January 2035
"Kayden, hurry up! Your father and I are already ready and if you don't come soon, you won't have ice cream "Lorena hurried his son. Kayden was a boy at the height of his 6 years old, he had no worries in life other than having fun and playing. He was small and had brown hair. Matching the color of his hair, his eyes were also brown. It can be said that he was a copy of his father, the only difference was age.
Quickly packing the toys into a small suitcase in his room and sloppily putting any clothes on, Kayden hurried to the lower part of the house. He was already used to going out with his family on Friday nights and he knew how not to piss off his mother.
"Took a while, huh, son? We almost left you" Lucas joked, but his son knew they weren't going to do that, at most they would leave him without choosing the ice cream.
After a little chatting, they went to their favorite ice cream parlor. Kayden quickly chose the chocolate flavor, by far his favorite. They spent a few minutes watching the movement in the street while they ate. At that moment, his parents were arguing quietly, but Kayden didn't notice. He was focused on his ice cream.
After the ice cream, they decided to take a walk in the park, as they always did. With his son walking in front of them nonchalantly, the adults began to argue with no regard for Kayden being overheard.
"He is asking for money again, saying that as he is family I must send him an amount in this time of crisis."
"I told you your brother is just taking advantage of you. He has never worked in his life and lives only on his parents' inheritance."
"I know that, but he's still..."
"Dad, look at that tree, how cool! Its petals are roses!" - Even as a child, Kayden noticed the heavy air of the conversation and tried to distract his parents in a way that only a child would think.
His father began to explain the beauty of the ipê trees to his son, and with the magic that only a child can do, the matter was forgotten by the adults. After walking and eating ice cream, they decided to return to their home in the countryside. That was a good family night, nothing could go wrong. Returning normally by the usual path, without worrying about many things, the family hummed some songs from the moment they were playing on the radio. When they were in one of the last neighborhoods to leave the city, Lorena saw a car in the rearview mirror. She was driving at a controlled speed, but the car was going too fast. She tried to pull to the side to make room for the other driver.
But it didn't seem like he cared. It was as if his goal was to cause an accident. It was getting madly close to the bumper of Kayden's family car.
With a loud crashing sound, the crazy driver slammed into the family's bumper. This resulted in the sum of speeds and made Kayden's family crash at more than 100 km / h into the wall of a house. In moments, the calm road was taken over by the screams of residents going to see what happened. Many called the police and fire department when they saw the mess of metal on the wall and tried to see if there were any survivors.
In a few minutes, the fire department approached the scene and removed 3 bodies from the vehicle, completely bloodied. Only one breathed. Some residents were thrilled to see only a few-year-old child breathing. Quickly, the ambulance arrived and directed them to the nearest hospital. Taken to the hospital, the doctor in charge gave his verdict quickly.
"Two dead and a child in a vegetative state. He'll probably never be able to move a muscle below his neck again if He can get out of the coma he's in."
June 2035
Without a doubt, the last 6 months of Max's life were the best in years. His sister died, leaving only his nephew alive, and as he was only 6 years old, the inheritance fell into his lap easily with the excuse of looking after the future heir's assets. his sister has worked a lot in this life. With just the amount of money Max could get his hands on, he'll never have to work again in his life, and with any luck, his nephew won't ever wake up.
He had just bought a house in the richest neighborhood in the capital. Absolutely nothing could ruin his day, or he thought nothing could. Around 11 pm, he received a call from an unknown number. Without even thinking twice, he declined the call, but the number kept calling non-stop, not even a moment. The third time, he answered.
"Hello Mr Max, alright? This is Albert Einstein Hospital. Your nephew has just woken up from his coma. As the only relative, we called so you can come and take care of him and discuss what will be done with the doctor."
" Of course, in a few minutes, I'll be on my way there. Thank goodness my nephew woke up " Max's sweeter tone said the words that felt bitter in his mouth, and he cursed in his mind that he should have paid less if he'd known this would have happened.
In no hurry, he took a shower and put on one of the best suits he could buy, by the way, worth a car. He drank an even more expensive wine and headed for the hospital. He went straight upstairs to the doctor in charge and asked about Kayden's condition.
"He will likely remain in that state for the rest of his life, not even his eyesight was spared. He can only speak and listen "The doctor exchanged a few more words in a melancholy tone and thanked the doctor for his service, all the while celebrating as if he had won the lottery. Then he went to talk to his nephew.
"Kayden? Hey, big boy, it's me, Max."
"Uncle? Where is Daddy? Or Mom? I don't remember anything that happened and I can't move."
Max quickly told everything in an insensitive way what happened, but he did not stop showing deep regret, even crying with emotion. Receiving this information was a shock for a 6-year-old, it was shocking, making Kayden cry and scream like never before in his life. Max hugged his nephew from beginning to end, touching the surrounding medical team. Max spent the day comforting his nephew and the next morning he ran away on business, leaving his devastated nephew alone to face something no child should have to go through.
August 2035
Today it's been two months since Kayden was awake from his coma in the hospital. His uncle came every day to visit and spend time with him. At first, he spent days comforting his nephew, and as time went on, his visits became shorter. The medical team told stories to the child all the time, trying to leave him alone as little time as possible. They even proposed that Max hire someone to stay with his nephew all the time, but he claimed he didn't have the money for that.
His uncle's visits became sporadic and short; he would come and stay the whole time messing with his cell phone. Simultaneously, the medical staff began to spend less and less time with Kayden. This resulted in Kayden having only himself and the television for company, which was practically a radio as he could not see things at the time. It was slowly driving the child crazy. The minutes and hours began to look the same; it was almost impossible to feel the passage of time. His only moments of joy were when he could hear a story on TV, which was rare, as most television programs need your eyesight to be seen. There was nothing he could do, there was no entertainment, there were no distractions; it was just Kayden and his mind.
