Scout's Origin

Untitled Part 1

It had been months. Several long, grueling months.

Micah's condition was only deteriorating from the minor, long-lasting cold he had started with. The doctors couldn't pinpoint what was wrong with him, but he didn't seem contagious. That being the case, he was allowed to rest at home since no treatment seemed to be helping. His parents were also insistent that he be comfortable in his own bed come his last days.

That night, the teen had gone to sleep feeling terrible. He was both hot and chilled, coughing, wheezing and just generally feeling like his last days were upon him. When he woke up, it was still dark. He looked around the room for a moment before noticing just how good he felt.

He was rested, his temperature felt normal and he could breathe better than he could since he got sick. He grinned and stretched his arms upward, enjoying the lack of aches and creaky joints when he moved. His head started to buzz with thoughts of what he should do first now that he felt better. Of course, he settled on telling his family just how much better he felt.

"Mom, Dad!" He called as he ran down the stairs. Normally, his parents would notice his rather loud footsteps on their old staircase but they didn't seem to notice them, nor his voice as he called out to them.

They were both up still, sitting in their kitchen silently with steaming cups in front of them. From the looks of it, they had made tea – something they did to calm down when they needed something warm but all the caffeine in coffee wasn't going to do them any favors.

"Mom...? Dad...?" Micah walked over to them, standing to the side of the table between his parents. "Didn't you hear me calling you?"

Upon closer inspection, it looked like they had been crying, his mom especially. Whenever his condition would worsen, she was prone to tears, an ever-growing fear of her son's premature death weighing on her mind. His dad wasn't one to cry though. In fact, in his entire life, he could only remember seeing his dad cry once – though, his mom always said there was a second time that was much happier than when the teen could remember.

"Well... I feel a lot better... I think I'm gonna take a short walk, okay?"

Almost, in turn, his father stood up and walked over to his mother, placing his hand on her shoulder. "Let's... go to bed. Things will look better in the morning." It was easy to tell he didn't quite believe those words himself but his wife seemed to believe that sleep would do them good. They walked past their son without a word and made their way to their own room.

"Fine... Didn't wanna talk to you anyway..." Grumbling to himself, Micah left his house wondering just what had gotten into his parents.

He wandered the streets for a long while – probably an hour and a half, if not longer – before he thought to visit someone he knew wouldn't ignore him.

He ran to closest friend's house and started to pound on the door. Strangely enough, there was no sound, which struck him as odd. All the same, he opened the door and announced himself before letting himself in.

He expected to hear his friend's Doberman barking before realizing it was someone he knew. There was no barking, growling or even the sound of the large dog's paws making their way towards him.

He huffed, thinking the dog was just lazy as he made his way to his friend's room. Of course, he was starting to get more and more weirded out as he started to piece things together.

Up the stairs and to the left, he walked down the hall to his friend's room. He figured he'd be sleeping and just opened the door. Peeking in, he noticed his friend was up playing games. He didn't seem to notice he was there and continued on.