“Goodnight Ma,” She waves to me as I walk upstairs and lay down in my room.

I feel a familiar pain build in my head. Clenching my eyes my head begins to burst open from the inside out, or at least that’s what it feels like. Rolling over I bury my face in the mattress and eventually, the pain subsides.

“When I die I better not be having one of these fucking headaches. Even if it is the tumor that kills me.” I begin massaging the part of my skull that houses the tumor underneath.

Eventually, I hear my Ma head to bed, “took her long enough.” I slip into my all black outfit and open my window before dropping down the first-story roof and leaping to the ground. Taking off running I try to stay out of any lights to avoid being noticed.

“Eighteen years,” They tell me I’ll probably live till I’m eighteen, yet they expect me to just fall in line and sit patiently in this community until I die? I want to see what’s outside these walls. I want to know what happened to the world, and why we pretend like we don’t have technology better than this.

Why? All these questions no one wants to tell me the answer to. That just means I’ve got a year to figure them out.

Suddenly my phone starts to ring, I had put it on vibrate but I can feel the ringer going off. Taking it out I see who it is while staying hidden. “Abigail?”

I answer it, “Why are you calling so late, are you okay?”

“You can’t be serious, Why am I calling late? You haven’t texted me in a week, a fucking week!”

Has it really been a week, I have been doing a lot. Should I finally tell her that this is probably my last year. No, I haven’t even told Tobie about that. The last thing I want is a bunch of pity. “Well I’ve been a little busy lately, that’s all.”

“Busy? Fuck you! I know all you do is sit around and text Tobie, if you like him so much why don’t you fucking date him?”

I get the phone close to my mouth, “You need to calm the fuck down. I’m currently doing something and will talk to you tomorrow. Try and calm down by then.” Click.

I let loose a deep sigh and cautiously approach the wall. Looking up I notice just how much it dwarfs everything else in the community by both size and sophistication. It doesn’t take me long to find the almost rusted-off ladder that I’ve stared at for hours by now. I let there be no hesitation as I sprint to it and scurry up it.

I’m now high enough up the wall that my fear of heights struggles to take over. My arms begin to shake and I look down. At least if I fall and die I won’t have a headache. I continue to climb up and reach the top of the wall-shaking like I’m going into shock.

Peering out into the dark distance I see… a junkyard. However, instead of the ‘junk’ being cars or appliances, it’s houses and buildings, no, cities and towns. If only I could get closer to get a better look at it, or better yet if I could do this in the daytime.

“Maybe if I—” A bright light comes out of nowhere, a floating bright light. Shit, it’s a drone.

Running I make my way back to the ladder and descend it as if I were falling. As I race down my hand slips and I feel weightless. The world around me slows down as I descend.

Shit, I was more than halfway down, I might survive. Damn, the world really does slow down when your life is endangered. I have to tell Tobie about this.

I feel my eyes get heavy and everything goes black.

Opening my eyes I have to immediately shield them from the bright fluorescent lights that are directly above me.

I try to turn my head, “Why can’t I move”

I search for the reason I couldn't move my own neck. I barely see the bottom half of a neck brace in my vision. Grabbing it I try to tear it from my body but it doesn’t give.

What the fuck! Feeling around I find the straps and undo the neck brace, slinging it across the room. Jolting up I wrench my neck back and forth. No pain, feels fine, no, maybe a little weak... So why did I have it on?

After confirming my neck was fine I ripped the sheets off me only to see a hospital gown that someone must have force me into. My feet hit the ground and then were followed closely by my knees. My legs couldn't even support my own body weight.

Holy shit! My legs? Was I drugged?

I fight my way to my feet, my head tingles, the world seems to lag and I catch myself on the bed, almost falling again. What the fuck has happened to me!

I scan the room; my clothes were sitting on the chair in the corner and this was clearly a hospital room. This isn’t good, I need to get out of here before my Ma finds out, I’ll have to come up with a reason why I didn’t come home last night but I should be fine.

Now finished getting dressed I slide the window open, and look out. I was on the second story but luckily there was a concrete awning that came out over the entrance. Sweet, just have to jump down a story twice, piece of cake.

I swung my legs out the window and held onto the frame. Now hanging from it I drop down and peer off the edge of the awning. I wait until no one is looking and jump straight into the grass, rolling back up to my feet and acting like nothing happened. I don’t hear anything from behind me so I guess I’m in the clear, now all I have to do is find my way back to the house… This might take a while.

Okay, all I have to do is walk in and tell her I got drunk and fell asleep in the woods. I’m sure she’s going to get pissed about me drinking but that should hopefully keep her attention away from, well, figuring out I’m lying to her. Okay, one, two, three, open.

I go to swing the door open and walk in when my face slams into the front door that I now realize is locked. “Fuck!”, I guess I’ll have to knock.

A few seconds later the door opens, and my Ma’s eyes go wide. “I’m so sorry Ma, I went out and had a few drinks, next thing I know it's mid-day. I came back as soon as I—”

I feel her tears on my cheek as she tries to hug the life out of me, “Tom, why the fuck are you lying to me?”

