Dewey's eyes keep drifting upwards to the lights. The florescent lighting fixed into the hospital ceiling always seemed so artificial to him. Everything thing in the hospital seems so artificial to him.

Prosthetic.

It's 2:37 in the morning and the Duck family is sitting in the Emergency Room waiting area. To his right sits Louie, quiet beeps and poor sound effects coming from the ancient game machine in his hands. His tongue poking out of the side of his beak in concentration as he stares into the reflective green screen.

Across from them, sprawled across his chair is Huey, covered in a blanket he's had and used since they were children.
His eyes are open, barely, but you wouldn't guess by the expression on his face that he's conscious. The look in what can be seen of his eyes is a million miles away. Lids dropping and picking up occasionally. Head nodding slightly as he drifts in and out.

Dewey nervously chews on his tongue. Eyes bouncing from the light to the reflection of it on the shiny tile flooring, unsure of what to do with himself. A few seats down he can hear his aunt and uncle talking quietly to each other. Arguing.
Sometimes he wondered if they knew he could hear them, or even cared.

"Can we not talk about this now? I really don't want to talk about this now."

"When are we going to talk about it, Donald? We've gotta make plans, we've gotta figure something out."

"Figure what out? I've already made up my mind."

"Donald, you can't let him just die in the streets."

"He's made his decisions, Daisy. This isn't even the first time this has happened."

"What even happened? Why are they releasing him?"

"Indecent behavior, as usual. Nobody's going to put up with him after this, and I don't blame them. He's a grumpy old pervert. There is nothing pleasant about that wretched old man, and you know for a fact that we already have more on our plate that we can handle. He's not our problem."

"He's family, Donald."

"We can't. Even if he deserved it, we just can't."

"We can, honey," she says, leaning closer to him. "We have to. Think about it. What kind of example do you want to set for the ducklings?"

a draw of flies

concept by: SK Millz
written by: cornwallace

Pneumonia.

The ragged, wet breathing keeps Dewey awake. That and the muffled discussion happening through the walls. More of the same. A continuation.
No matter how long he keeps his eyes closed, he can't sleep. Louie's sprawled out with his leg and arm hanging off of his bed. Snoring where he landed on the bed across the room from them. Huey struggles to breathe in his sleep on the bunk above. Or maybe he's awake. Dewey has no idea. He doesn't want to bother him if he is, though.

He's worried. Worried and stressed and begging for sleep that doesn't come. His eyes open involuntarily and he slams them closed.
The adults repeat themselves. No problem ever gets solved. It's stressful enough being old, he can't even begin to imagine.

"Daisy. It's really not that simple. We can't just take someone else in."

"Where else is he going to go?"

"Look, I'm sorry if the bitter old fucker ruined his own life. I've taken care of him for as long as I can, I can't do anything for him. We can't do anything for him."

"He's a living being. He's related to you. And you're willing to let him just die in the street?"

"He chose his path in life."

"How can you be so cold, Donald?"

"I didn't ask for this. None of us asked for any of this."

"This? You mean the kids?"

"All of it, Daisy. We're not equipped. This is bad timing."

"You act like you don't even care about them."

"I DO care about them. You know that. I wasn't ready for my sister to die, I wasn't ready to handle the responsibility of her kids. I don't know what you want from me, here. Huey's got pneumonia, the school counselor is pressuring me about getting therapy for Louie, and Dewey needs glasses. We don't have the money for that. The last thing we need is for Scrooge McDuck to be in our lives."

"Louie."

No answer. Louie and Dewey are the only people in the waiting room. The beeps and boops seem to have grown louder.

"Louie?"

"Yeah?" He doesn't take his eyes off the screen.

"You think Huey is gonna be okay?"

"Yeah," he says. He doesn't take his eyes off the screen.

"Did you, uh. Did you hear what they were talking about?"

"Uncle Donald and Aunt Daisy?"

"Yeah." He looks down at the tile flooring. Prosthetic lighting reflecting off the shiny surface.

"Uncle Scrooge needs a place to stay. Isn't he supposed to be loaded?"

"Not anymore. He wasted the majority of his fortune."

"How do you waste generations of wealth?"

"Do you remember Uncle Scrooge?"

"I'd rather not."

"Yeah," Dewey says, looking up at the lights.

Louie says nothing, and doesn't take his eyes off the screen.

His eyes are open and he's just staring upward into the bottom of the bunk above. He might not even realize his eyes are open yet.
Light creeps in through the blinds covering the window in the back of the room. Dewey has no idea what time it is, how long he's been awake or just how much precious sleep he managed to cultivate.

