The Breaking Point

Chapter 6

"Evans, Evans, Evans!"

Mark jolted awake. It was the detective, banging on the goalie's window and screaming his name. Mark opened the window. "Yeah," he mumbled sleepily.

"We're here. You'll sleep later. Now get out of the car."

Despite the queer heaviness resting in his bones, Mark managed to slump out of the car. He looked around. A couple stars glistened brightly in the dead night, providing the perfect background for a large gray building.

"Huh?" Mark blinked. This looked nothing like Jude's house. Why was he here? The detective must have been reading the goalkeeper's mind because when Mark gave him a confused look, he knew how to answer.

"Relax; you're going to see Jude pretty soon but first-"

"I'm going to see my family!" Mark exclaimed as his eyes caught sight of some large block letters printed on the building's double doors. There was some cheery spark in the headband-wearing captain's eyes that made the detective keep quiet.

They entered the large hospital, one of the most famous in the country. It was pricey, yet it provided the best treatment in Japan. Windows dotted its grey exterior and its name was written neatly on its automatic doors. The doctors in here were experts and very well paid, making it obvious why the owner didn't put much effort in designing the marvelous hospital.

Mark skipped a few feet ahead of the detective. But he wasn't very gleeful; he was desperate to see his father and grandfather, even though his mother would not be with them. The detective approached the large counter while Mark was left to wander around in the giant waiting room. He laid back into a chair. It was expensive like almost everything in the hospital and it made Mark feel strange sitting in it. He couldn't remember his parents ever having enough money to pay for this hospital, not even the insurance could cover it. Not to mention that it was notably far and emergency patients were always taken to the nearest hospital.

Mark lifted his gaze from one section of the room to another. There were quite a lot of people but the massive room made it seem like only a few were present. The detective returned to Mark, tilting his head in the direction of one of the many doors that aligned themselves on the room's right wall. The gray-blue door opened onto a long hallway with doors on each side, neatly numbered. The hall was quiet, with only a couple nurses wheeling supplies or patients in and out of rooms. They had gone too fast for Mark to read the section name but if he had, he would have known that trouble was coming his way.

The detective dragged Mark by the wrist harshly, as if in a hurry to be finished. After seven doors, the pulling stopped. Mark's arm dropped by his side.

"I'll be waiting for you outside," the detective muttered before pushing him through a door.

The room's interior was dark with the lights turned off. Since no machines were sending red, yellow, or green flashes, he assumed this room belonged to his father.

"Dad, dad, dad?" He called softly.

The room was strangely small and from where Mark was standing with his back to the door, he could only see that there was a window on the right, a nightstand on the left, and a bed in the middle. The only light in the room appeared to be a soft glow from the half-open window.

Mark inched closer to the bed, trying his best to make out his father's figure. For some reason, his father looked much younger than possible, and judging by the distance between the person's head and the two little bumps in the blanket, his father looked much shorter too. And there was no pair of glasses neatly folded on the nightstand. Mark felt its surface for anything hinting who might be the stranger in the bed, but all he found was a pair of goggles. Jude's goggles.