The Game Developers Son

Chapter Three

There was a familiar click as the car got unlocked, as well as the usual flash of orange lights to indicate the same thing. I opened up the door, scrambled in, and put Connor on his booster chair/seat. I then closed the door, put on both of our seatbelts, and watched in utter silence as my parents got into the front two seats. They were deadly quiet. They both knew that if they made Connor experience anymore stimulation, then his meltdown was going to lead to him hurting himself. There was this one time, when he was around four, when his meltdown got so bad that he hit his head against the doorframe, splitting his skull in two. Trying to get stitches in him was literally impossible, due to his meltdown still happening, so he had to be sedated through a mask. That was, by far, one of the most painful days that he's probably experienced. Sighing, I rolled my head over to look at Connor as the engine started up. He had his knees drawn to his chest, ears covered by his shaking, clenched, balled up hands, tears mixing with the snot on his face to create a thick, light green, glooply river that cascaded down his chin and onto the tops of his knees, and a constant, choked out screams escaped from his mouth. How long would it be until he calmed down? I started to get the feeling that it was going to take a long, long time. I stared forward again and shut my eyes. Connor's screaming quickly faded into the background, as if the noise was just a normal part of the working engine.

When I awoke, I instantly noticed that we were on the highway that was nearest our house. My parents were quietly whispering to one another about something. Something that the both of them seemed very excited about. Their faces were both covered in grins that were filled with happiness. It was a change to see them so happy for once, rather than stressed and worried either over their jobs or Connor. Connor. I looked to my side to see that he was in the exact same position as he was before. The only difference was that his previous screams were now a gravelly and thin whimper. I could tell from the look on his face that he was still in his meltdown faze and that the only reason why he wasn't screaming was because his vocal cords had literally been worn out. God, how long had we been in the car now? We must have been here for at least two hours, surely...Two hours of nothing but constant anxiety and fear. I honestly don't know how Connor hadn't had a heart attack yet. Either his heart was really, really strong, or his body was so used to the anxiety by now that his body wasn't physically affected by it. It was still awful for him, though. Why else would he scream so loud, and for so long, if he wasn't scared or nervous about something? He freaking screamed so much that his vocal cords had probably been ripped, or at least badly damaged for the next few days. It wasn't like it mattered, though. He would be going into shutdown in a few hours time, so he wouldn't even be talking for the next week or so.

"Damien!" I jumped. My Mom was looking at me with the same grin covering her face. My only guess was that she was going to tell me what had excited both her and my father so much. Even though I knew it would never happen, I kinda hoped that we were going on holiday for the winter months. It was freezing here at the moment! It wasn't rare to be walking into school in minus ten degree weather at the moment. "Damien, you'll never guess what happened!" I rubbed my eyes and shot a 'well, what DID happen' look back at my toffee-haired parent.

"Well, as it turns out, the game I released a few days back is gaining some attention." My Dad said, butting into the conversation. "More attention than usual." My Dad was a game developer, and whenever he released a new game, the highest amount of attention it got was a few lets-play videos of it by a single YouTuber that stopped the series after two-or-so epsiodes. Of course, I wanted to be happy for them, yet at the same time I just wanted to tell them that the attention would quickly die down. I didn't even mean it in a bad way, the attention for my Dad's game always died down. They were like this every single time a YouTuber uploaded a gaming video, and when that YouTuber stopped uploading those videos, they returned to their usual self again. I didn't want them to be disappointed when it ended. I really didn't. "There's already three different YouTubers making letsplays on it, and another YouTuber tweeted out that they want to play it when they get back from the YouTube convention that's going on in L.A at the moment!" His smile grew even larger. "I'm so freaking excited!" He jumped up and down in his seat like a kid finding out they were doing to Disney Land. A smile involentary lifted up onto my face. Even though I knew that this wasn't going to last for long, but I guess I could still be happy for them for the time-being.