“Look, I just can‘t believe you used your wish to accost fucking Superman.” Doctor Erik spoke with a grin on his face, leaning back on the chair beside Calvin‘s bed.
“An ‘actor’ playing Superman. Or just wearing a costume, he couldn‘t even act.” Calvin smirked, reminiscing. “And I didn‘t 'accost' him, I just asked him politely.”
“To jump out the goddamn window.”
“He said he was Superman. I was young.”
“You were fourteen.”
“I turned fourteen.” He corrected the doctor.
“You‘re telling me you actually believed he could fly?” The doctor spoke, his brow raised with obvious doubt.
Calvin shrugged. “What can I say? I‘m a trusting and innocent kid.”
“You still gave him shit for being a fake hero afterwards. And managed to get yourself taken off the list.” He shook his head, somewhat remembering himself trying to reason with the wish granter.
“Well, I said I wanted a superhero.”
An earth-shaking roar interrupted their reminiscing— a flash of lightning outside piercing through the hazy windows of Calvin‘s hospital room. Despite the prison-like walls of the suffocating chamber, the whip-like wind and pelting rain still crashed unmuffled like bullets and bombs.
Calvin looked at the window, his pale blue eyes dazedly counting each flash. Despite its frosted glass blocking a clear view of the outside, he could just imagine the city below shaking beneath the might of the world-breaking storm.
He turned to his doctor, the only person left that cared for him, now lazily playing a game on his phone. He just knew it was some old people game, something with fruits or candies. Old at heart, and at face, but he talks to him like he was just as young.
Which was kinda gross, but better than being talked down to.
“Shouldn‘t you be helping out there?” He asked, looking out of the translucent door out of his room. “Or did they finally find out you‘re a quack?”
“They find out I‘m a quack the same day your psychiatrist finds out you‘re mentally stable.” He scoffed, not even looking back at him.
“I am mentally stable.”
“Sure you are. I‘m sure you can see how mentally stable you are, huh.” He winked, miming a rectangle in front of his face with his fingers.
“Shut up.” Calvin mumbled, glancing briefly in front of him. “Not my fault you can‘t see it.”
The doctor chuckled, pocketing his phone before taking out another device. A pager, one of those old-timey devices that Calvin guessed was probably invented during the doctor‘s childhood.
“Man, the world‘s ending out there, what the hell do you think I can do? Build a fucking ark out of splints and gauze? Nah. I‘d rather chill here, they won‘t bother me here.”
“That‘s because you locked the door.”
“And because there‘s a gigantic sign out there that basically says ‘don‘t come in here or Calvin will die’.” He said, spreading his arms to exaggerate the size of the sign.
“Quack.” Calvin smirked at him. “What about your patients? I‘ve seen posts of car crashes and burning buildings. It looks crazy out there.”
“It is crazy out there. It‘s not just crazy, it‘s actually insane. That damned storm‘s illogical. The wind is actually too slow for how gigantic it is. Lightning has hit more people in an hour than it ever has in the entire recorded history of mankind. The fires are unstoppable, and not in an exaggerating metaphorical sense, in a literal unquenchable fires from hell sense. If that isn‘t the end of the world, I don‘t know what would be.”
“It‘s that bad?” Calvin furrowed his brows at the doctor‘s rambling, turning his attention back to the windows.
He had seen a lot of gruesome stuff from half a day of scrolling mindlessly in social media while the storm raged on.
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People crushed underneath fallen trees, buildings, and various debris. People stuck inside burning buildings, jumping off to break bones instead of burning alive. People half-charred from trying to make the latest viral challenge of dodging lightning.
A cold shiver ran in his spine knowing Erik had been out there earlier, and had actually seen how bad it actually was.
“Maybe worse, that‘s just in our city. That shit‘s worldwide. Like actually worldwide.” The doctor let out a sigh, slumping deeper into the chair. “You know what‘s the most senseless of all of this?”
“More than Zeus apparently using an aimbot?”
“What‘s an aim— never mind. What‘s senseless is that none of it was fatal. At least immediately fatal. They‘re all alive. Dying, yes, but miraculously holding on.”
Doubt littered his expression. “All of them?”
“Every. Single. One.” Erik punctuated.
“What the fuck…” Calvin muttered. “Shouldn‘t you be saving their lives, then?”
“That‘s another thing. They keep disappearing.” He waved his hands up in the air in exasperation. “You know how frustrating it is operating on a man, doing your damnedest to keep them alive with your unparalleled medical genius and skills, only for the fucker to disappear like pee in a pool?”
