behind the bed and is glad that the nurse didn't see him. He pulls the blankets off the bed and winds the blanket around his legs and torso. He dashes through the room and out into the hallway. He turns right and stops. George and Jayden and his dad stand looking at Apollo like they'd just seen a ghost. George is the first one to recover himself and grins impishly.

       "I knew it! I knew you were okay!" George envelops him in a rough bear hug and punches him on the shoulder. "Are you okay?" Apollo nods, and Jayden is looking Apollo up and down with increasing bewilderment. Apollo looks down at himself and lifts his arms. No cuts or anything! I feel even better than before I got hurt. Apollo snaps his gaze back up to Jayden. But now that he's better, he finds that he doesn't have much to be mad at him about, except that he cheated and tried to steal George's gear. Jayden's eyes narrow in anticipation and he unfolds his arms. Apollo shrinks back a little. There is no way I'm taking this guy. Apollo instead walks around him cautiously, eyeing him the whole time, and continues down the hallway, George following not far behind.

       "Where are you going?" George asks.

       "I need to find someone." Apollo answers, George walking beside Apollo now.

       "Who?"

       "Well, it's sort of a long story..." Apollo thinks how he is going to explain this. "I had this really weird dream while I was in a coma. Like I was a ghost. And I like, flew down into this castle place in England and met this other ghost. Wait, and he was the ancestor of the other people that were already there when I went there." Apollo looks over at George, who looks thoroughly confused. I am really not a good storyteller. "Well, so I met the ghost, and he wanted me to basically disinherit some of his ancestors because they killed him. And that's why he's a ghost. So I met the ancestors of the guy that killed the ghost, oh and his name was Armingham, and I found out that they definitely are not like Armingham. But he wanted me to disinherit them anyway. But I wouldn't so instead he tried to poison their food but I told Lilly, Armingham's decendent, about Armingham and she warned her family so they went to a neighboring castle to eat dinner instead and then Armingham got mad at me and chained me up again but then I chained him to me so then he was real mad. And then I got us down in the basement so that when Lilly heard me and came downstairs, she cut my chain that was still attached to the wall and then we ran away into the garden-" George grins at Apollo sheepishly and Apollo knocks at George, his face growing warm. "It wasn't like that."