It takes him a moment for it to set in. How quiet it is.

Dewey looks across the room at Louie. Hasn't moved an inch. Snoring away in the face of the early morning. He wonders how Huey is doing.

Huey.
He can't hear his breathing. This realization rips Dewey from the fog as his eyes spring open wide. Lurching forward, he scoots his legs off the side of the bed, landing his feet on the floor and springing his way up the ladder to the top bunk.

"Huey?!" he calls out as his head surfaces over the empty bed.

The door opens behind him. "Yeah?" Huey's broken voice inquires. "What are you doing in my bed?"

Dewey twists himself on the ladder to face him. "Hey. You doing okay?"

"As well as I can be," Huey says, hacking.

"You need anything?"

"For you to, uh. Move."

"Right," Dewey says, sliding down the ladder and back to ground level.

Nobody says anything as they get back in bed.

"Are you adjusting to your new home well enough?" she asks.

Dewey looks up into her eyes then down at the name tag on her desk. Clarabelle Cow. He looks down at his feet.

"Yeah, I guess. It's just like a weekend at Uncle Donald's, really. It's fine."

"And how are you dealing with the -" she pauses for a moment, seemingly struggling with finding the words. "- the passing?"

"She's gone," he says. "There's nothing that can be done about that, right?"

"Talking about it can help you heal," she says, looking up from her notes.

"I dunno. You want me to talk about it, but what's there to talk about? It's sad. I'm sad. Talking about my mom isn't going to bring her back. Neither will talking about my dad do the same for him. My parents are dead and talking about them won't bring them back."

"Why did you come here, then? You're not obligated to come here."

"I'm worried about my brother," he admits.

"Because he's sick?"

"Well, I had this dream about him, right?" he asks, looking up at her. "You know something about that, right?"

Clarabelle nods.

"I had this dream where he and I were watching television. And he... He started to..." Dewey can't bring himself to say it. "I'm worried about him, is all. I needed to say that out loud. Louie's so disconnected, I don't even know if he's here, and Uncle Donald and Aunt Daisy, well, they... They have enough on their plate."

"How do you feel, Dewey?"

"Confused," he says. "I feel confused."

He drifts in and out through his classes.
He's like a ghost walking through the hallways, his lunch spent with his absent minded brother. His eyes on a screen or in a field all the time these days.
It feels difficult to get much of a real response out of him at all these days. It's like the shell of a person wanders the earth with his head in the clouds, no matter what. He doesn't care. He's not all here. Trying to talk to him seems futile.

Dewey sees Gosalyn Mallard in the hallway, near his locker. He nervously makes small talk with her, and she puts him at ease. She puts a smile on his face, even when they talk about nothing in particular.
He remembers the winter formal dance is coming up, and he'd like to ask her but he's too shy. He figures talking to her is enough.

In his AP math class one of his classmates asks him to borrow a pencil. Upon receiving the pencil his classmate Max loudly thanks him. They are both lectured out in the hall about talking in class.

When Dewey tries to lose himself in his book, he thinks of Louie and becomes worried.

Piled into the car, he shuts the door behind him, pushing him up close against Louie, and Louie up closer against Uncle Scrooge.

"Hello there, children!"

"Hey, Uncle Scrooge," Louie says.

Dewey nods in acknowledgment.

"How was school, ducklings?" Daisy asks with a strange flutter in her voice.

"It was fine," Louie says, pulling the game machine out of his pocket and turning it on. "Had a test today. Think I probably did fine."

"How about you, Dewey?"

"Slow day," he says.

"Dewey looks like he could use a nap when he gets home." Uncle Scrooge says, laughing. "Isn't that right, boy?"

Dewey halfheartedly laughs. "Yeah.."

Donald tries to light a cigarette and Daisy stops him. He doesn't say much on the ride home.

Every pattern he tries to follow leads to more confusion. The more colors in a row he wracks up, the more lost he feels in the rest of the puzzle. The more confusing it gets. The harder it gets to pay attention.
He tosses the Rubik's cube to his feet and looks at the desk beside him, stacked with books. He begins to wonder if he cares anymore. He can't keep track of it all anymore anyway. Why bother?

With his mind so lost in places beyond him, how could he possibly learn anything?

Dewey decides to get a glass of orange juice and try to get started, regardless how he feels about it. He gets up and walks through his door, rounding the corner to meet Uncle Scrooge sprawled out across the living room couch. He's clutching a half-empty bottle of vodka under his left arm, and he's got the Tv remote idly sitting in his right, watching The Newlywed Game. His head slumped over his chest, his hard gaze stops Dewey in his tracks.