“What? Ma I wouldn’t—”

My Ma puts her hand over my mouth, “Tom, shut up and get in the car.” I do as she says and she begins driving me back to the hospital. “I’m so happy you’re okay, I really am, but I can’t believe you would sneak out of the hospital and come home with such a bullshit story. Haha.” My Ma begins to laugh like I’ve never seen her before.

Son of a bitch, how does she know everything already? When I was younger I thought she was psychic… maybe I was right.

She wipes the tears from her eyes after her menacing laugh was over, “Tom you’ve been in a coma.”

“What? Why? Did I hit my head or something, I did have a neck brace on when I woke up.”

“So you don’t remember then. You went missing for two days, then you suddenly showed up in our front yard. Your head was covered in blood, so I rushed you to the hospital and-- " I could see tears start to come back to her eyes.

“No, I’m good now, I swear, see.” I slam my hand into my head.

She swerves the car as she reaches for my hand to stop me, “Are you fucking crazy. You’re not fine until the doctors tell you you’re fine. So don’t do anything stupid.”

“Alright Ma, I’m sure they’ll say I’m fine, it’s not like I have a tumor.” My Ma glares at me for only a second to get her point across, she hates when I joke about my tumor and my inevitable death. But it’s my tumor so she can’t really say shit about it.

“Very funny.” She said sarcastically.

“So how long was I out for?”

“One week.”

That’s not that bad in the grand scheme of things.

Returning to the hospital I was forced back into a paper gown and they asked me a bunch of questions along with scanning my head. Nothing I haven’t done before.

The door then opened up with the doctor walking in. He sat down at his chair and began, addressing my Ma, "Your son seems to have some memory loss. We would like to run a couple of tests on him to make sure he is alright, and we would advise that he stays here for a couple more days, just in case."

I look over to my Ma who is already giving me a look, "I have no problem doing some more tests, but I think I have already spent enough time here, I'm leaving today."

My Ma's glare intensifies, “Excuse me?”

I tense up. “I would preferably like to spend as little of the time I have left in a shitty hospital that can’t even help me."

My Ma’s face winces and she looks at the doctor apologetically before glaring back at me, "If they say you check out you can come home, ONLY if you check out."

The doctor looked at her concerningly, “The thing is, we didn’t really find anything wrong with him, other than — his concussion is already healed.

I looked at my mother with a smile on my face, and her eyes narrowed.

Yesss!

She has been driving for a while now, and still hasn't said anything! She must not have thought they would let me go, I didn’t either. I don’t know what that lag was earlier but clearly, since I passed all the tests it’s nothing to worry about. Now all I have to worry about is my inevitable death, what a relief.

Glancing at my Ma out of the corner of my eye, "I told you I was fine; I wouldn't lie about that." It’s not a lie if the doctors said I was fine.

"Uuhhu." I gulped swallowing nothing but air. That's not good, she is definitely planning something, but what could it be? I just got out of the hospital! You would think a mother would cut her, recently comatose, son some slack. Nope, not her, I bet she'll make me do dishes or something when we get home. She must have no heart at all.

After getting home I go straight for the fridge. Opening it up I'm welcomed to a basically empty fridge. There's nothing here at all. I was looking forward to eating something solid, not that I even remember having to eat through a tube but still. I can at least use it to get some sympathy points from Ma. I close the fridge looking back at my mother with puppy dog eyes. Wait... why is she smiling?

"There isn't much food in the fridge so we will have to go shopping tomorrow, after your school meeting!"

"School meeting! What for! Shouldn’t I be expelled or something, you know, for missing a whole week?"

"Actually, no. They obviously know you’re a special circumstance and since you say you feel fine, you're going back to school."

Son of a bitch! I knew she was planning something but this is just cruel. "Ma, I just woke up, and if we only have a few weeks left I think it would be best for me not to go to school."

"(Muffled laughter)" Oh god did she laugh? "Well if you say you're not feeling up for it we can go back to the hospital?"

Dammit, she's got me cornered. You would do this to your own son?! What am I thinking, she would only do this to me... What a terrifying woman. Accepting my defeat I lowered my head. "Noo." No wait, I can still get something out of this. I'm not done yet! "Hey, since I'm going back to school, I should be ok enough to go over to Tobie's house, right?" Did my voice crack?

My Ma's face contorted for a second before returning to its original form. But that second was long enough to send chills down my spine, and when I thought it was over, right back up my spine. I wonder if my death will be quick and painless? No, she isn't the type to give out such a gift of kindness.

Her words cleared the air from the room, "NOW, are you fucking kidding me?"

"Um, yeah, he will be able to catch me up to speed on everything I missed."

"No, you got out of a coma, AFTER, going missing. What the hell makes you think I'll let you walk out the front door?"

Shit, I didn't think about that. "Well, he can watch over me and make sure I don't wander off... Again." Her glare was piercing through me. Dammit, it's all or nothing! "You know how responsible he is... He definitely won't let anything happen to me."

"..."

Nope! Don't look her in the eyes she'll take that as a threat.

"(Glances down)"

No, don't look at the floor she'll think you're ignoring her. Wait where do I look then?

"You, have one hour."

Holy shit it worked. I took off running to the garage, I knew this wasn't the time to try and negotiate for more time. Looks like my ass is walking!