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                                                       Chapter Three: A Player

Three weeks later…

Melmarc walked down the hospital hallway, watching patients move about some of them assisted by one nurse or the other. Unlike most hospitals, this one wasn’t chaotic. It was organized, and high end. The city had put a lot of money into building it.

Melmarc held onto his drip stand, rolling it forward as he walked. The constant sound of patients talking filled the hallway as one nurse or the other gave them one assurance or the other. Some of the patients were amiable to their words and some were not, but the nurses were always kind always smiling. Melmarc had been in the hospital long enough to spot the fake smiles now, the smiles that were plastered on because the nurses were meant to be kind to their patients.

He continued his stroll down the hallway, his drip stand following alongside on its rollers. The doctors said he needed time out of bed, time to move about so that his muscles didn’t weaken. So he did. Once every day, at the time of his brother’s choosing, under the supervision of his sister.

Today was different, though. For one, he usually walked around noon, closer to the evening when Ark was back from school and still had that after school energy rushing through him. Each time, some of it would rub off on Melmarc and motivate him to have the walks.

He would walk in silence while Ark would entertain him with stories of the world outside the hospital. Ark would tell him about the classes he was having. Who was bullying who. What new teacher had joined the school. Which teacher was his favorite. Mundane things like that. But he would tell it with so much zest and joy that it would seem so much more than mundane.

Through it all, Melmarc would walk in silence with the occasional smile, the once in a while chuckle, and the often misplaced frown. And Ark would just keep on telling, asking only the most important questions.

It was like clockwork with Ark. Every weekday he’d barge into Melmarc’s room with a wide smile, mischievous eyes, and all the energy in the world. Their sister, Ninra, older by three years, would be right behind him, chewing gum and tapping away at her phone.

Ark would ask if he was ready, and Melmarc will always fail to say no. His brother’s energy was always contagious.

Ark would hurry over to his bed and ask the simpler questions.

“Does it hurt today?”

“How bad is it, on a scale of shut up to get the hell out?”

Ninra would always scold him for using adult words but it never changed anything. It was routine now, for the past three weeks. Did it hurt? How bad was it? Did you miss me? He would always ask the last part with a cocky grin that made his face look more like a cartoon villain than a smug child.

Melmarc always thought the look was intentional, practiced to perfection because every day it just kept getting more cartoonish, until his brother was the perfect grinning cartoon villain.

Every day Melmarc would answer honestly. It always hurt on the scale of bite your teeth. The first time he had said it, he’d said it while laughing. Laughter made his injury hurt back when it hadn’t healed, and he needed his brother to stop making him laugh. Shut up would get him a scolding from Ninra even if he was hospitalized, so he settled for the next best thing.

Somehow, bite your teeth had evolved to mean the pain was acceptable. And Ark would accept it with a grin. Then Ninra would help Melmarc out of his bed and his brother would take him on a walk.

“Thirty minutes and no more!” Ninra would bellow after them as Ark led him out of the room. “And no running!”

The first order was most often ignored. The second was always obeyed.

Ninra never followed them, and Melmarc always understood. At fourteen, she didn’t have much in common with them. Ark was eleven and Melmarc was ten.

She’d gone on the walk with them once and Melmarc had seen how miserable it had been for her. Ark did all the talking, as was his way, and she just moped around, saying hi to the nurses and some of the patients.

Melmarc knew the reason she had followed them and had been sure to let her know she didn’t have to follow them all the time. The simple fact that she was present at all, was good enough for him. They were not the closest of siblings but he didn’t like seeing her miserable.

Ark said she blamed herself for what happened to him. Apparently, she believed that if she had been home at the time, things would’ve been different. Not the outcome of what happened to their mother, just the outcome of Melmarc being injured.

Melmarc didn’t understand why she thought so, but he didn’t have the words to best explain to her nicely that her presence would’ve made no difference, so he did the little he could. He smiled and waved at her every day before leaving his hospital room with his brother.

He hoped that would be enough to stop her from blaming herself.

