AN: I'm aliiiiiiive! Another author reached out to me with this request. Characters and plot happenings are of their design; all I did was make it sound pretty. This fic will be a longer series, all uploaded under the title 'Blue, the special umbreon,' by author SpinoKing1180. In the meantime, get to know Blue in this preview.
This can't be happening, Blue thought. He ran faster than he had ever thought he could. The town's buildings were little more than blurs, though he wouldn't have been able to see them anyway through his tears. He followed the tan smudge of his brother as they rushed to the only hospital in Nuvema Town, where Blue and Finn's father was a patient.
Blue didn't remember entering the building, and the secretary's voice was little more than a faint murmur. The next moment he could recall was standing in front of room 1.1, trembling in anticipation. For a moment, Blue didn't think he had the strength go in. He felt Finn beside him, his brother's tan fur brushing Blue's own shiny silver. Finn, too, was shaking.
"I...I can't," Finn whispered in the silent, infinite moment. "I can't see him like that." His older brother's confirmation gave Blue the push he needed. If Finn couldn't do it, Blue would for him. His ears flat against his head, tail between his legs, Blue slowly crept to the door, approaching it as if death lurked behind it. Death did wait behind; but not for Blue.
Blue pushed open the door with his cheek and slowly pushed himself through. Time seemed to flow around the scene like a river parting around a rock. An espeon lay at the side of a vaporeon, infant eevee curled under the espeon's protective paw. Blue's mother and infant sister. His mother was mere centimeters from the discolored scales of the vaporeon, close enough to feel what little body heat Blue's father could radiate, yet wary of the spread of the disease that was consuming him. Blue's mother raised her head as she felt him enter.
"He said he wanted to see you boys before… before…" She trailed off, voice choked by emotion. Her sightless eyes were stained with tears. "Where is Finn?"
"I'm saying goodbye for him," Blue murmured. His mother's fur shifted with an invisible breeze and Blue realized she was testing the future. She then stood, lifting little Ellie in a psychic cradle. She made to leave just as Atlan stirred. Blue was suddenly filled with an irrational anxiety, as if fearing the disease had stolen the father Blue had once known and left a stranger in his place.
"Mom?" Blue's mother brushed him with her forked tail as she left, speaking directly into his mind. I've already made my goodbyes.
"Come here, kiddo," the figure whispered. Blue crept forward, still wary of the disease, though filled with sorrow for his father. As he got closer, Blue saw how much the illness had destroyed the vaporeon.
Atlan's scales had darkened to a deep teal, his eyes paling to a sickly orange. His frills had drooped and turned nearly green. He was frail. Nearly skeletal. Blue realized he had no idea what to say. He flinched as the vaporeon stretched out a weak paw and placed it over Blue's own.
"It's...okay. You don't...have to talk. I just...wanted you to know...I'll always be there for you, Blue." Atlan's voice became slightly stronger, more clear as he finished the sentence. A brief hope flared in Blue's chest as he thought of recovery. He waited there for another eternity, looking back into his father's unblinking eyes. Knowing that soon his family would be back together, healthy, at their home at house 2-61 on Haven Drive. Teasing each other over breakfast. Playing games in the yard.
It was only after an Audino entered with his mother that Blue realized Atlan wasn't breathing. Time of death: 6:56 am.