Seated on the floor softly chatting, the ductile denizens rose en masse when they saw Thor coming, but security blocked his path.
"This is a restricted area, off limits to patients. The zone is contaminated."
"My friends are not patients," protested Thor.
"They may enter."
They, but not he, could pass. The growling distinction grated; 'twas a gash that maimed, a nemesis Thor pegged as not preordained. His quest to be treated like the rest compelled him to challenge this perpetual thorny pest. He snapped his hospital identity bracelet, unpinned his gown badge of deplorable division, then bent to remove the slippers. Handing the hospital trappings to the official in charge, the callow colt contender met guard glares with verdant globes of glistening gravitas.
"Neither am I. Do you want me to strip off the gown, too?"
The presiding officer stared at the badge. "Thor Tayson. You're the one they're waiting to see?"
"I am."
"You risk contamination?"
"I do."
"You may enter –"
"Thank you –"
"Not so fast, Mr. Tayson. I didn't finish. You may enter once you've been officially released from patient status."
"Who releases me?"
"I do, when I determine you're ready." Thor pivoted to the stern countenance of Dr. Moshamp. "Quite a stunt you're pulling, young rascal, jeopardizing your health. Your transits will be escorted henceforth. No more rogue rebellion risks."
Thor countered calmly, "No more drugs, no more probes, no more tests; I'm ready to be released today, an end to queries and quests."
"That's not your decision to make."
"No, it's mine," rang out a burly voice.
Dr. Moshamp darted to Theogen, barreling toward them with Svetana and Stafford. "Discharge him today."
"Against medical advice?" contested the doctor.
"If necessary."
"This is most unorthodox and will be reported to the authorities."
"I daresay the boy's been chronicled ad nauseam. Thor is a patient, not a prisoner. Don't denude his free will. Look around, Dr. Moshamp. We've been ushered center stage. Consider the optics presented by this emergent platform. Wouldn't it be sage to give these news folks a positive public relations story?"
How they got wind of the evolving showdown was a mystery, but rival reporters were converging to rapid-fire document their images. Put on the spot, Dr. Moshamp looked askance at the generated spate of ministry coverage, mindfully wise the hospital despised negative publicity.
"Return Mr. Tayson's credentials and slippers. Let him pass."
The central official balked. "We have orders, Dr. Moshamp. He's a patient."
"I'll authorize his waiver. He may exercise his volition."
Chronicle competitors surrounded the impish upstart with adulation awarded a freshly-minted celebrity, but the opening agent's disparaging query slapped his face. Competing barons of information dissemination surrounded the impish upstart with adulation awarded a freshly-minted celebrity, but one agent jumped the gate with a disparaging query that struck like a slap in the face.
"How does our modern-day David feel after slaying Goliath?"
The self-effacing fledgling whirled at the denigration. "How dare you frame this as that to defame! I'm nobody's David in your miscast parable. Pitting me against my doctor to amuse your audience disgraces your profession. Have you no respect for us?" He gestured with wide abandon to delineate Nolana Raddage and the rest of the rapt onlookers. "We are all private people, not grist to debase into melodrama for your profligate pleasure. Leave us; we shun your incendiary presence."
To the applause of the approving spectators, the lionized lad turned his back on the drama dispensers and bowed in reverence to Dr. Moshamp.
"We're indebted to you for your blessing."
The humble display of deference rendered the doctor speechless.
Ruslan whispered to Svetana, "How'd you know where to find us?"
"Hisstory," she grinned.
The guards parted the barrier, allowing Thor access to the watchful legion. The unpretentious teen crossed the demarcation to stand at the head of the line, holstered with Hisstory and solidarity of his jovial coterie.
"What you just did…" stammered Nolana, transfixed. "You're… you're real…"
Thor held out his hand. "As real as you, Nolana."
Clasping his hand, sprouting tears trickled down her face. "My name…" she muttered. "I'm sorry they couldn't come, Derschel, An –"
"– Andal, Rakiya." Thor brushed aside her tears, "I see them through you; you'll take me to them."
Thor hailed the hordes for hours in shakes of hands, pats on shoulders, locked eyes, and hugs of embrace. From the sidelines amid a phalanx of surrounding security, Dr. Moshamp witnessed the unstoppable spectacle of tender touches.
"What's he to them?" asked the chief officer.
"Hope," begrudged the doctor.
"Why's that?"
"He defied death."
"By coming out of a coma?" forayed the officer.
The doctor studied the passing parade, "Look at his debut onstage, the miraculous alternative phoenix unscathed from the depredation of fire. Palpable is the power his sheer presence provokes within this sycophant population. I've never had a patient so vulnerable appear so invincible. More the minions he greets, the stronger he grows. An anomaly of stamina void the sense of self-preservation, how could he know?"
"You forgo the presumption of innocence?"
"I'm a doctor. In his frail state, this ragtag mob should be bleeding him; instead, it seems they're feeding him, a radical reservoir foreign to the natural order of my Hippocratic universe."
The flock of faithful followers dispersed by evening. Thor and his retinue returned to his room absent the sentry at the door. Adrenaline ran high in jubilation with plans for a morrow of celebration.
As his bulwark band filed out saying goodnight, reminded Kyle, the last to leave, "I'm holding you to your promise when you're able."
