by Kody Boye
“And she came to help?”
“Yeah. She did.”
“And everything turned out fine,” I say, tapping his chin with my index finger. “didn’t it?”
“I… I guess.”
That frown that curses my lips leaves Diego frowning as well.
Sighing, I lean forward to wrap him in a hug—an action I know he hates, especially now that he’s getting to that age where he thinks he’s a ‘little man’—and smile when I find that his body presses against mine without issue.
“Let’s go get something to eat,” I say. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
We break the embrace and begin to make our way down the hallway.
The whole while I wonder if everything will be okay.
I listen to the sound of my mother’s heartbeat monitor late that afternoon. Having put Diego down for a nap shortly after we returned from eating lunch, I have been left to my own devices for quite some time. And still, I can’t sleep.
You’re exhausted, my conscience says, both mentally and physically. Why can’t you sleep?
I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I feel threatened each time I close my eyes—not by the forces in the real world, but those in the virtual one.
The Ashen—
The Screechers—
The Lobo—
The Devil—
All haunt my thoughts as if they are cold specters reaching out to grasp and take hold of me with the intensity of a tick upon an unfortunate man’s skin.
Their efforts to leave me restless are impossible to ignore.
What’s worse is that, as I think of the nightmarish landscape I have just escaped from, I find my thoughts wandering to Leon.
Leon.
Cold, alone, trapped in a world that is not his own—I wonder, briefly, if he is aware of what is going on within the realm of Dystopia, then find myself reeling from the thought.
Was he pulled into the fabric of the game? Is he suffering along the coding—trapped in a world of darkness with only red eyes to watch him? Just what is happening; and why, of all things, can’t I help him?
You will, my conscience offers. It’ll just take time.
Time.
I chuckle.
How fickle it is when you’re living in the modern world.
Sighing, I close my eyes, lean back in my seat, and draw the shawl I’d taken from my dresser back home around myself in an effort to remain warm.
This place—it’s so cold. Colder than Dystopia could ever be.
And yet…
I close my eyes.
And yet, I think, I want to go back.
“To save Leon,” I whisper.
It is a declaration made without fault.
I want to save him. I really do. But how am I to know what is going to happen if I am trapped here, with Diego, wanting and waiting for my mother to get well?
And besides, I think. If she knew what you wanted to do…
I exhale.
If she knew what I wanted to do, she’d have me committed to this hospital for a psychiatric evaluation faster than I could even think the word.
To go back into such a horrible situation—to expose yourself to such horrors—seems too impossible to comprehend. To think that someone would want to do so, especially after having experienced it firsthand, is far from alarming. It’s downright disastrous.
I tighten my grip on the shawl around me and close my eyes—wanting, and willing, myself to go to sleep.
I am just about to doze off when a knock comes at the door.
Blinking, I open my eyes to find that a shadow is over the porthole, and that the person outside cannot fully be seen.
“Hello?” I ask, sitting upright. “Who is it?”
The door opens. A figure steps in.
It takes several moments for me to process what, exactly, is happening.
His dark complexion, his stubbly cheeks, his wild tangle of hair and his glimmering brown eyes—
No, I think. It can’t be.
But it is.
“Duh… Dad?”
“Hello Sophia,” the man says. “It’s been a long time.”
4
I cannot believe it. I absolutely, one-hundred percent cannot believe it.
My father. Here. In this hospital room. Seven-and-a-half years after he’d abandoned us.
I could almost scream.
But instead, I simply watch, wait, stare.
He seems unperturbed by my complete and utter shock.
“How?” I ask, then follow up with, “Why?”
“How did I find you?” he replies, then waits for my stupefied nod before responding with, “The hospital’s social services department located me after you admitted your mother to the hospital. They said there were ‘minors involved.’”
“But—” I start. “I’m—”
“Almost sixteen. Yes. I know.”
My mother moans behind me.
I turn my head to find that she is still asleep.
My little brother, however, is awake—eyes wide, mouth agape.
“Diego—” I say.
“Sophie?” he asks. “Who is…”
“Diego,” the man says, and steps forward.
The little boy shrinks back into the couch.
My father stops in place. “Diego,” he says, a laugh rising from his throat. “It’s me. Your father.”
“Sophia!” the little boy cries.
“Shh!” I say, pushing past the man to go to my little brother’s side. “Everything’s fine. Don’t be afraid.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s our father,” I say, and turn my eyes on him.
The man’s face is stricken with emotion, though why I cannot be sure. He seems awfully concerned for someone who abandoned us for nearly eight years of our lives.
“What’re you doing here?” I ask. “Why are you here?”
“Because your mother—”
“Is sick. Yeah. I know.”
“Social services—”
“Contacted you. You don’t have to explain again.”
My father takes a long, deep breath and expels it equally. He centers his gaze on me, but I can tell by the look in his eyes that he is unnerved by my presence, my appearance, my complete and utter defiance.
