Disclaimer: I don't own monster Allergy
Zick groaned, hand going up to cradle his to his aching head. He looked around, his reflexes slowed by shell shock. He took in the crumpled metal, torn upholstery, and his parents. His father was forcing the door open, his mother already exiting the vehicle. Zick crawled over to the other side and opened the followed his mother's example.
"Everyone alright?" Zob called out to his family. Zick and Greta nodded.
Zick tried to follow Zob to the other car, but was stopped by a hand held out meaning for him to stay with his mother.
"No, Zick. I don't know what I'll find."
"But..." The argument died and he reluctantly returned to Greta's side.
He took the time to check himself over. Amazingly, he seemed fine. A few cuts and scrapes, but nothing that wouldn't heal in a matter of days.
Zick looked up as he heard sirens. A police cruiser and an ambulance stopped close to the wreckage. He saw his father talking with the cop, and soon after a blue-gray haired man, so torn to pieces that Zick was forced to look away, was put inside the ambulance. It drove off.
The sirens were never sounded.
"Wow, do you know how lucky you are?"
Teddy, Lay, and Elena sat around Zick, laughing and talking. The family's closest friends had thrown a small party to celebrate their survival of the car accident. 'The Zick clan is indestructible!'
"Can't believe you got away with only a few minor injuries." Teddy said, shaking his head.
"Me either. I'm sure this luck won't last forever though. Hate to see what happens when it runs out." Zick replied. Really, it didn't make sense. How could he sit on the side of the car that was hit and still even be alive when the driver of the other car had died?
Zick gazed up at the walls once again. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about them or the odor the home gave off since entering his house after the accident. He could have sworn the walls were a pleasant orange color, and the house always smelled unique and reflected the family that lived there, the way houses do.
So why were the walls bleach white? Why couldn't he get the scent of disinfectant out of his nostrils?
Zick sighed contently, hands behind his head as he lay on the green carpet of the grassy park. Elena was beside him, smiling as she too looked up at the sky.
With a frown, Zick noted silently that the colors of the endless blue stretch seemed less vibrate, not as lively - as most colors were now - as before the...
He abruptly sat up, shaking his head. Why did it pain him so much to remember? No one he cared about had really gotten hurt, no one he knew had died, right?
Then why did the image of the blue-haired being driven off in the ambulance bother him so much?
"Zick? You okay?"
He looked over to see Elena sitting up as well, concern filling her eyes. He smiled at her softly and fell back to the earth.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Fit as an ox, ready to take on the world!"
False vigor filled his voice, and he knew something wasn't right when Elena didn't catch on. They used to be able to see past one another's masks, no matter how thick. Those words were lies. He seemed paler in the mirror, and the muscle that had been built up from fighting monsters was melting away, leaving him feeling so weak it was a miracle he was able to drag himself out of bed every morning and not collapse every time he stood.
And the worst part was... there was no logical explanation he could come up with. He didn't dare tell his friends; they'd laugh at him, making him an outcast in the one place he felt he belonged. If he told his family, they'd send him to some monster doctor, afraid he'd been affected by some poison. He hadn't fought any monsters on the day the changes began, and he knew it wasn't poison, not unless the other car had been coated in the stuff.
Zick sighed, not out of content but of confusion and irritation.
Beside him Elena let out a sigh as well, mimicking him from only a few minutes before.
"Elena... I love you, but you're not here. This person is not the real you."
His voice was soft, and if the girl that was not Elena heard, she gave no sign.
She never did.
Zick stared out the window that was not his window of the house that was not his house. Three years had passed since the …accident. Or so he thought, it was hard keeping track of the time anymore. Three days could pass in one day for him, and nine of his days could equal one in the familiar yet strange place that mocked his home.
With each passing day, – or days, depending on whose time you went by – Zick felt weaker and weaker. He went from his normal pale skin tone to a shade a dead man would be. His flesh looked cold and lifeless, his veins sticking out in harsh purples and blues through his increasingly transparent skin. He looked like a walking skeleton, his muscle dissipating more and more by the hour.