"I haven't forgotten." Would he let difference daunt him to become a force to haunt him? pondered Thor before continuing. "Hey guys, give us a minute. Kyle, shut the door. They'll wait for you." Perched on the bed when they were alone, he motioned, "Come hither. Take my hand."
"Why?"
"I'm able now." Thor's globes glittered in gritty garb.
A hint of the jitters hit Kyle. "I don't understand."
"My pledge to run for real. Let me fulfill it."
"I asked a race; you pledged nothing more."
"You've asked this, since Dov stopped limping."
"I've asked nothing."
"As we speak, I hear you. Do you deny what's on your mind?"
Kyle blenched, trembling from fright. "How can you know?"
Thor's persona painted a picture of compassion. "Don't fear me."
"Who are you?"
"Your friend. Accept my promise where it matters most."
Kyle paced skittishly. "I don't have a limp; I'm dying."
"Understood."
"Don't pity me; it's beneath you."
"I don't pity you. Haven't you queried all your life? Why not grasp what I may give?"
"Yes, I question, but I don't believe. Day to day I live until a death like my brother."
"I live day to day, too. I'm not asking you to believe. You demanded I run for real, no holds barred. I'm fulfilling that vow I made to you."
Kyle's frenzied pacing slowed, frowning at the offer in consternation.
Thor flexed his fingers, his tasty tone seasoned in a tempting tonic.
"Pull up a chair, Kyle. Let's run in tandem, before I'm rehooked to their monitors. What have you got to lose? As you said, it's the running that matters, right?"
Like a sailor on a sinking ship flagging a lifeboat, suddenly Kyle seized Thor's hand, whose eyes instantly fluttered shut. The tingle eased Kyle's anxiety until the jolting current commenced. He steeled himself in taut surrender by fixating on Thor's incandescence as the heat of the current increased.
Startling blisters appeared on Thor's perspiring visage from the literal light burning bright, one telltale sign of his gift of grace gutting him. Kyle cringed at the sight plus patent cues of his proprietary plight. His heart palpitated, tangible as the percussion of a hammer crashing on concrete. He clenched his teeth. From his blazing hand glued to Thor's, a wildfire raged through his body. He tried to break away, but Thor's grip was a vice. At the point of screaming in unbearable agony, pain waned with the advent of respite. Relief brought a somnolent fatigue supplanted by a rescue river of novel vigor. The burden of ingenerate decay vanished; he felt anew.
Thor's orbs opened in wonder and pain, his glow receding, the blisters in refrain. He released his hand and slumped back disjointed with heavy breaths, recouping his bearings in vital refusion from headstrong depletion. The ad-lib episode with Dov was exponentially different from this deliberate decision to dispel a deadly disease, a willful toll that nearly killed him.
Kyle knelt at his bedside. "You could have died."
Though drained in demeanor, Thor's timbre was glib. "I could have."
"Did you know that?"
"I do now."
"You would have acted regardless?"
"Irrespective of the repercussions, it's my pick to be, for this has made it plain to me that I am the architect of my agency." Thor gestured to the genuflected boy. "Get up, Kyle. I'm not a god."
"You are to me."
"Bury the god or bury the friend; choose carefully."
Tears welled Kyle's eyes. "What are you saying?"
"You know what I'm saying."
"But you saved my life at the risk of your own. How can I thank you?"
"Be my friend, and never mention it again, to me or anyone."
"I promise."
"Promise as what?"
"As your friend."
Rising, Kyle returned to his chair, a question posed upon his lips, but Thor preempted with a dismissive shrug, "What about it?"
Kyle grimaced in awe, but chided nonetheless. "Don't do that; it's unnerving. Let me have my say and don't interrupt. You're not a god, so respect my privacy."
Thor smiled. "Fair enough. What's on your mind?"
Kyle relaxed. "That's better. When I held your hand, I sensed suffering surpassing my own, outside my scope to fathom. It's far beyond human, isn't it?"
Glancing at the starry night displayed in the window framing his friend, Thor elucidated, "It's universal."
"How so?" probed Kyle.
"The truth will trouble you."
"But I want to hear it."
Thor wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Remember what you felt in the garden, the cosmos condensed in a body?"
Kyle beamed. "You're stealing my line, but you pegged it poetic."
"Poetic can be authentic. Your line I steal is literal for me." Thor's mien of modesty outweighed his monumental statement.
"That can't be; it exceeds…" Kyle shivered as the shock waves registered, faced with proof that the mild-mannered soul had demolished his moribund malady.
"Exceeds human endurance?" Thor casually completed Kyle's bombshell deduction.
"How do you bear it?" pressed Kyle, his incredulity overcome by curiosity.
His breathing noticeably lighter, Thor's feisty features danced in flames of ferocity. "Complete acceptance, no resistance. The cosmos flows through me without restraint in its circuitry."
Kyle's foraging leaped to a reckoning. "You knew the monitors would sound if you'd been connected?"
"A hunch I had. Monitors adhere to constants; I thrive in flux."
* * *
Dr. Moshamp woke in a sweat at midnight. He dressed, leashed his cocker spaniel Oracle, and strolled around the block. The odd dream of his late son echoed a purgative passage. He has forgiven you. He wondered at the cathartic comfort he felt and pictured the pronounced gratitude in the anodyne eyes of his unusual wayward patient. At dawn, he signed the discharge forms, releasing Thor to return home.