It was a Friday night which meant Ark got to spend the night at the hospital. Currently he was balled up on one of the couches one of the nurses had been happy to have moved to his room for that very purpose, sleeping peacefully in his pajamas of the Dark-Mist, his favorite Delver.

They’d gone on their long afternoon walk. Now Melmarc was out on a midnight walk.

As for their father, he didn’t come every day, but he came whenever he could, which was always towards the darker hours of the day.

As an Oath, he had a duty to the world. Melmarc understood this, but it didn’t mean he liked it. He consoled himself with the fact that he visited their mom as much as he could. The last time he’d asked Ark, he’d said their mother was in a coma, three weeks and counting. The doctors said they couldn’t tell when she would wake up.

Today was one of the many days when his father didn’t come. Usually, Ninra would be sleeping in his room with Ark but she had a school project or something like that so she wasn’t around.

Melmarc’s nightly stroll was simple. He was alone in it but not lonely.

A television was turned on in the hallway but its volume was reduced to a level so low that Melmarc couldn’t hear it. The mayor was on, saying one thing or the other that he did not know. It was likely a re-run because the mayor addressed nobody at night. Melmarc was of the opinion that the mayor—like everyone else—slept at night.

The end of Melmarc’s stroll brought him back to his room. His eyes were heavy with sleep and he was ready to turn in for the night. But the night seemed to have other plans for him.

At the door, he found his father standing there, waiting for him with no expression on his face.

He wasn’t a stern father, not really. He was just one of those fathers that lacked expressions. His love was mostly shown in his actions and his words. Ark said it was the side effect of being the Oath of madness.

Melmarc didn’t really understand it, but he accepted it. He doubted his brother understood it either.

……………………………

Melmarc watched his father gently cover his brother with a blanket. Their father moved slowly, purposefully. It was how he was. Every action was always intentional, calculated perhaps.

He watched his father smile slightly as he tucked Ark in, tucking the edges of the blanket under him until he was wrapped like a mummy from shoulder to feet just the way his brother liked it. Throughout the entire process, Ark turned mildly and mumbled sleepy nonsense.

Despite the incomprehensive nature of his sleep influenced words, their father nodded and made sounds in response until he was done and Ark was back to silent sleep.

When he was done, he turned to Melmarc.

“Let’s get you in bed,” he said in a deep and hoarse voice.

He picked Melmarc up from under the arms, easily and gently, and placed him in bed. He covered him with the blanket that came with the hospital bed. He left Melmarc’s left foot uncovered on the side of the arm with the drip, leaving enough enough space for Melmarc to slip out without hindrance but cover him well enough to keep out the cold.

Once upon a time Melmarc had been a fan of being wrapped like a mummy like his brother, but that had been once upon a time. Some things were different now.

His father looked at his exposed foot hanging outside the blanket and his face twitched in something Melmarc couldn’t place. He assumed that was his father’s version of a frown. Then his father looked up at the drip, brows furrowed.

“The nurses say my injury is fine,” Melmarc told his father, breaking the silence.

His father nodded, slow as most of his actions often are.

“She said the drip is helping my body expel most of the external mana from me,” Melmarc added.

His father studied the drip a little longer before turning to Melmarc.

“Is that why a healer couldn’t treat you with magic?” he asked.

Melmarc nodded.

“They said it kept getting in the way. I have to remove it myself, but it will take time.” He paused, thinking of how best to explain it so his father would understand. “It’s like pooping.”

His father looked down, his lips twitching in a whisper of a smile.

“Like pooping,” he said, almost to himself, then chuckled. “That’s a good analogy.”

Melmarc couldn’t remember a time when his father had ever chuckled. He’d seen him smile a few times, like when he was tucking Ark in, but never a chuckle.

“So the drip helps you poop better?” he asked.

Melmarc nodded, motivated by his father’s chuckle.

“The nurses say the faster it comes out the sooner I can go back home, and back to my…” his words trailed off. Memories came knocking and he remembered the state of his room the last time he’d seen it.

