"Lucy! Go wake up your brother! It's already one o'clock!" my mom yells from her room.
"Ugh, fine," I grumble, walking out of my room and entering his. I step over my dog, who just loves to lie down in the hallway as if it's nobody's business.
"Yo, Nate, get out of bed. It's one o'clock and mom wants you up now," I tell him as I open the window shades in his room to allow sunlight to come in.
No reply from him.
"Nate?" I start to shake his body a little while calling his name. "Nate, wake up. This better not be a joke." My voice starts to tremble, fearing the worst. I run to my parent's room, leaving Nate's body where it is. "Mom! Dad! Nate's not responding. He's not waking up," my voices trembles as I try to hold back the tears.
Both of my parents are alarmed as they jump out of bed. I show them to Nate's room as his body is still lying there, unchanged from when I left him.
My dad goes up to Nate's body. "Nate, wake up," he says while he checks for a pulse and if he's breathing. He regains some relief knowing that his son's not dead. "He's breathing and has a pulse." I gratefully sigh, knowing my brother is at least living.
My mom bursts into tears, sobbing into Nate's body. "Why won't he wake up then?"
"Lucy, you stay here with your mother while I go call 9-1-1 and tell them the situation." My dad then leaves the room, calling 9-1-1 on his cell phone.
I look over to Nate's body while my mother is sobbing on him. I then see you ring on his right hand, which is hanging off the bed. The ring is faintly emitting a blue light, but I can see no reason as to why that is happening.
Hmm, curious. Nate's never been a fan of jewelry, but he's wearing a ring right now. And why is it glowing? Normal metals don't emit light.
I pick up Nate's hand and reach for the ring, but I'm stopped by an invisible barrier two inches from the ring.
What's this? Is this ring emitting a force field, preventing me from touching it? But force fields are science fiction; this is like when you try pushing the same poles of two magnets together, only to be repelled by the magnetic force.
"Hey, mom. Look at this," I tell her. She doesn't hear me. I put my hands on her shoulders and shake her a little. "Mom, look at this."
She turns her head around, eyes red from crying and says, "Can't you see that I'm crying right now?"
I ignore her question and show her Nate's hand. "See anything different?"
She looks at his hand for a second, "He's wearing a ring. What's so different about that?"
"Yeah, he's wearing a ring. When has Nate ever said that he liked wearing jewelry?"
She stops crying to think about that. "Never, I suppose. He rarely ever wears jewelry and when he does, he never likes it."
"Right? Why is he wearing a ring then?" I ask. "And take a closer look at this here ring; it's emitting a faint, blue light. No normal metal emits light, but this one is."
"The paramedics are on their way," my dad says upon entering the room. He sees me and his wife looking the ring on Nate's finger. "Why's that ring glowing?"
"We don't know, but one thing's for sure: it's not a normal ring," I tell him as he comes closer. "Also, check this out. When I try to pull the ring off, I'm stopped by an invisible barrier approximately two inches from the ring itself."
The sound of the doorbell brings us back to reality. "I'll get the door. It's probably the medics," my dad says, leaving the room again.
Sure enough, I look out the window of Nate's room and there are emergency vehicles on the street.
I hear the sound of the door opening downstairs, prompting my mom and me to clear the floor of Nate's schoolwork so that the medics can take a look at his body without having the disturbance of stepping over things.
The sound of heavy boots enters the room, which was somewhat cleaned since we moved some stuff out of the way. There were three medics, each about six feet tall and two hundred pounds. One medic brings in a stretcher while the other two look over Nate's sleeping body.
One of the medics speaks up, "When did you find him like this?"
"I found him like this around one o'clock," I say to him as he writes this down on his notepad.
He looks at his watch, "So about thirty minutes have passed then." He now turns to my parents. "Has he been showing any abnormal signs recently? Has he been diagnosed with insomnia or any other disorders?"
