Warning: Upsetting depiction of death. Buckle up, I made myself cry writing this chapter.
Brightness.
Cooling his skin and illuminating his face. Wrinkling his nose to avoid the light, he turned his head and opened his eyes. It was night, a large white moon hung in the sky, perfectly framed by the window and toys surrounding it.
He was in a bedroom. The clock ticked past 2:00 am. His fingers twitched and felt softness beneath him and on top of him, wrapping him, trapping him. The reddened glow of light reflecting through his tightly closed eyelids. He felt a thumping in his ears and a panic settling in. Grabbing the fabric he pulled every which way in an attempt to free himself but something heavy weighed it down. He flailed desperately.
"Toby?" came a groggy voice from the heaviness, stopping him instantly. Toby. He knew that name. His name. Trapped beneath the fabric unable to see anything, he couldn't see its source but that voice, he knew that voice. It felt like home.
"D-Dad?"
The heaviness lifted off and the fabric layers were pulled away like the petals of a flower to reveal Toby, wide-eyed and disheveled sitting at the center. His father gave a watery chuckle.
"There you are, you're alright."
Relieved to be able to breathe normally again, Toby was unsure what to say. He stood, grabbing the edges of the fabric within arms reach and flattened them nervously.
Tenma straightened the foot of the bed that he had been sitting on while his son slept. Hesitant at the prospect of his success he tentatively asked, "How do you feel?"
"Better now. Thanks for saving me."
The father choked at his son's words, a tear welling in his left eye. He cleared his throat sharply and blinked away any wetness.
"From the sheets. Right." Encouraged at the news he confidently continued on, "What's the last thing you remember?"
"I...remember a light."
Tenma dropped his head towards his chest. His son had seen a light. The white light that everyone would mention when surviving a near-death experience. He had always believed it to be a farce; just a dying mind playing a final trick on its host. Who was Tenma to know what death was like for those taking their last breaths.
"It was a big bright red light. Just thinking about it makes me feel sick." Toby ran his thumbs over the fabric of his pants to soothe himself.
"Red?" The scientist lifted his head in confusion towards the window and the brilliant white moon hanging in it.
"Yeah... big and bright. Loud..." Toby listed.
"Loud? When did you see a loud red ligh-"
"Dangerous," Toby finished abruptly.
The father's eyes blew wide open, pupils dilated, staring at the windowsill across from him in shock. A memory flooded his view, a flash of intense light from days before. A deadly red light. The Peacekeeper.
"Dad!" Tenma startled out of his thoughts.
"What is it son?"
"Nothing. I don't know why I said tha-DAD! DAD!" his voice so loud it nearly echoed. Toby looked to his father confused when his arms extended out suddenly.
The father and son stood facing one another, silent and perplexed. From the stillness came Toby's voice, "Absolutely, though I'm sure you'll agree the latest D-Class Interceptor underlying deployment-to-target system is quite old-fashioned. But you said I could see t̸̤̉̚h̶͖͗ͅe-the-the-This is so unfair!; He began to feel the thumping in his ears once again followed by a nauseousness in his belly as his eyes flickered side to side quickly.
Tenma took hold of his son's shoulders and slowly helped him sit before his legs did something unpredictable as well. "Sit down, son."
"Plea-e̴͒ͅa-ea-ease don't leave me in here, sir-ir! I can't stand small pla-ces. Anywhere but here! This is so unfair! This-thi-t̸̤̉̚h̶͖͗ͅ-th-th-Thanks for the life lesson, and th-th-t̸̤̉̚h̶͖͗ͅank you for this-is-is."
"It's going to be okay Toby. Everything's going to be fine. I promise."
From his seat on the edge of his bed Toby stared into the eyes of his father who knelt in front of him. He found comfort in the warm hands on his shoulders.
"You said I could see- No! I've said all this already. You said that already." Making contact with his father's tearful eyes he continued his hard-won cohesive thought, "I was scared and you promised e̴͒ͅv̸̤̂-ev-everything's going to be fine. It was hot and stuffy and Dr. Elefun tried so hard too but there was the loud red light. Red-r-re-Call me a dreamer, but I think we'll get a bit more bang for our buck using the red one. And I was so scared."
Toby began to tremble, trying desperately to keep his focus glued to his father, the only constant in the wave of confusion that washed over him repeatedly. Caught in the current of his own sweeping memories he felt warm, almost too hot for his climate-controlled room.
The father kept one hand anchored on his cyborg son's shoulder and slid a thin piece of glass out of his pocket. Flicking through several blue-lit screens, he tapped on an icon of Elefun's face before he settled on a screen that contained the portable system files for the software he had used earlier that night to fix his son. Wirelessly connecting to the hardware residing in his son's chest, he performed a diagnostic assessment.
The mobile system's pairing sounded like static and felt like it was sizzling his raw nerves. Toby's confused trembling turned to violent shakes, his hand gripped tightly around his father's wrist seeking any shred of comfort as his body and mind went haywire.