More importantly, did he even want to go back?

His father waited patiently while he collected his thoughts. He didn’t fill the silence with words or sounds or anything. He just sat on the side of the bed and waited. Melmarc had learned that unlike most people, his parents were very comfortable in silence. They wore it comfortably the way people wore clothes.

Melmarc moved on the bed, pushed himself until he sat up. His father leaned forward as he did and adjusted his pillow so that it cushioned his back.

Melmarc fidgeted with his fingers. He had a question but wasn’t sure how to go about it. His hesitation was clear because his father spoke.

“I’m listening,” he said. It was the way he motivated them whenever they had something to say but weren’t sure they should, or worried that they wouldn’t like the response they would get.

Melmarc took a deep steadying breath before he spoke.

“How is mom?”

His father looked to the side, stared at the curtain that hid a window with a view of the city. It kept out the night lights of the tall buildings and corporations that never went to sleep. It kept out the lights of the night life. What should’ve been a glass wall window with a view of the world beyond was nothing but a mundane brown curtain.

His father looked back at him.

“She’s doing alright,” he said finally. “The doctors say she’s healed completely.”

“But she’s still asleep,” Melmarc said. “Have they found out when she’ll wake up? Ark said she’s in something called a coma. That she’ll wake up when she finishes dreaming. Is she dreaming about the bad man?” He looked down at his fidgeting hand. “I don’t want her to dream about the bad man.” Tears welled in his eyes and he couldn’t keep them from falling. He looked back up, met his father’s eyes. “I know it’s not good because you and mom always said not to mess with people’s heads, but can they make it so that she dreams about us, instead? Ark said it’s better if she does.”

Their father turned to look at Ark. Melmarc’s brother was sleeping peacefully.

“Ark said that, did he?” their father said.

Melmarc nodded, even if his father wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were filled with tears and he was sobbing now. Melmarc didn’t like crying. He knew children that liked crying because they cried for any reason, but he didn’t like it. He didn’t like how he looked when he cried.

After a while, his father turned back to him. His eyes turned down to Melmarc’s torso. “How is it?” he asked.

Melmarc looked down at his shirt, wiping the tears from his eyes with a single hand. How was it?

“I don’t feel it unless I laugh really hard,” he answered, sniffling. Then a thought came to him. “Wanna see it? It’s almost gone, but you can still see it. The doctors said once the outside mana is gone, they’ll bring in a healer to remove it completely.”

His father smiled at that. “I’d like that.”

Melmarc wasn’t sure if his father meant he’d like to see the injury or if he’d like it to be removed by a healer. Regardless, he raised he shirt up for his father to see.

Just there, beside his navel, was a scar as long as his longest finger.

“The doctor said it’s healing well,” he said with a smile.

His father nodded. “It is,” he agreed.

“I also asked him about the outside mana and why they won’t let a healer remove it,” Melmarc went on. “Jerry, a boy in my class, got a magic injury last year when he traveled with his family and the healers removed it.”

His father’s lips pressed into a thin line. Melmarc and his brother knew what that meant. It was one of the few expressions their father had, one of the few they knew. It was the one he carried when he was considering if something should be said.

Melmarc gave his father his biggest smile and said, “I’m listening.”

His father paused, smiled slightly, then nodded.

“It’s because yours is a different kind of mana,” he said.

“My teacher in school said that there’s only one type of mana.”

“There is, but you were hit by mana from beyond a portal. It works differently from normal mana. It’s why they can’t remove it easily.”

Melmarc was surprised. It was rare to have people from beyond the portal show up in cities. Usually they showed up in uninhabited parts of the world. They were like ghost stories; they happened in places normal people didn’t go.

“What type of…” Melmarc paused, trying to remember the name for people that came from beyond the portal.

“Intruder,” his father supplied, and Melmarc nodded.

“What type of Intruder was he?”

His father stared at the curtain again, an odd look in his eyes. “He was a Player.”