Chapter 12

Happy Fourth of July to all my American readers. I am American so it feels almost obligatory to put this at the beginning of the chapter. And for all my non-American readers, happy fourth of July to you as well even though it has no significance :)

Gray had fallen asleep a few hours after Owen had called. The boys sat in the hospital bed together, just holding each other. The comfort they could provide each other was enough to keep their nightmares at bay, and keep them calm, but it wasn't enough to make them stop.

Zach sat on the bed. He was the only one in the room that was awake. His mother had come back in the room, and fallen asleep on the chair. Zach was left to think. He couldn't recall actually experiencing anything Gray had told him about. All he could remember was the fear that it had instilled within him. He remembered the dreams he had in his coma, but he didn't remember that stuff actually happening to him. He remembered them just as dreams.

Zach sat there, racking his brain for some memory; any memory, of life before this. He couldn't remember anything. It was like the first moments of his life happened when he opened his eyes earlier that day. If that was the case, that was a bad first few minutes. The strange thing was, he still had all his knowledge on things, but no memories.

One thing he didn't know, that he really thought he should, was this Owen Grady. He vaguely remembered Claire, just like he vaguely remembered Gray, but he didn't remember Owen at all. All he knew if that Owen made him feel at ease, and that Owen had saved him in all his nightmares. He slid out of the bed, making sure his brother's head fell onto the pillow. He began searching through his brother's backpack until he found his laptop.

Zach sat against the wall and opened the laptop. It was rather cold outside the layers of warm blankets on the hospital bed. He opened the laptop and connected to the hospital's wifi. He was so glad he still had his knowledge. He typed Owen's name into the search bar. Articles upon articles popped up, along with a large collection of videos and pictures. Then a thought struck him. He was at the center of this Jurassic World incident, maybe he could find something online that would jog his memory.

He typed his own name into the search bar. The first thing that came up was a video. It was security footage from Jurassic World. He opened it, and watched it. There was video of the pteranodon attack, and then one at night. It started with Owen riding a motorcycle surrounded by the raptors. then shifted to the main street. Him, Gray, and Owen had been cornered by the I-Rex, but then Claire arrived, leading the T-Rex behind her.

"That was the scariest moment for me,"

Zach looked up. Gray was standing there, looking over his older brother's shoulder.

"It was?" Zach asked. Gray nodded, sitting next to his brother. He let his head fall onto the older boy's shoulder.

"Yeah. Owen called it the moment of true terror. See when the I-Rex is tugging my shorts there? That's when I was the most terrified. So when my pants get tugged on, I see that moment again, and I break down,"

"Oh," Zach said, pausing the video, "what about...what about me? What's my moment of true terror?"

"You know the dream you have when you and I jump into the water?" Gray asked. Zach nodded. If he was going to die, it was going to be in that dream, "well, when the two of us were underwater, that was your moment of true terror. You didn't know if we were going to drown or get eaten,"

Zach thought for a moment. He replayed the dream over in his head. That moment did have a certain familiarness to it. It was different from the others.

"What about Aunt Claire and...Owen?" Zach asked.

"Why do you say Owen like that?" Gray asked.

"Umm," Zach debated telling his younger brother, but honestly, what would it do? The boy was going to have to become his support, so he had to know, "you and Aunt Claire, you have a certain familiarness about you. Like I know you, but I don't remember you. Owen is different. I recognize him, but he doesn't have that familiarness,"

"But he calms you down," Gray said.

"I know. That I can't explain. It's like I don't understand why just when he's around I'm calm," Zach said. The poor boy was so confused. He was confused enough it may break him, maybe even more than Gray.

Gray had to put himself back together very fast. Gray recalled Owen saying to Claire, when talking about him, saying that it takes ten times longer to put yourself back together after you fall apart. Gray absolutely believed that was true. He hadn't completely fell apart, but he wasn't perfect either. Right now, he was putting on a show. He needed to be the strong one for a change. He had to make it seem like he had put himself back together but in reality he was just falling apart even more.

"So Aunt Claire and Owen's?" Zach asked.

"Right," Gray said, "so Aunt Claire, she can't wear high heels. They give her memories from any moment on the island,"

"Oh," Zach said, "that isn't great,"

"It's not. As for Owen," Gray thought for a moment for a way to explain this, then he thought the internet would explain it better, "hand me the laptop,"

Zach picked up the laptop, which he had before placed on the other side of him, and handed it to his younger brother. Gray quickly typed 'Owen Grady Indominus Rex'. A whole list of articles came up, but he was only looking for videos. He found the security footage from around the I-Rex inclosure. He clicked on it, and handed it to Zach.

The older boy watched in horror as two men were eaten by the creature, and in terror as Owen laid under the truck. Zach looked at his younger brother in shock after the video had ended.

"Owen was laying down under the truck," Gray said, "he can't lay down without seeing that moment,"

"And I can't touch water without seeing my moment, or in my case, just feeling the fear," Zach said.

"It wasn't as bad before this incident. You could drink it before, as long as it didn't touch your skin," Gray said, "now can't even let it go through a needle into your skin,"

"I'm going to die," Zach said, "I'm not going to be able to drink, I'm gonna die. I'm so sorry, Gray,"

"You're not going to die, Zach. I promise," Gray said. He thought it best not to mention the fact that the doctors drugged him to get him to sleep and then put the fluids into his body that way. Gray leaned his head back onto his brother's shoulder and closed his eyes. He felt rather at ease given the circumstances.

Sorry this is all I have. This is all I could come up with. I'm sorry. With the layers of warm blankets on the hospital bed, that's no joke. I had surgery recently and every five minutes a nurse would be like "do you want another warm blanket?" me: "no I'm good," nurse: *puts warm blanket on me anyway*. So I wake up from surgery with like ten blankets on top of me. So yeah, that's true.

-Croc9400