Mains

The next few hours were a blur. My mother had, at some point, rushed down the stairs and ran to check for a pulse. I held the back of my hand to his mouth to feel for breath. He was alive, faintly wheezing and unconscious. Kip had come, and we had whisked him off to his clinic. He was hooked up to fluids and machines and a mask pumping full oxygen into his frail frame. 

I walked through in a haze, my mind and body not fully connected, my legs moving on their own. I sat, cold with fear, grasping the weak hand of my compatriot. His chest rose and fell in measured breaths, wheezing even with the oxygen mask. The beeping of monitors and rusting of papers as Kip came by, checking on him in rotation, blended together into white noise. My blood pounded against my ears, and my mind was blank with worry. I couldn't make my eyes focus, I was fully dissociated from the reality I stood ground in. 

Mains was my best friend. He always had been. I couldn't lose him, not now