He wants me to respect him. This much I already know. But I have no respect for a man who hurt us, who cheated us, who abandoned us for a woman that was not my mother.
I struggle not to lash out in a vicious tirade—knowing, in the end, it will do nothing but upset my brother and possibly wake my mother. For that, I remain silent, and wait as he retreats a few steps to go to my mother’s side.
“How long has she been sick?” he asks.
“Why do you care?”
“Sophia,” he says, and he sighs. “Please… Just answer the question.”
“She’s been sick for six months.”
“That long?”
“Yeah. That long.”
He doesn’t reply. Rather, he sets his eyes on her, staring for several long moments.
When he finally speaks, it’s to say, “How are you paying for this?”
The only response I can dredge up is: “I want you to leave.”
“I’m not leaving, Sophia. I made a mistake.”
“And you’re only here because you got caught.”
The man lifts his eyes to face me. There is trouble in his gaze, and indecision upon his lips. I know he wants to respond—and probably with equal aggression as I have dealt out—but doesn’t. Instead, he takes hold of my mother’s hand and holds it carefully, as if cradling a tiny bird within his palm.
“Sophia?” Diego asks. “Is he staying?”
“Not if I can help it,” I reply. “We’re fine here with just the two of us. Right?”
“I—”
I pin my little brother with my gaze.
He, in response, can only stare.
My father clears his throat. “You never answered m
y question.”
“I don’t have to answer any of your questions.”
“Sophia. Please.”
“Don’t ‘please’ me, Dad. You were the one who left us—who abandoned us right after Diego was born.”
“And I can do nothing but apologize for it. I was scared, Sophia—scared out of my damn mind. It was bad enough that I had one kid to take care of, but two?” He shakes his head. “I know that’s no excuse. I know it’s not. But I’m here now. Isn’t that something?”
“It’s nothing to me,” I say, and turn my eyes away from him.
“Will you at least answer my question?” my father asks, his voice thick with desperation.
“I won it in a gaming competition,” I say.
“A what?”
“A video-gaming competition. There. Are you happy now?”
“I suppose so.”
I reach into my pocket to ensure the card is still in my mother’s wallet and slide my hand out as stealthily as possible. Though I don’t believe my father would be brazen enough to try to steal from me, I don’t know the full circumstances behind his and my mother’s breakup, and as such, I don’t want to risk it.
He could be here because he heard, my conscience offers.
But how? I wonder. Did they announce it anywhere? Would they?
I sink my teeth into my lower lip and lean back into the couch alongside Diego, carefully lacing my arm around his shoulder and pulling him close. He instinctively snuggles against my side.
“You’re not gonna leave,” I say, “are you?”
“The authorities would charge me with child abandonment.”
“And they didn’t before?”
He simply says, “I’ll get a hotel room if that makes you more comfortable.”
“You being gone would make me a lot more comfortable.”
“Fine.” He stands. “Just know that I’ll be back tomorrow morning to check on the three of you.”
“I won’t expect it.”
He keeps his silence and leaves without saying goodbye.
The moment the door closes, I turn my eyes on my mother.
It was my hope that she was merely faking sleep, that she heard everything, that she would awaken upon his departure and ask, How could you say such things? But no. My mother—she is asleep: medically-induced and unable to hear anything within the modern world.
The thought, as welcoming as it is on one hand, is also troubling on another.
If she’d have at least heard some of it, then maybe I could ask just what went wrong.
Maybe… just maybe…
I would understand why my father truly abandoned us.
That night, under the cover of darkness, the bedside phone begins to ring.
“Sophie?” my little brother asks, his voice tired and eyes fluttering open. “What is that noise?”
“It’s just the phone,” I reply. “Go back to sleep.”
“Are you going to answer it?”
“I don’t know.”
A part of me doesn’t want to answer it—mostly because, if it’s our father, I will be forced to talk to him. However, a nagging feeling in my gut tells me it isn’t the man who abandoned us all those years ago calling in the middle of the night.
Then who?
It hits me—abruptly and hard.
“Leon,” I breathe.
I throw my legs over the side of the couch faster than I could’ve ever imagined, and rush over to rip the phone from its cradle.
The only word I can breathlessly manage is, “Hello?”
The voice on the other end replies, “Is this Miss Sophia Garza?”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Michelle Cantu. I’m Mister Kingsman’s assistant.”
“What do you want?” I ask, hope tugging at my heartstrings and panic coating the lining of my stomach. “Why are you calling so late? And how did you know I was here?”
“We are calling to inform you of a new development. As to how we know your location: we traced a purchase via your Continental Card to this hospital, and after asking the front desk, were routed to this room.”
“What is the development? What’s going on?”
“Mister Kingsman would like me to inform you we may have found a way to recover Mister Leon Gray from the game.”
