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Philip had never felt so sick.
There was the pneumonia when he was five, the occasional cold here and there, the flu once at college – but this – this was nothing in comparison. His mind floated in and out of consciousness, between fever dreams and strange, grotesque awakenings, where the doctor’s face above his field of vision twisted like an angry shadow of doubt. He was burning and freezing at the same time, always shivering, and there was something inside him that just felt wholly and terribly wrong, that his mind couldn’t even grasp on a single shred of thought – just the pain, and the fever, and the fever—
“Is he alive?”
His father’s voice; impatient, petulant, almost boiling with anger – the doctor’s voice was merely a gross mumble of words, like he was speaking with mud in his mouth – bullet – hip – arm –
“Can I see him, please?”
Wound – Infected –
And suddenly there was his father’s face. The face of the man who was so brave, so influential, his normally strong countenance tainted by a brow creased with worry, and eyes almost screaming the words he couldn’t make his mouth say. His father’s copper skin – his wavy dark hair, pulled back – it was almost like looking in a mirror, a mirror of the wisdom he would never reach –
“Philip.” A deep, cracked, anguished voice.
He tried to respond, but suddenly. Twisting. Stabbing pain in his stomach, blood rushing from his gut like acrid bile to the corners of his mouth in a wracking cough. Philip gritted his teeth together to try and stop the onslaught, but it came anyway, staining red across his vest and his hands and suddenly his father was holding him like a child, pressing his hands to the abyssal wound to make the bleeding stop–
“Pa.” His own voice sounded foreign, like a child’s again, gurgling with mucus and blood. “I did e-exactly as you said – I held my head up high –”
Stabbing. Coughing, running scarlet from his mouth –
“Ssh, I know, I know… Ssh. Philip.” The crease in his brow was set; his mouth moving, to Philip, like he was speaking through water. “Don’t speak, son. You’ll… I know you did everything just like I said… It’s not your fault…”
“Even – even before we got to ten, I was aiming for the sky, Pa, you should’ve saw me, you would have been so proud…”
Burning, burning, he could feel his entire body shaking even as he spoke – when he looked his father in the face again – there was something about that, what he had just said. His father’s expression fell like he had just been deflated, a shell of his former self. “Ssh, Philip. Don’t. Save your strength and…”
“Philip?! No, my son, my son, let me see him! Philip!”
His heartbeat was slowing at a rapid rate; he heard it loud and clear over his mother’s agonized screams, over the sound of the doctor struggling to not let any others too close to him. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump… thump. Thump. Thump.
“Eliza –”
“Is he breathing?!” And she had him, like a babe in arms – she was already crying, her angular face and slanted eyes profusely wet with salty tears. Philip didn’t want her to look away – but with a whip of her hair, she was screeching like a banshee at the doctor and his father, Philip left only to stare, and breathe… and breathe…
Stay alive…
“Is he going to survive this? Who did this?! Alexander, did you know?!”
“Ma.” Breathy.
She turned, and he could feel her tears dripping on his face, sopping wet, but not the warmth they carried.
“Ma… I’m so sorry for forgetting… what you taught me…”
She shook her head, almost shaking as hard as he was – as he was. The fever seemed to be fading now; the hallucinations too. He felt oddly cold.
“No, Philip, my son… No, this isn’t…”
A memory tickled at the back of his mind; music, his tiny fingers, clunking black and white keys, their laughter mingling. “Remember piano? When I was small?”
“I taught you piano…” A smile, shaky, but it brought the light back to his mother’s cheeks.
“You would put your hands on mine…”
“And you would always change the melody!” She said, laughing slightly.
Philip managed a laugh back; barely there. The pain was numbing and his vision blurred to the point where he could barely make out the features of his mother’s face. Stay alive… “I would always change the line… Every time…”
“Ssh, I know, I know…” She drew a bit closer, trying to meet his gaze; had it begun to wander, he assumed. Light, everywhere… he could almost hear the piano...
Thump… thump. Thump… thump…
His mother spoke again, so quietly that Philip barely had the energy to hear. “Un deux trois quatre cinq six sept huit neuf…”
He repeated, the light growing, the anguish fading. He was here, in his mother’s arms, safe and warm and maybe, maybe dying wasn’t as bad as he had thought…
“Good. Un deux trois quatre…”
Un… Deux…Trois.
Quatre.
The light grew too strong, and he let himself float away into its gentle embrace.