He was miserable, and yet even his closest friends couldn't see that, didn't notice how frail he was becoming. Whenever they looked at him, they appeared to be looking through him, their eyes glassy and clouded. He didn't know who looked more dead, he or his friends. That thought scared him unlike any monster could. At least he'd have his real friends then. At least he had never truly been alone, never without support.
"What wrong, son?"
Zick hesitated. It'd been quite a while since he had last talked to the ghosts of his grandparents. Not only them, but all ghosts and black phantoms had been avoiding him, surrounding him yet not coming close to him, almost as if he were pushing back death itself, as if he were fighting against it.
"Nothing, Grandpa. I was just thinking." This earned a knowing chuckle out of the old, deceased man. It annoyed Zick, Theo couldn't possibly understand, only know that Zick was now thirteen and that most thirteen-year-olds thought mainly about girls and the like. Too bad he wasn't like most thirteen-year-olds.
"Alright, but remember, I was young once too. If you need any tips, don't be afraid to ask!"
Zick forced a smile. It was the most he could do anymore with his strength being sapped away. The ghost floated off to find his wife, leaving Zick alone again.
Having nothing better to do, Zick trudged up the stairs to his room. Sleeping seemed to be the only effective way to pass time anymore.
However, even as he slipped under the covers, Zick knew that nothing would be the same once he fell into another dreamless sleep.
Elena cried on the mother's shoulder. She couldn't bring herself to look at the wooden box that sat in front of the small crowd.
"-and so, with these final words we lay young Ezekiel Zick to rest within-"
The mention of the name made the redhead go into a hysteria that no one could bring her down from, no one alive anyway.
Tears blurred her vision as she forced herself to watch as they lowered the coffin into the ground. Her gaze shifted to the two grave markers just to the right. She couldn't make out the words. She didn't have to. She knew Zick was being buried next to his father and mother.
With pain and sorrow flooding through her, she remembered the events that took place after that car crash a year and a half ago.
Zob had died on impact, the driver's side being where the car had been hit. Zick had been sitting on that side as well, and had been put into a coma. Greta had escaped with only a few broken bones, the doctors had said. That was all they knew how to fix. They could not do anything for a broken heart.
Greta managed to scrape together enough money to keep Zick in the hospital for fifteen months, though it made it tough to go on with daily life. She barely had enough to eat, even with her depressed state taking away from her hunger. In the end, it was her depression that overwhelmed her. She went to sleep and didn't wake up. The found her in her bed clutching an empty bottle of sleeping pills.
Elena's family paid the hospital fees for another month for the sake of their daughter. When he still didn't wake up, Elena decided not to hold on to false hope any longer.
They had to pull the plug.
"He loved you, you know."
Elena glared up at Teddy. When she saw his serious expression, however, her own features softened.
"How... How would you know?" Elena choked out.
"When my family visited him once, he muttered it in his sleep about a month after the crash. Only thing he ever said while he was in that coma."
"And you didn't tell anyone?" Her sorrow mixed with a fierce rage. "He could have been getting better! He could have woken up! He could be alive right now if-"
"It was within the first month." Those words brought the redhead crashing back to reality. Teddy hesitated, not wanting to spark the girl's temper again. He fought to keep his voice level. "I wasn't sure if I had imagined it or not, and if I told you, you would have drained yourself as much as his mom."
Elena collapsed on the ground with her knees at her chest and her head in her hands. Teddy looked at the girl a moment longer then left. Elena shook her head, tears spilling faster than ever.
"It's not fair..." She murmured. "It's not fair... It's not fair..."
Depressing fic with plenty of character deaths, must be getting my old muse back. Then again, it's not hard when you're about to leave all your friends behind to go to a high school just to secure your future. Once I think about it though, I never had many friends, not that that I considered friends anyway. Only friends I have I haven't met face to face and they don't even know I'm a girl...
Wow, ton of mistakes. Reread it and fixed up what I caught, but I really should proofread before I post stuff up. But that's extra work... screw it.