Calvin narrowed his eyes at the specificity of his simile. “I‘m guessing it‘s pretty frustrating?”
“A fuckton.” He grumbled.
He thought for a moment, processing the doctor‘s words. He didn‘t want to breathe a sigh of relief, but people disappearing was a reassurance he didn‘t know he needed. It at least told him that this was real, whatever it is.
“They disappear? Just like that?”
“Just like that. Nothing. No poof, no fart, no fireworks. Just—” he snapped his fingers then paused, “—okay, no snap either. Just empty clothes falling on the table.”
“Damn.” Calvin quietened, looking forwards in a daze.
The doctor raised a brow at him, his lips flattening as he read his expression. He has been Calvin‘s doctor for more than half of the kid‘s life, and his guardian for half of that time. It didn‘t take a psychiatrist to know what was going on in his ward‘s head, and what decision he‘ll make later.
“What are you waiting for?” Doctor Erik asked, snapping Calvin out of his daze.
“What?” Calvin looked at him with confusion.
“I know you want to go. Your face is practically screaming that you want to go. So, what are you waiting for?” He gestured forwards.
“Just like that? No trying to convince me not to go?”
“Fuck am I? Your mom?”
“Legally, yeah.”
Erik rolled his eyes. “Okay, don‘t go then.”
“No.” Calvin replied, not missing a beat.
“Okay. I won‘t stop you.” He spoke flatly, recreating a dramatic sigh with a sorrowful shake of his head. “Good enough for you?”
“Best mom ever.” He grunted. “Hey, Erik. I uh— I‘m gonna miss you—”
“Ah, none of that shit. Just go, kid. I know you waited to talk to me, and now you did. Go get a life. A better one.” He stood up, walking towards the door to leave.
Calvin breathed deeply, looking away from him. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” Erik opened the door and paused. “Oh, and get yourself a therapist, yeah? If there‘s something like that out where you‘ll be going.”
“Fuck you.”
The doctor chuckled and left, leaving Calvin all alone in his room. His eyes darted to the window again, flashing lightning making him wince as he imagined another person getting fried with each one.
He shook his head, trying to get the thought out. Turning his attention to the room, he smiled nostalgically as his eyes landed on the large television in the corner.
“Twelve years.” He muttered, scooting over to the side of the bed to stand up. “Twelve years in this same fucking room, and they never changed this ancient-ass TV.”
It was one of those TVs that was practically a cube. It was pretty big, and it worked surprisingly well, but the thing was probably older than him even. There was a DVD player underneath, with a whole collection of bad movies to watch when the WiFi was down.
He smirked at the memories.
“Let‘s see if the cable‘s up.” He wondered and walked over and pressed a button. The screen turned to static for a moment before a simple blue screen with text appeared. “National emergency, pfft— I‘m pretty sure it‘s international at this point.”
He flipped through all the channels, getting similar messages plastered on the screen all throughout. Basically, the world was fucked. Run for your lives and pray for your sins.
“It only took half a day. And in the weirdest way it could.” He muttered then shook his head, closing the TV and turning his attention elsewhere.
His brows raised as he remembered something. He crouched down to the shelf below the TV and started leafing through the collection of DVDs. He stopped and fished out one titled ‘2012’. A scoff escaped his lips.
“Lies,” he whispered with a betrayed glare before throwing it in the bin beside the TV.
Standing back up, he grabbed the bin and dragged it over to the shelves at the other side of the room.
The shelves had the usual stuff shelves had: books he‘d never read since getting them, pictures he‘d never looked at in years, and a plastic plant because the real one would kill him.
Underneath the shelves were a few albums, pictures throughout his childhood and his time in the hospital. He opened one and started perusing, looking at the few photos he had outside of the hospital.
A particular one made him freeze.
A picture of him as a child, being carried by a man with similar blonde hair and blue eyes, surrounded by other men smiling widely with clear glee.
“Dad…” He spoke lightly, taking the photo out and dumping the album in the trash.
He didn‘t remember everything that day, but he remembered feeling happy. Happy to see his father in uniform. Happy to watch them quickly put it off and on in a flash. Happy to mess around in the fire truck as he pleased.
Calvin closed his eyes and breathed deeply, a resolute glint shone as he opened them again. With a twist of the wrist, he tore up the photo and tossed the pieces where the album went.
It took an hour for him to go around the room, looking at more photos and items, throwing a lot of them to the bin as he went along. There wasn‘t much stuff, considering this was twelve years of items, but the trash bin was close to bursting by the end.
“Now that that‘s settled—” he let his words linger, looking forward to the panel that‘s been there since a few hours ago. “Time to go.”
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