“How?”
“That is strictly confidential. It cannot leave these walls.”
“So… what?” I say, turning and dragging the phone’s cord along with me. “You just want me to remain in suspense until I get there?”
“This is only a recent development, Miss Garza, and there’s still some issues that have to be ironed out before we can begin the process of recovering Mister Gray.”
“When can I come?”
“We’ll be ready in the morning. We’ll call you, and send for a cab, then.”
I am just about to ask another question when the connection ends, thereby thrusting me into a world unlike any I’ve ever experienced.
Leon, free from Dystopia? How?
I don’t know, but at the same time, I know it doesn’t matter.
Fact of the matter is: I may be able to save my friend from the hellish landscape he’s been trapped within for the past five days.
Right now, that’s the only thing that matters.
Sighing, I place the phone back in its cradle, then turn and make my way back over to the couch.
My mother shifts in the bed behind me.
I turn, expecting to see her awake.
Instead, her heart monitor simply continues to count away—
Thump thump… thump thump… thump thump…
—mirroring my own heartbeats and the anxiety they create.
Snuggling back down on the fold-out couch beside Diego, I try my hardest not to think of what I’ll have to do in the morning.
My only thoughts are of how I’ll face my father.
The knock that comes at the door the following morning should comfort me in some respects. Instead, it only sends dread throughout my heart and panic across my ribcage.
“Come in,” I say, pushing myself upright.
The door opens to reveal my father—freshly-shaved, his hair tamed. He holds a series of brown paper bags that smell of breakfast foods and simply says, “Good morning, Sophia.”
“Good morning,” I say, hoping the biting tone I’d used yesterday is not in my voice.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Sort of,” I reply. I throw my legs over the side of the bed and shiver as I look out at the foggy gray morning. “Did you drive here?”
“I took a cab,” he says, setting the bags of food on the table. He casts a glance at Diego and asks, “How did he take it?”
“You being here?” I reply, turning to face my sleeping brother. “I’m… not sure. We really didn’t talk about it.”
“No?”
I shake my head.
Frowning, my father begins to unload the food from the bags and arrange them around the table.
This is it, my conscience offers. Now’s your shot.
My need for him to remain here to watch Diego is beyond anything I have ever required. Without his presence, I will be trapped here; and if I’m trapped here, that means—
Leon will be stuck. Won’t be saved. Will be trapped, possibly forever.
Swallowing, I stand, walk the few steps that separate us, and say, “I need you to do something for me.”
He flicks his gaze toward me, a question in his eyes and a frown on his lips.
“Don’t talk,” I continue. “Just listen to what I have to say. Okay?”
A solemn nod is the only response he offers.
There is no way to tell how he will respond to the truth. Because of that, I decide to skew it—placating him with falsehoods about the intricate details of the game and what actually occurred. Telling my father I want to go save a friend who is trapped within a virtual world will earn me no favors, no praises, no desperate applauds for my bravado, s
o I simply give a bold and crass lie. I say, “I need to go pick up the rest of my earnings.”
And he replies with, “The rest of your earnings?”
I nod.
There is a glimmer in his eye, though whether it be of doubt, or concern, or even greed, I cannot be sure. However—the way he looks at me leads me to believe he has fallen for my deceit, and because of that, I sigh. “They’re going to be here sometime today to pick me up.”
“Who is?”
“Someone from the gaming company.”
“And you’re going to be there and back,” he says. “Right?”
“Right,” I say, hoping to God I do not give myself away.
With a short, stern nod, my father says, “All right. I’ll stay here with your mother and little brother.”
“Good,” I say, and crouch to pick up my shoes.
My little brother stirs on the couch, but thankfully does not wake up.
If he knew—or, God forbid, my mother knew—I was going back to Kingsman Online headquarters, he’d lose his mind.
But I am coming back, I think. I know I am.
It is this resolve that will allow me to do what I know is right.
To retrieve Leon from the depths of Dystopia—and return him whole and unscathed—is my only goal in life at present.
My mother: she is cared for.
My brother: he is watched.
And my father—he has fallen for my lies, my deceit, my cruel and dangerous game.
With that in mind, I slide my feet into my shoes and begin to make my way toward the doorway.
“Sophia?” my father asks just as I am reaching for the doorknob.
I don’t bother to spin to face him. Instead, I pause to allow him to say whatever words he wants to me.
“Come back soon,” he finishes.
I open, step through, then shut the door behind me without a response.
The wind is cold outside the Metropolitan Regional Hospital. Garbed in my hoodie, jeans, and a long-sleeved sweatshirt, I jab my hands under my arms in an attempt to warm them and wait for the sleek black car to arrive and ferry me to Kingsman Online Headquarters.
Dawn has not broken the horizon. Light has yet to spill across the land. Mist cradles the earth, and though I want nothing more than to discount it, it haunts me too much to do so.