When the doctor came in the room, it was pretty late; most of my cousins were about to fall asleep from the long wait.
They were called away as soon as he entered the room while the doctor placed down his bag and took out his tools as he prepared himself to start with the checkup. He first took out a small spray bottle to test out something my parents seemed pretty interested in.
So they noticed it…
The moment he sprayed the content of that bottle, I immediately retracted and felt something very strange in my mouth; when he hammered my legs, they flinched as they usually would.
I could see my parents' faces light up as he delivered the news that everything was functioning properly, and then he took them and brought them to the side to discuss some important matters in my absence.
I wonder how Elena is doing.
I felt somewhat guilty for her; if her father hadn't saved me, they both could still be living a carefree life, but now none of that could be the case, and it was all my fault.
When the medic returned, he began checking my ears, heartbeat, pupils, and even my feet. I don't know what he was looking for, but he was pretty thorough with his checkups. After an hour, I was finally free.
The doctor had taken a sample of my urine, blood, and saliva.
I then followed him as I thought he was headed for the exit; instead, he stopped in front of a bedroom next to mine.
It was now Elena's turn. She was a sobbing mess, holed up beneath her bed, crying to no end. She was dressed in pajamas covered in cartoonish animals.
She had messy hair, dark circles under her eyes, a snotty nose, filthy clothes, and was stinking.
Before I could even greet her, my mother dragged me away from there and trapped me in my own room, where my cousins were still playing video games.
"So? How was it? Are you sick?" Elvis asked me, as he turned around to face me. The other two were too busy trying to fight one another to bother looking at me.
"No idea, the doctor only talked to Mom and Dad; since he didn't give me any pill, I doubt I have something to worry about." I responded.
"Yeah, thankfully everything's fine. Luckily for you, only a couple of weeks have passed on the surface, so you haven't exactly wasted your holiday yet; we've still got two months to enjoy ourselves." Ilay casually said as he kept scrolling through the pages of his book.
"He's just jealous because this is his last year of freedom before Dad will force him to work in the family's—Ouch!" Elvis was quickly punished with a karate chop on the back of his head.
"You never learn your lessons, do you?" Ilay relayed to him.
"Eye for an eye." Suddenly Elvis put his fist down and pushed himself back up, making Ilay lose his balance.
"Tooth for tooth!" After he got up, Elvis tackled his brother, and they both began to wrestle on the bed.
Again? Don't you get tired of losing to Elvis? No matter how much you try, Elvis is simply bigger and stronger.
"Oh wait, not on my bed; you're going to mess up my bedsheets!" I shouted back at them as the two ignored me and kept tossing each other around.
When they fell on top of Michael's back, he pushed them off with a violent kick that landed on Ilay's chest.
As the fight began to escalate, they were all interrupted by Uncle Kiriam knocking on the door of my room.
"It's time to go guys, it's pretty late now and we've got many things to do tomorrow, come one, say goodbye to your cousin before you go."
And just like that, everyone bid me farewell and left me alone while the doctor and my parents were busy with Elena. So I did the only thing I wanted; I ran on the other side of the room to check what was outside my window.
I couldn't see much; I couldn't open the window to peek outside with my face; it was dark outside; occasional lightning illuminated the surrounding clouds; I also saw large golden chains hanging connected to the building and heading towards the unknown.
There were many of those same chains, but there were too many clouds for me to count them; it was also heavily raining outside.
Ugh, I wish there was something for me to do up here; instead, I'm locked in my own room. I wonder why they won't allow me to see Elena.
As she came into my thoughts, I got closer to the walls. I wanted to see if I could at least hear her voice through the walls, but I couldn't; the war was soundproof.
It was nice seeing my cousins; it was pleasant to see that they hadn't changed much. I wonder when I will be able to see them again. I wish it could be soon. I hope the people up here can be better than the people living in the dome.
The upper cities sounded like a myth to me until I first visited when I was around seven. The floating cities and continents that were constantly orbiting around the world. With each building made out of a strange, smooth, and lucid white material that made the city blinding to look at on a sunny day.
Every family living there competed on how extravagant their houses could be, how many colors they could add, as they held essentially unlimited wealth. I didn't know much about how they got so much money; what I knew was that they were all extremely respectful towards us.
Despite my father not having restored all of his color and the same applying to the rest of my family, they never judged us and even sold us a plot of land to build our home.
Well, there probably was some level of fear mixed into it, with my mother being the strongest being alive; I doubt they had much of a choice; if my mom had decided to take one of their houses, they could've done nothing but bow their heads and simply move out of the way.
I returned to my bed and jumped on it, all happy and giddy we were finally moving out to the upper cities.
Finally! I took us too long before we got there; now I won't have to deal with those leeches, always sucking up to me. Urgh! How annoying.
Yet a part of me still felt at odds; I was so used to that place, I was already starting to miss it. It was easy to complain at first, but now that we were moving out, I couldn't help but look down in search of the direction where my old home was.
Well, it's not like we will never get down; maybe one day we will return to that home, revisit all the rooms, and retrieve all of my games. Yeah… that would be nice.
I didn't hate the place, just the people living there.
I headed towards a door I found next to my bed, hoping for it to lead to the bathroom, only to discover a large walk-in closet that was bigger than the bedroom. It had everything, from clothes to drying towels, bedsheets, shirts, jackets, and more.
Over the gigantic walk-in closet was the large bathroom, with a bathtub equipped with hydro massage, a shower head next to it, a bidet, a large sink, and a square toilet. I felt as if I was in a dream; all that space for myself, I barely know what to do with it.
Then I noticed in the corner of the room, behind the bidet, a small black box locked with a metal locket. A box so small it could easily fit in my hands.
Oh, is that one of the presents Ilay hid for me? Oh, I didn't expect to find one so soon. Well, I might as well open it now that I have the time for it.
I ran back to my room and began searching in the pile of keys amassed within that cardboard box; I almost cut one of my fingers trying. A couple of minutes later I was still digging, so I decided to make the smart choice.
I emptied the boxes of the other presents and began to use those boxes to sort the various keys by size; the bigger ones remained in the original box, the smallest one got in the smaller box, and the medium ones, depending on the shape, were funneled into either of the twin boxes.
After I was done, I got back up, proud of myself, only to hear the clasp of hands of my parents; they had walked in, and I was sorting the keys and waited in silence for me to finish before they began complimenting me.
"The doctor?" I didn't know what to say; I felt incredibly embarrassed by the whole thing, so I uttered the first word that came to mind.
"He's done for now; he went back home." My father answered as he took the boxes away from me.
"What did he say?" I asked him.
"He said that you seem to be completely fine, but we can't be sure of anything; for now we can only hope everything's good." He responded as he lifted me and placed me over his shoulders.
I then turned over to check my mother, and she simply remained silent, standing beside him, avoiding direct contact with my eyes.
Whatever, the important thing is that we made it back in one piece; now all that's left to do is enjoy the rest of our luxurious life.
I thought as I imagined the kind of life we could've lived.