Pain.

Mind numbing pain.

It started as pins and needles then moved on to hot pins and needles then ratcheted up to a hot knife slicing away at the every core of Adrian's being. Adrian might have screamed, he wasn't sure but he knew there were tears. Hot tears that tracked down his cheek and then the pain got too bad and he stopped thinking.

Sometime later, Adrian awoke to the darkened interior of his room with the ever present pain having subsided to a dull persistent ache. Sitting in a chair by his bedside was the dark silhouette of his father, bent forward asleep. Adrian opened his mouth to ask for water but all that came out was a croak from an overly sore throat that sent Adrian into a minor coughing fit. His father immediately came awake and had a glassful of water at Adrian's lips. Adrian drank his fill and promptly passed out.

Like this the days passed, living a pain filled existence with some days better than others. On the good days his headache was a dull throbbing and his body feeling left out sent him it's own displeasure through spiking hammer blows of pain all throughout his body. A particularly scary day was when Adrian woke to the familiar feel of his father wiping his face with a wash cloth. Everything appeared normal till his father moved to rinse it in the bucket and Adrian saw red. He'd been crying blood.

Imperceptible at first and almost like it wasn't happening the pain begun to lessen. It begun with his body's back arching spikes of pain reducing to occasional uncomfortable pin pricks. His head aches took longer to subside, but subside it did till he was able to hold a conversation with his father without his head feeling like it was splitting open.

As Adrian got better, his father though seemed to be looking worse. He was his same hulking, caring self but the dark circles underneath his fathers eyes that Adrian had expected to disappear upon his recovery was still there. Something was bothering his old man and Adrian had no idea what.

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Another change that came upon Adrian during his recovery was the return of his appetite, and it returned with a vengeance. Adrian's father simply said he was making up for his missed meals during his convalescence. Adrian didn't miss the proud gleam in his fathers eyes as he watched him scarf down mounds of food. It made his old man happy so he didn't ask.

Like that Adrian's recovery continued, and with him being bedridden and being unable to help out around the house or read too much less he exacerbate his receding headache, Adrian found himself mind numbingly bored. To fix his boredom issues, Adrian's father had unearthed his old box of old world tech he was sure was safe and gave it his son to try to figure out what they did.

It was supposed to be a box of doodads that kept his hands busy and his mind focused on 100 year old tech nobody had managed to or cared enough to make work. That was until Adrian pulled a small thin black shape from the box, twisted the head and pushed a button that had him yelping in fright when the thing emitted a beam of light that lit up his room.

He'd found a flashlight, a very strong flashlight with different lights? Each time Adrian pushed the button, the light changed to a different colour and he cycled through till he found the original white light. Tech like the one Adrian held was supposed to be fairly common once upon a time according to his father. The roof of their house was dotted in solar panels that caught the sun's rays and gave them light, they didn't have the other things his father called 'appliances that made living easier.' Those things were for the big towns and giant cities.

Well now Adrian had his own personal appliance, he just didn't know how it or the ones in the city made living easier. Weren't they already living easy?

Come dinner time, Adrian showed his father the flashlight and received a pat on the shoulder. Once that would have been a hair ruffle but he was still bedridden and they were both wary of setting of an episode of pain. With a new found vigor, both father and son went through the box again and discovered another flashlight. Yet no matter what they did they couldn't make that one or any other thing in the box work.

Adrian never gave up though and he spent his days fiddling with it all and hoping to get the others to work. Like that his days passed.

Forcing sleep gummed eyes open, Adrian sat up in bed and stretched, feeling good for the first time in a long while. He reached for his glass of water and was drinking it when he nearly choked on water.

For the first time in almost a month.

Adrian felt no pain.