Parallels

Chapter Thirty-Four: Long Enough

Thankfully, they don't shoot me- but I am now cuffed to the bed... gods damn I'm scrawny, nothing more than skin and bone, really...

"Holy shit you're alive?"

"Um, yeah, thank gods... but why wouldn't I be? It's been what, a week? Holy hell, muscle waste happens quick these days...."

"Theodore- Theo," one of the soldiers says, taking off their mask and revealing themselves as Nurse Palmer... what's she doing here? And she looks ancient... "it's been- it's been-"

"It's been what, please just say it you're scaring me..."

"Theo you turn twenty in less than three months..."

Holy shit.

HOLY shit.

Holy SHIT!

HOLY SHIT!

Holy fucking shit that explains a lot...

Where's my family....?

Right, fucking shit... they're dead...

And fuck, three years? Holy fucking shit...

So what happened during all of those years, anyways?

If the chill and glow everywhere is any hint...

Yeah, this isn't good...

And holy fuck I really am alone...

I'm....

Alone...

Last fox standing. The last of my kind, aren't I?

"You're not kidding, are you?" I ask, trying to force myself up to sit and failing at even that... muscles are too damn weak...

The tears are coming and I can't stop them... I've lost.

That's it.

There's nothing more here for me....

"Please tell me you're kidding," I plead, voice barely there. "Please... please... you're kidding, right... please tell me this is all a dream and I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna have my family right next to me please let that be true..."

"Theodore- Theo," she says, brushing her face and I can tell that she's caught the bug- pretty recently but she's got it nonetheless- "you've missed a whole heck of a lot... and we don't really have all that much time left, so someone lock the god damn door and let me fill the fox in and then maybe we can shove him into a wheelchair and get him the hell out of here so that we don't all freaking die alright?"

"Ma'am yes ma'am," another soldier, a thylacine- I think that's the word because it's the exact same in Terranski- says, slamming the door to my new room- well, not a new room apparently I've been here for, shit, over three years unconscious and everything- shut, the howling outside finally making its way into my ears as they clear... and that's howling, animal howling, but there's wind shrieking outside holy fucking shitflock is going on here oh my gods my head hurts and my lungs are spent and everything everything everything hurts hurts hurts...

"Theo, the world's kinda gone to shit since, well- Theo you got bashed across the back of the head with a rock and it kinda made your head swell and they put you into a coma and then everyone..."

"Just forgot about me, right?" I say, trying to keep the venom out of my voice. I already knew I was a worthless piece of shit fox who would be better off not having to deal with this anymore- gods I don't mean dead, not at all I've fought so god damn hard to live over the course of the last year and a half- no shit, four and a half years it's- shit it's been three and a half years since I woke up holy shit holy shit holy shit....