The complete report pinged onto the screen and Tenma read eagerly. Words like 'System misfire', 'Inorganic incompatibility', 'Cybernetic reformatting', and 'Delta wave bursts persisting' scrolled by. Tenma's brow furrowed, his eyes manic while Toby sat incredibly tense, perspiring from his scalp, and staring at his father for answers.
The icon of Elefun pulsed on the screen, Tenma tapped it out of habit.
"Tenma? Are you alright? The private server just sent me an error report," the kind man said, his striped pyjamas peaking just beyond the edge of the screen.
"Something is wrong. He's repeating things, forgetting things. He can't control his body. I ran a scan but it doesn't make any sense! I don't understand why this is happening!" The father scrolled back and forth between the pages, absorbing and processing as much as possible.
"He can't hear me, can he?" Elefun asked, always the considerate man.
Tenma put the glass to his ear and turned his head away from his son who had his eyes closed and was focusing on deep breathing techniques he had learned earlier that year. "No, go ahead," Tenma whispered.
"One of the chemicals used in your... um, procedure earlier tonight temporarily halted cellular degeneration and restored some cellular functions. It's caused spontaneous synaptic activity in an otherwise clinically deceased brain. Experimentation like that hasn't been attempted since the early 2000s. I can't believe you managed it by accident..."
"But why is he reacting like this to it?"
"It's temporary. The cellular degeneration has begun again and his brain is shutting down and now the cybernetic parts you've grafted to him aren't being provided enough energy to function at full capacity."
Tears filled the father's eyes, his thumb rubbing a comforting circle in the fabric of Toby's shirt. "I can't leave him like this, he never should have gone through this. I won't let him go through it again."
"The blue core," Doctor Elefun added soberly "With the installation of the blue core, once his body shuts down completely the core should essentially reboot his system and power him from here on out. The parameters you set last night will take effect and he will become entirely robot."
"He'll live..."
"Um, yes so to speak."
"I set his memories to end yesterday before he left school. He won't remember this. He won't remember any of this." Tenma's hand dropped from Toby's shoulder, the boy's eyes opened to see where his father's hand had gone. The doctor pressed his ear further onto the glass device.
Elefun's voice spoke deliberately and with care, "Yes, he won't remember any of this tomorrow but he's still suffering now. These are the last moments of your human son's life. He's likely very scared and needs his father. Tenma? Tenma, listen to me. You've been given a second chance to hold your son as he dies. Don't let him suffer alone."
Tenma turned his head back to his son, taking in his panicked features.
"I'll be over tomorrow to check on you. Good night Tenma." The line clicked and went silent. Looking down at his screen he read the final line of the report. An estimated time to total cellular degeneration between five and thirty minutes. He slid the glass screen back into his pocket quietly.
"Da-da-DaD̵͎̺͔̺͎͊̈̌â̸̄͘͜d̷̙̟̞̙͔̝̝̮̓̈̏̑̚Aa-Dad. He̴͒ͅ-Here Anywhere but here. He-H̷̪̀e̴̙̅l̷̟̆p̷͇̿ ̸͍̈́Help me...please?" Toby's fingers twitched in odd directions.
The father lurched forward, lifting his son as if he were still a baby and slid onto the bed beneath him. Holding the boy close and tucking his child's head under his chin, he breathed in deeply.
Toby pressed in close trying to match his father's breathing. He continued to sweat but his panic had begun to ebb.
Above him, Tenma squeezed his eyes closed as tightly as possible. Tears running streams down his cheeks as he willed the world away in his son's final moments.
"Everything's going to be fine. I promise."
The soft little whisper spoke back in the dark, "I love you Dad."
Brightness.
Warming his skin and illuminating his fingers before climbing up to his face. Flickering his eyelids, lashes tickling his cheek, he raised his head and opened his eyes. It was morning, greyed clouds rolled by on a light teal sky, perfectly framed by the window and toys surrounding it.
He was in his bedroom. The clock ticked past 9:00 am. His fingers rubbed together and felt softness over him, a soothing weight on his shoulders. Toby wiggled his toes, feeling a heaviness weighing him down he looked to his feet and discovered a man draped across them.
"Dad?"
A gasp followed by a groggy voice from the heaviness, "Toby?" His father pushed himself up, leaning against his more awake arm. The boy eyed his worn face, confused and disoriented.
"Good morning son. How do you feel?"
"Uhh Kind of weird. Have I been sick or something?" Toby was confused and uncertain about what to say. He looked about the room to pass the time.
The father surged forward to hold his son to his chest, "No, you're fine Toby, you're perfect. You're wonderful."
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.
And to those who have been with this fic from its inception on ffn, thank you for sticking around for nearly 9 and a half years.
Sources below were my research on the fascinating process of cellular reanimation upon death. Thanks to the recent articles for solving my oldest problem with this story.
www nature com/ articles/s41586-019-1099-1
www washingtonpost com/ science/2019/04/17/scientists-restore-some-brain-cell-functions-pigs-four-hours-after-death/?utm_term=.96220108f27c
link. springer com/ chapter/10.1007/11840817_99
www ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed/28231862