My dad speaks up, "No, he hasn't been showing form of abnormality at all. He hasn't been diagnosed with anything either, especially insomnia since he doesn't get lack of sleep."
"Hmm, interesting..." He turns to the other medics. "Let's put him on a stretcher and take him to the nearest children's hospital." He writes something on his notepad and rips it off, giving it to my dad. "Here's the address to the hospital."
"Thanks, we'll follow right after you leave," he says as he puts the note in his pocket.
The two medics carry Nate's body out of the room and head downstairs, carefully moving the stretcher so the body moves as little as possible. They open the front door and carry Nate's body over to the ambulance, opening the back door to let him inside.
We follow suit and get inside my dad's Mini Cooper to follow the ambulance back to the hospital.
"I hope Nate turns out to be okay," I say somberly.
"We hope so too, Lucy. We hope so too…" my mom says in the same tone as me.
We enter the emergency room of the hospital, but are told to wait as the doctors analyze Nate's condition.
"It's always like this at the hospital," my dad says as he fills out medical papers for Nate. "We wait and wait, not knowing if the one we're waiting for is okay."
"Well, Dad, just wait a while. The doctors may come back with some good news," I say optimistically to lift the glooming feeling in the air. It doesn't work.
"I hope that's the case, Lucy," my mom says while staring blankly in her seat.
"Dr. Cooper, take a look at this," they say as my fellow doctor moves over to allow me to look in the microscope, analyzing Nate Mendoza's blood. "When I looked at the blood under the microscope, I was expecting to see some dead blood cells, since oxygen was no longer being supported to them, but all of them were alive and thriving."
I look into the microscope and understand what he means. "Did you check other blood samples to make sure this wasn't an exception?"
"Yes, I did. I checked multiple ones and all of them have showed the same results. I even checked samples of his skin. No dead ones among them."
"Record what you've just seen. This is important," I tell him as he gets to work.
The door to the lab opens, and a young female nurse enters. "Dr. Cooper, I have the CT Scans of Nate Mendoza's brain," she says as she hands over the folder with X-rays and notes from various doctors who've previously looked at it.
I turn to the nurse and ask, "So what's wrong with him?"
"It appears that he's in a coma as his brain activity is very low." She says, her professional tone never wavering, as she has become accustomed to people who are terminally injured.
"The reason why he's in a coma?"
"You'll find that in the folder, but I'll give you a brief rundown," she pauses before continuing up again. "It's unknown."
This perks my interest, since this has only occurred once in my many years of being a doctor. "What? Please elaborate."
"All organs are functioning as they are meant to be. There is no brain damage. No disease of any kind. There's no reason for him to be in a coma, but he's in one. The other doctors are trying to figure it out, but they don't know how to proceed. Since you're the chief doctor of this hospital, do you have any idea of how to address this problem?"
"Hmm, let me think about this..." I ponder for a couple of seconds until an idea pops up. "May I see his body?"
"Certainly, Dr. Cooper. Follow me while I show you to his room." She turns around to the door while I follow her.
We walk through hospital's white hallways with many hallways leading to different departments relating to the medical field. We enter one hallway and his room is the first on the left.
"Here you go, Dr. Cooper."
"Thank you." I enter the room, closing the door behind me. Nobody is in the room as I look around. That's when I noticed Nate's body lying on the hospital bed, just lying there as if he were peacefully dreaming.
I look over his body for anything that may prompt interest in me. As I look to his right hand, I see a faintly glowing ring emitting a blue light. I try to pull the ring off of his finger, but am halted by an invisible barrier preventing me from touching it.
This is just like the other time. I had a patient just like this. He was in a coma for no apparent reason and was wearing a ring similar to Nate's that couldn't be taken off. I called it "Eternal Sleep," since the body never ages, never needs food. The body is just there, breathing, but practically dead in every other sense.
Thoughts go through me as I question if I should tell his family. "I should tell them; they have a right to know."