"Hey, boy," he says, licking his beak. "What ya doin'? Where ya offta?"

Dewey walks towards the fridge before answering in motion, "just getting a drink before doing some homework."

He pauses at the refrigerator door. His hand firmly grasping the handle. Something feels very wrong. Why is he afraid?

He opens the refrigerator door and scans the top shelf for the orange juice. Behind the milk and the soda-pop.
He slides the soda-water to the left and the milk enough to the right to awkwardly wedge the orange juice free, stretching himself as high as he can on his tip-toes, he suddenly stops cold when he feels the hand on his shoulder.

"Getting a drink, eh?," his coarse, accented voice booms above him. "Orange juice? Always goes great with a wee bit of vodka. You should let me fix you a drink!"

"Ah, no thanks," Dewey says, resuming motion and squeezing himself backwards under McDuck's arm and around the long side of him to the counter. Scrooge left following Dewey's tracks awkwardly with his head around him as he holds the fridge door ajar. "I have homework to do."

Uncle Scrooge has always been known to screw with people. This is probably some kind of test, Dewey thinks to himself. Some lesson in peer pressure. He fetches himself a cup and pours himself some orange juice.

"You'll have yerself the best studynight of your life, laddy, trust me. Yer parents aren't here, they don't have to ever know!"

Uncle Scrooge thinks he's referring to Donald and Daisy, who aren't currently home, but isn't.

Dewey bites his tongue. He thinks he gets it. He leaves the orange juice on the counter, willing to take the fall for it if it gets back to him, and he takes his full glass back towards his room with him.

"Get back to me, eh?" Scrooge calls after him, laughing gruffly.

Dewey doesn't say a word, he just shuts his door behind him.

"Don't you have homework, too?"

"Yeah," Louie absentmindedly replies.

"Shouldn't you get started on it?"

"I'll get to it."

Dewey stops for a moment before getting back to what he was doing.

Dewey lay awake staring at the back of his eyes, desperately trying to not think about anything while the worries of the world flood his head.
He can't not think. How do normal people sleep, he wonders.

Looking up at the bunk over his head, through his tireless eyelids, he thinks of his dream and he cringes. He hopes Huey's okay. He hopes Huey will be okay.

He hopes it's a bad dream. He hopes it's something he can wake up from.

It isn't, though.

He opens his eyes and it's morning already. He wonders if he slept at all. He can't be too sure. Breakfast is as quiet as ever. Daisy talks through the car ride to school, but she doesn't say anything he knows how to respond to.

It's raining.
Windshield wipers smearing the lights across the glass in subtle lines, wiping away the distortion. Dewey finds it hard to focus on any one thing at a time. His eyes drifting back and forth between the scenery outside, the rain distorting it, the rain being wiped away.

What Aunt Daisy's saying. The soft music on the radio. The beeps and boops coming from Louie's hands. The empty look on his face. The hollow look on hers. He feels his heart rate picking up, his breathing louder than it should be. He's nervous and before he knows it the car has stopped in front of the school. Despite all the looking at the scenery he did, he wasn't really paying attention to it, he would seem.

"You kids have a good day at school, okay?"

The door's already open, and he's unsure if he's already responded out of habit or didn't respond at all. Like a zombie he steps out of the car and before he knows it, the door is close and his brother has caught up to him. He didn't even hear the car door slam. Or maybe he did and he just wasn't paying attention.

After his AP math class, Max, his classmate, he apologizes for getting him in trouble yesterday. Dewey kind of just nods and says it's fine.
The kid asks him if he's doing okay and he seems sincere about it. Dewey just kind of nods and tells him he's fine.

Dewey goes to the counselor, but doesn't have anything to say. She questions him on his home life, his parents and his brother. She asks him about his aunt and uncle and about school before he sits in silence for ten minutes and apologizes for wasting her time before getting up and leaving. Before she can rationally respond, he's gone.

He stares at his lunch. He's hungry, but he doesn't want to eat it. The very thought of it makes him uncomfortable. He sets it aside and looks over at his brother, withering away with his head lost in a videogame.

"Are you hungry?" he asks, vainly.

"Nah," Louie responds. "Thanks, though."

He finds himself at his locker, exchanging useless books for important ones. He hears a familiar voice in his left ear.

"Hey," Gosalyn says.

Instead of a simple greeting he finds himself asking if she'd like to go to the dance with him. The winter formal.
He can feel the redness building up in his cheeks and he immediately regrets saying that. He doesn't know why he did. It just kind of escaped him.

