For
Cody, the next few weeks were filled with mediocre food, muscle
exercises with his foot and arm, and visits from official looking people
in nice clothes. They told him he had a home waiting for him when he
left the hospital. His new parents visited several times, bringing along
another boy they had adopted that was only a couple years younger than
Cody. Cody didn’t say much to any of them unless he had to. Later he got
moved into a standard hospital room with nurses taking care of him.
Eventually his doctor and the nurses trusted him enough to remove the
restraints, and later take a wheelchair around the hospital. He would
usually sit out in the warm, flower-filled courtyard to get away from
the freezing and boring room he lived in until the weather started
turning colder. Several months passed slowly as Cody tried to figure out
a way to get back to where he belonged. Tom visited less and less,
saying that school and family had gotten in the way of his free time.
Eventually Cody learned his new address after yet another awkward
conversation with his parents and little brother, and exchanged it with
Tom’s. Cody never saw him again after that.
Finally,
Cody was discharged. He could walk fairly well yet the doctors told him
not to be running around. His arm felt great, as if it had never been
hurt in the first place. The early morning had an icy chill of late
January. His new mom and dad had bought winter clothes for him to change
into. At the front lobby, Cody sat in a firm chair next to his little
brother, Ian, while their parents finished up paperwork.
“How come you never talk that much?” Ian asked.
“Cause I don’t want to.”
“So...what do you like to do?”
“Do?”
“Yeah, like, Legos, baseball, video games, stuff like that.”
Cody stared for a minute. It was like Ian had spoken to him in a completely different language; those things were all foreign.
“Hellooo?” Ian waved his hand in front of Cody’s face.
“Oh! Um, what did you say?”
“What do you do for fun?”
“I never really got time to do anything fun. We were always moving around a lot.”
“Aww, that stinks. We’ve got an Xbox at home, and this one game that...”
Cody
listened as Ian talked all about different video games that he gets to
play at home. There wasn’t anything like it back in Cody’s world, but
then again, any gadgets that were useless for survival got abandoned.
Ian kept talking all the way to the car about how they would stay up all
night playing together and how excited he was to have a big brother.
Cody strode next to him, mostly paying attention while making sure his
foot was still alright to put pressure on. Their parents led them to a
compact car in the parking lot. Cody entered the sedan, still chilly
from sitting in the parking lot. After fumbling with the seat belt,
unsure of what to do with it, he clicked it in place and was driven
away.
They
ate lunch at the nicest eatery Cody had ever been to, although that
wasn’t hard to find. Next, they went clothes shopping. He couldn’t
believe the options he had, from all the different food to any kind of
shirt he could think of wearing. The large town his parents took him
through amazed him. He had grown up accustomed to seeing places just
like it, yet abandoned and devoid of life. Seeing so many people
together peacefully was a shock for Cody. Ian had asked him why he kept
looking over his shoulder so much.
When
his parents brought him home, Cody could’ve believe he was getting an
entire room for himself. They left him alone to get settled in. He sat
in the middle of his bed, slightly bouncing on it to feel how amazingly
soft it was to him. He loved everything about the day.
And he hated himself for that.
========================
[Part 8] [Part 10]
(it's probably because he doesn't have any matching clothes)
Super busy Humans vs Zombiez week is now over! Super busy candidate semester is GO! I'll probably not even post for awhile just because I don't have time to write or do other fun things. Unless, of course, I stay up all night every night. And clearly, that is not an option.
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