I leave Nate's room and walk down the hallway to the nearest receptionist. I proceed to ask her a question. "Where is Nate Mendoza's family?"
"Give me a sec while I look that up." She pulls up a list of people who're waiting for in the hospital. "They are located in the ER waiting room."
"Thank you." I walk quickly in the direction of the waiting room to tell the Mendoza family the news of their son.
They have to know before it's too late. It was too late for my last patient because the government took him away, but at least Nate's family will know what will happen to their son.
I come before the ER waiting room to catch my breath, since I walked quickly through half of the hospital. After catching my breath, I open the door to find the waiting room fairly empty. There are a couple of individuals in the chairs and a one small family.
"May I see Nate Mendoza's family please," I announce, prompting a family to get up and come towards me.
A middle-aged woman, who I assume to be the mother asks, "Is Nate okay?"
I take a heavy breath, knowing what I'll say is traumatic. "Can you all follow me to another room? This needs to be addressed with you privately."
"Sure thing, doctor, but can you at least tell us if he's going to be well?" a middle-aged man asks, who I assume to be is the father.
"He's... not going to be well," we walk down a hallway and I show them to a room, "but I'd rather explain what's going on with him in this room."
We enter a room that has the feel of a psychiatrist's office, though this isn't the psychiatrics' ward. The Mendoza family takes a seat on the couch with the mother and father sitting side by side and the daughter on her mother's side. I take a seat in a reclining chair, facing directly at them.
"Doctor, can you please tell us what's wrong with my son?" the man anxiously asks.
I sigh, "I'll get straight to it then." I pause to compose myself to appear somber at his situation. "You're son appears to be in a coma."
The family in front of me is shocked by this news. Unable for them to ask why, I continue on. "He has no physical ailments that cause a coma, nor any brain damage. In all reality, he shouldn't even be in a coma in the first place."
The man breaks from his shock and asks, "Then why is he in a coma, doctor?"
"We're not sure, but there's more to his situation than a mere coma. When we were studying his blood samples, a fellow coworker of mine found out his blood cells weren't dying, same with his skin cells. I then went to go see your son and noticed a ring on his finger that was glowing blue."
The daughter now speaks. "Shouldn't that ring have anything to do with Nate's problem? It's just a ring, after all."
"Normally, that'd be the case, but I had a similar patient who entered a coma for no apparent reason and was wearing a ring similar to Nate's. Both rings glowed faintly and both had an invisible barrier, preventing me from taking it off." They're perplexed as their son and brother isn't the first case with this situation. "With him in the same situation as my previous patient, his body won't age as time progresses."
"What do you mean by that?" the father asks, confused as to why his son won't age.
"I said earlier that his cells aren't dying, nor are they reproducing. His body will be the same as it is as time goes on. I call it "Eternal Sleep," since the person doesn't age, nor does he need sustenance to support the body."
"So you're basically saying that as we get older, Nate will always be his sixteen year old self for all eternity?" they all ask simultaneously.
"Yes, but there's one more thing: with my previous patient, the government took his body from the hospital and it has never been seen again. If possible, I'd like for you to spend as much time with Nate until the government does take his body. There's nothing I can do to stop them, so please spend time with him. The previous family didn't know this, and now they're living their lives without saying their final goodbyes to their son."
Tears start streaming down the mother's face as I finish up what I'm saying. The father gets up and offers his hand. "Thank you, doctor, for telling us this. We can't accept what the government will do, but at least you told us beforehand. It's much appreciated and I think it's best if we go see our son now."
The Mendoza family gets up and leaves for Nate's room, which location they were told in advance. They go to say their final words to him before the government comes to study the body.
I quietly sit in the room, remembering how my son was in the same position as Nate. In a coma for no reason. A ring glowing on his hand. Me not saying goodbye to him. I put my hands over my face and sob. "Andrew, if only I knew, I would of said bye..."
Sure enough, the government came and took Nate's body away two days later.