"Dewey," she says, stressing over the answer. He wants to bury his face in his locker. "I would have gone with you, but I already said yes to Max Goof."

"Isn't he with that Roxanne girl?"

"They broke up a week ago. Apparently she was really hard on him. I can't back out on it now. You understand...?"

"Yeah," he says, forcing a smile. "I understand.

After school he waits twenty minutes for his ride and none comes. The batteries in Louie's handheld die and he finds himself staring at the sky and twiddling his thumbs. Dewey tries to follow his gaze, to try to find something meaningful in the sky, something to get lost in. After a time, he decides he can't, and suggests they just walk home. It's only a few blocks. Louie agrees. His batteries are at the house. His escape, his exit.

Dewey sighs as they walk along the cold, wet streets. It isn't raining anymore, but it's overcast and gloomy. The streets crawl beneath their feet as they walk through this world in a daze, shaken only by the siren wailing in the distance.

Almost home.
As the sirens grow louder, Dewey knows in its heart whatever it is can't be good. He prays for the poor souls attached to it as two ambulances and a police car race ahead of him from behind.
He finds himself looking at his feet again, stepping over the cracks and crevices in the sidewalk. The sirens never seem to go away, no matter how badly he wishes they would.

They just seem to get louder.

He looks up a short distance from his destination and stops. Louie keeps walking, staring at the sky.

"Louie."

"Yeah?"

"Hold on a second," he says, trying to catch his attention. "Is that what I think it is?"

"The sirens? Yeah, they're up ahead, dude."

"Look," he says, dryly. "I can't tell for sure, my long distance is fuzzy, but are they... is that..."

Louie spins around in midstep and looks at Dewey as if he were insane. He slowly turns back to look and his eyes widen. This causes Dewey to panic.

"Huey," he says almost under his breath, just a second before bolting towards his aunt and uncle's house.

Louie says something to try and stop him, but Dewey isn't listening. The next thing he registers as he approaches the house is the screaming.

Donald's screaming.

He's being dragged by his arms out of the front door by two police officers, hands fastened behind his back with handcuffs.

His hands and arms, thumbs in particular are covered in blood, a deep red staining his white feathers. He screams irrationally as he's guided to the cop car until he sees the ducklings.

"I'm sorry, kids," he says, half-sobbing. "I'm sorry, but he won't hurt you ever again. I made sure of that. I MADE SURE OF THAT."

They stuff him into the back of the police car and shut the door behind him, muffling his screams to incomprehensible madness.

The kids are instructed to wait outside with one of the officers while another asks questions to a sobbing Daisy. He doesn't answer any of their questions, and neither does she, when they reunite. Only assures that Huey's alive, don't worry, kids, Huey's alive.

They bring him out on a stretcher first, he seems to be vomiting off the side of it as they do their best to carry him as efficiently as possible to the back of the nearest ambulance.
Daisy tries to usher her kids away, down the sidewalk, as far from the scene as possible as the other two ambulance drivers brought out Uncle Scrooge, his eye sockets hallow and leaking blood and particles of brain matter down the side of his face.

Daisy gave a halfhearted speech in the back of the cab on the way to the hotel, Dewey and Louie sitting on either side of her.
"Sometimes people do very bad things, children," she said. "And sometimes that makes other people do horrible things. Not because they want to do horrible things, but sometimes you have to do a horrible thing to stop a horrible thing and I..."
There's a moment of silence in the cab, in between the breaks of her composure.
"Whatever you do," she starts up again, sniffling, "I don't think you should ever ask your brother what happened at the house today. I think that's for the best, okay?"

Nobody said anything. And as they arrived at the hotel, Dewey didn't exactly know what happened that day, but he had an idea.

Dewey gets sleep that night, but it comes at a price. He's running from something, running away. Running from something that wants to destroy him. To eat him alive. He's running through sand, or quicksand, he can't tell because it has neither full set of qualities.
He moves forward, but his progress is stunted by every sinking step he makes in the sand. Despite running as quickly as he can, reaching his destination seems like an impossibility at this rate.

It's too far and every step gets harder, every movement more difficult than the last. Day shifts into night. Night shifts into day. He begins to consider his actions. He wonders what he's running from and he wonders what he's running towards.
One by one, the stars fall from the sky, melting away into the darkness. Obscuring his already blurry surroundings with light removal.

Dewey sinks further into the sand, the slower he goes. His effort takes its toll on him as he runs from something that's ugly and towards something he really hopes isn't.