The Fall of Forever {A MyStreet FF}

{19} Venom

Just as Garte abruptly hung up on Derek, just as he was about to give Garroth the all relieving medication, he stopped dead in his tracks.

The saying always was that the smallest caskets are the heaviest to carry.

Garte was physically strong. He was a healthy man, working hard to maintain his health when his medication suppressed his appetite. He was able to run around with his boys and do heavy lifting.

He was strong, but nobody was strong enough to carry that little casket.

Garte and Zianna hadn't even picked out their son's casket. It had been other family members who had been preparing for the funeral so that the couple didn't have to. Zianna was the only out of the two of them that had seen it in person. Garte wanted nothing to do with it, not even the sight.

Garte set the medication down on the counter. He never wanted to see that casket. No parent is ever supposed to see what was left of their child laying in a box.

So, he left the medication open on the kitchen counter. He stepped out of the kitchen and slowly walked up the stairs of his home, as though there were weights attached to his ankles.

Garte entered Garroth's room. The room was empty, as Garroth was still lying in his parents' bed. Garte scanned the room, examining every detail visible to his eye.

The bedroom was so perfect for Garroth. He loved outer space, telling everyone who would listen that he was going to be an astronaut when he grew up. So, Zianna themed the room with outer space, planets, and rockets.

Wall stickers of rockets and planets decorated the walls. The color scheme of the dark blue, grey, and green complemented each other so well. On the floor were toys of Garroth's favorite superheroes, from plush toys to legos.

The little one's room was only slightly messy, just as one would expect it to be. Garte had realized that if Garroth were to truly be gone, this is how his room would be left. No change in theme, no toys picked up.

Garte shook his head, almost as though he was trying to shake the thought away, and walked out of the room. He walked into his own bedroom, and sighed a sigh of relief when he saw that Garroth was asleep.

Garte layed back down next to Garroth and stared straight up at the ceiling. Judging by how Garroth had been that morning, the whole day was going to be one of the hardest of Garte's life.

It was going to be harder than breaking up with Zianna, as he did many years before. The day was going to be harder than the months after Zane was born, before he sought out help. In those times, he only had to bear his own agony. That day, he had to bear Garroth's, too.

He looked over to his son who quietly slept next to him. He almost looked peaceful, unlike the past 48 hours. Garte pressed his lips in a line.

It was then he promised to protect him. Not just now, but forever. The boy had been through enough, and Garte couldn't go through the process of coming close to losing a child again. Let alone actually losing him.

Garte stared straight back up at the ceiling. For the first time in months, he relaxed.

It seemed that everybody in the original group of five relaxed. Along with Garte, the pressure that Zack, Elizabeth, and Michael shared was taken off of them.

Michael sat back in his chair, running his hand through his grey hair. He took a shot of whiskey and sent it straight back into his throat, reveling in the burning sensation that came along with it.

"I have to ask," Elizabeth spoke up. It had felt like hours since anyone had actually said anything about the days prior. "What was up with this 'You can't give him medication' thing?"

"No, really," Zack nearly laughed. "'It'll mess with the effects of the potion.' We have quite literally no evidence of that."

Michael shrugged. He was a bit dazed from the amount of alcohol he had been consuming, but still lucid enough that he could hold a conversation.

"Do we have any evidence it doesn't mess with the potion?" Michael inquired.

Zack and Elizabeth looked at each other. Elizabeth was straight faced, hiding her confusion, while Zack raised an eyebrow.

They conducted countless hours of research. Countless hours of slaving over Petri dishes and microscopes. There was no way they missed something that important, that vital to their research.

Zack decided to change the topic of discussion, as Michael clearly didn't want to answer theirs right away.

"I can't believe we almost lost him," Zack said.

It had been the only thing on his mind since the incident. The look in Derek's eye, the look in Michael's eye, they were unforgettable. What Zack couldn't shake, though, was the look in Garte's eye.

It was pure horror and disbelief. It was the deepest sadness a human being could feel. It was the emptiness that was only in stories.

"I'm still shocked that Garte threatened us," Elizabeth said.

That's what Elizabeth couldn't shake. Garte was so friendly and charismatic. He was also so timid around Derek, always seeming to shrink some under his presence.

It was the mix of the cold stare that he held on his son and the tone of his voice that really shook Elizabeth to her core. Derek's red eyes, it was nothing they weren't expecting. But nothing could have prepared her for the sight of a man who had just lost his son. She thought of her own children at that moment, though she hadn't hardly seen them at all.

"Please, you think that was threatening at all?" Michael stood up and turned towards a sink, placing his glass of whiskey down.

"Did you even see how he looked in that moment?" Zack was a bit shocked, but he shouldn't have been. Nothing shook Michael up.

"I'm sorry, I was a bit preoccupied by Derek's little performance," Michael retorted.

This earned a laugh from the rest of the room. The three of them had previously discussed Derek's rage and all made fun of him. They joked about the theatrics of it all. They remarked that they thought he acted as though he thought he was in a movie moment.

Michael laughed along with Elizabeth and Zack. He turned back around to face the sink and practically leaned over above it.

Silence fell upon the room once again. Elizabeth took a deep breath, trying to allow for some type of noise to fill the room.

Zack bit the inside of his cheek. He knew it was risky to ask again that soon, it was risky to try and figure out what was really going on. He thought it absurd for Michael to tell Garte not to give Garroth any medication. He knew Garroth was going to be in exorbitant amounts of pain, why wouldn't Garroth be allowed to have medicine?

Zack debated asking for a brief moment. He knew testing Michael was risky. However, he was a doctor. If something was off in his research, if something was amiss in his understanding of this new area of medicine, he needed to know.

"Michael, in all seriousness," Zack cleared his throat. "Why aren't subjects of the potion allowed pain medication?"

Michael laughed heartily. He thought that Zack was ridiculous to ask such a question. Of course, to him, the answer was obvious.

Both Zack and Elizabeth were extremely put off by this laughter. It was almost evil. The answer was not going to be what they expected.

"You really think that pain medicine interferes with this potion, with this extraordinarily powerful magic?" Michael laughed through his sentence.

He stopped laughing abruptly. He turned around to face Zack and Elizabeth, with a sly smirk that only Michael could make look so smug.

"Garroth can have as much pain medication as he wants. I just like to mess with Garte."