October 2035
It's been 4 months since Kayden was alone; his uncle no longer came to visit him, and the medical staff no longer spoke to him. Furthermore, he was moved to a shared room upon his uncle's allegations that he could not afford a single room, clearly a lie, as the inheritance his sister left easily covered the tens of millions. of dollars. This was perhaps what kept Kayden from fully collapsing, emphasis on fully, as a part of his mind was already collapsing from the long period of isolation. Now he had two other roommates.
Sometimes they were children, sometimes adults or teenagers. Kayden preferred adults, they took pity on his condition and told him stories and happenings in the world. The kids even tried to talk to him, but their worldviews were different, while they talked about toys and sports, Kayden couldn't share anything about it. So as time went by, Kayden quickly figured out how to talk to adults and teens alike, and accumulated an impressive repertoire of stories and topics. He also discovered how short each encounter was, lasting a few hours or days. The friends he made were never seen by him again.
January 2038
Kayden was now nine years old and for the past 3 years, his life had consisted of waking up, talking to strangers, and sleeping. He never had contact with his uncle again, his life was monotonous and boring. His only happiness was discovering new stories and talking to other patients.
His mental age evolved rapidly, and his long period of isolation made him have a forced progression of his mentality and way of communicating. These days, he had no problem holding a conversation for hours on any topic, as in 3 years he had roommates of all types and personalities, from homeless people to exemplary university professors.
On a certain day, a teenager was in the bed next to his. As usual, Kayden was going to try to talk him out of it, but to his surprise, he started muttering to himself about his problems.
"These bullies, you'll see, the police will catch. I was quiet in my corner reading, just because I'm chubby and I wear glasses, they hate me."
"What bad friends do you have, huh? " Kayden tried to bring up the subject.
"Go get you fucking cripple! Friends are the idiots, these little shits! "The teen quickly offended Kayden and the bullies in thousands of different ways within seconds, almost as if breaking the penal code was a habit.
Kayden was extremely surprised, he had never been treated that way, it was always with pity and melancholy that they spoke to him. Kayden had no idea how to proceed now and tried to change the subject to something every teenager always enjoys: manga and novels.
"I see… Do you happen to like novels or manga? My favorite is One Punch Man."
"Wow, (take this as a surprise please). I love this one too. My name is Nicolas and you?"
With a 180-degree transformation, the teen quickly got into a conversation with Kayden, telling him about his favorite novels and stories. Kayden kept asking him to talk about them, Nicolas was never one to talk much, mainly because he was bullied at school, which prevented him from having friends.
That day, the two spent the entire night talking about stories from the worlds of magic and cultivation. Kayden liked Nicolas' personality and his stories. When he woke up in the morning, there was no answer when he called Nicolas, which quickly turned to sadness as he realized that history was repeating itself.
Late in the afternoon, Kayden heard someone sitting down in the chair next to his bed.
"Hey, cripple, I came to see how you are."
That was Kayden's first friend and Nicolas came to visit every day in the late afternoon, but not as often as he got a job. Still, it was a huge relief for Kayden to have someone to talk to and share stories with.
January 2039
Kayden was in the prime of his 10s. His life was still sad and listless, but lately, he had his fun days. His one and only friend came to visit whenever he could, it wasn't happening very often as Nicolas got a job, but it was still a few days a week. Kayden fell in love with the worlds of magic and cultivation. He asked the artificial intelligence on television to describe the stories of the moment, but only the free readings, as he didn't have access to a real one in his pocket.
One random night, he was awakened by the sound of someone sitting down in the chair next to him quite audibly. Not knowing who it was, Kayden exclaimed:
"Hello? Can I help you?"
"Maybe, maybe not, hehe " a drunk voice reached the young man's ears.
"Uncle Max? Why are you here?"
Kayden has had his contacts with drunk people, mostly patients who smuggled in booze to support their alcohol addictions.
"Today I came to tell you the truth " hiccups (read this as a hiccup kiosk) "You know those ***** of your parents? I was the one who killed them, that bitch mother of yours didn't want to help his poor brother, hic, so I had to do something, hic, too bad a piece of trash as you survived."
"Uncle? This is a joke, right? " Kayden felt the truth, he knew that was probably what happened, but the shock prevented him from processing what he heard.
His uncle laughed like a madman and said:
"Unfortunately for you, it isn't. Now, because of you, I'm being investigated in court, since I didn't spend much time taking care of you, but that's okay, I just need to buy justice, right?"
Kayden started to cry remembering his past; the memories of his parents were already blurred in his mind and came back like a whirlwind, he barely remembered that time of his childhood, only that he was extremely happy.
"Now I'm going to finish what I started, and first you're going to suffer a little for the trouble you caused me."
That night, Kayden experienced for the first time in his life the pain of being beaten and unable to do anything. No matter how much he shouted, nobody came; the torture seemed to last for hours until Kayden passed out.
When he woke up the other day, he realized he was alive and his whole body was in pain. Unable to even move, he chuckled in his mind; at least he was alive, a cold and melancholy laugh expressing all the sadness of recent times, it was as if something broke inside him. No use calling the police or anything, his uncle had money to buy the truth; even if he killed Kayden, nothing would likely happen to him. Kayden asked the doctors not to let visitors in anymore. He knew it wouldn't stop his uncle from doing anything, but at least it wouldn't let Nicolas see him in this state.
Time continued to pass, and Kayden learned more and more about philosophy and great thinkers. It kind of became a habit to run away from your traumas and fears. He feared that his uncle would return, but he never heard from him again.