Dungeons Online

Chapter 39: Tom's struggle

"Cleo, stop it," Marvin said after gathering his guts to oppose his sister. This sibling dynamic of theirs was something Tom was quite used to. Yet, it was the first time he saw Marvin stand in opposition to Cleo's wishes in such a simple situation.

"Stop what? You almost died because of their own mistake!" Cleo shouted, only to retract her voice and turn silent for a moment. But it was only a trap for anyone who would dare to speak once she turned mute.

Sadly for her, both Marvin and Tom were perfectly aware of this quirk of hers. "No, it's not a mistake. It's a scam! A scam that almost cost you your life!" Cleo said when she realized her small ploy wouldn't yield any results.

"It could be a normal malfunction. Maybe I wasn't paying attention or just didn't maintain it well," Marvin brought up several possible explanations for his accident. Tom, as he knew nothing of what exactly happened, could only stay and listen. "Look, mobilizing the entire group when there is even a shred of chance it wasn't intentional is just wrong!" Marvin insisted.

"Guys, I will just go and get some drinks," Tom spoke in a soft voice, unwilling to take part in the argument between the siblings. Or at least, that was the front he used to hide the real state of his mind.

'What the hell is going on,' Tom thought as soon as he closed the doors to the room behind himself. He didn't dare to accept this weird feeling while with others, worried that he couldn't keep his face straight.

'Group? Mobilize? Troopers?' He repeated the words that Cleo and Marvin brought. They both made sense and absolutely did not.

Tom's heart rate continued to skyrocket as he thought about those things, trying to figure out just what was wrong with his mental state. But then, as if something washed off him, the pace of his heart calmed down in a single instant. At the same time, a burst of pain erupted on the left side of his chest when his heart suddenly changed its momentum.

At the same time, his thoughts seemed to fade away, as if all the doubts and questions he had suddenly became meaningless.

'What the hell is going on,' Tom thought while pressing his hand against his chest and gritting his teeth. If he heard those words in a passing, he might ignore the strange feeling and go on. But right now, he was too aware of this peculiarity to just let it pass.

Then, the process repeated itself. Tom's heart rate grew as the intensity of his question raised, only for everything to suddenly cease. Then again. Then again and once again after that.

With each cycle of his body clearly fighting against something, Tom felt as if he was getting closer to answer but closer to a serious heart failure at the same time. The pain in his chest didn't subside but continued to turn greater with each passing cycle.

'I need to stop' he thought, before slamming the back of his head against the doors he was resting his back on. Tom just couldn't care less about alerting his friend to his distraught right now. After all, while he pressed his back against the doors, they couldn't open them to check on him.

'Wait, what about this,' Tom suddenly came up with an idea. The cycle went through once again, almost making him vomit from the pain and tightness in his chest. But once his situation calmed down, he allowed his body to slide down to the ground. Then, he focused his entire attention on the floor beneath him as if he wanted to draw a mental picture on it.

"Someone's house is out in the stick, but well within the rushing range of other houses," Tom muttered under his nose, pushing all of his attention to the theoretical problem he came up with. "That someone has only two friends of his age, yet those friends are sure that all the houses in the proximity are settled by families that are close to each other," he continued his silent ramble, turning his situation into some kind of distant problem, one that didn't apply to him personally.

"Those families have the power of raiding businesses. That someone is unknowingly a person of great influence, just like his friends. The difference is, those friends of that someone are aware of the fact," Tom continued to build upon his theoretical situation.

And now, every element seemed to fall into the greater picture. Tom's mind focused on the task now produced countless situations that Tom could remember yet couldn't understand.

Like how Marvin could be in cahoots with the top-echelons of the local Online Hub. Like how a feisty yet relatively young girl that Cleo was could have access to highly restricted stuff like weapons. Just like how the three of them surprisingly were all into real hunting.

Bit by bit, pieces continued to assemble into a full picture.

"Ah," Tom sighed when everything apparently fell in order. Yet, at the same time, it felt as if some kind of restraint that held his body back cracked, allowing him to finally think straight.

'What the hell was that?' Tom's inner question this time wasn't directed at his situation. It didn't apply to his scrambled memories. Instead, it was solely focused on the thing that stopped him from acknowledging the truth of his past. The truth of who he and his father were.

"TOM!" Only now did he hear the shouts from the other side of the doors. But, in fact, outside of the loud voice, he could feel the vibrations of the door caused by someone vigorously banging on them.

"I'm okay," Tom replied in a low voice, unable to exert a single ounce of strength. He was fully exhausted to the point he couldn't even move away from the door to let his friends help him out. "Just give me a moment," he added when the banging on the doors didn't cease.

"What is happening?" A random nurse asked when she passed by. It seemed that the loud voices and the general commotion attracted her.

"Sister, can you help me out?" Tom asked while sending a helpless smile to the middle-aged woman.

"Boy, what happened to you?" the nurse asked as she lifted Tom up. Simultaneously, his body no longer blocked the doors, allowing Cleo to burst through them, infuriated and worried.

"Tom! Are you alright?!" Her face was full of tears and snot. Despite her usually cold and distant appearances, she clearly couldn't handle to worry about the two most important men in her life at the same time.

"Yeah," Tom nodded his head along with his voiced-out response before patting the nurse on her shoulder. "Thank you, sister. I should be okay now. I guess I shouldn't be so careless with my dosages of insulin," he said, coming up with the first random lie that could somehow explain his sudden loss of strength.

"Boy, I know that it can be annoying," the nurse smiled gently as she shook her head and allowed Tom to stand on his own, "but you need to make sure not to miss the injections! It's clear from your state that you brought yourself to the limit! You need to get one right away!" she insisted, clearly set on fulfilling the duties of her job.

"Sister, thank you for your care," Cleo interrupted, taking up Tom's arm and putting it over her own shoulders. "I will make sure he takes it. Also," she winked at the nurse with a vicious smile, "I will make sure to discipline him properly."

"Good. Diabetes might appear like a small problem, but it can be dangerous too!" the woman said before granting the two with an encouraging smile and leaving the scene.

"Thanks for the save," Tom muttered as Cleo dragged him back to the room. Despite the airs he put on before, he was still far from being fully okay. In fact, just the act of standing on his own nearly drained all the strength he recovered.

"Don't even try shoving that matter aside," Cleo warned him while helping him to the chair. "Now, what happened?"

"Well," Tom averted his eyes and rubbed his chin while trying to figure out what he should say. His head was still spinning from all the memories that he forcefully unlocked. Even though those were obviously his memories, he didn't feel familiar with them yet. "What if I were to say I finally decided to take up the mantle and stand up to what's worth?" he suggested, with his eyes still escaping from both Cleo's and Marvin's intense stares.

"What the hell do you mean?" Marvin asked in a low voice. This was a dangerous thing to hear him do. Even though he was usually the meeker of the two siblings, he was also the prime example of mice that could roar with the strength of a lion. Or rather, a lion that was hiding its strength by pretending to be a mouse.

"There are some things I still need to figure out myself, but." Tom started only to cut his sentence short. He then coughed to clear his throat and give himself more time. But rather than trying to come up with some kind of bullshit, he used that moment to reinforce his decision.

"What I meant to say is that I'm finally ready to pick up my duties of the son of the major that I am."