The Last of Them All (editing)

I ran into my house and found my dad passed out, face down on our  fraying grey couch. Several empty cans of Bud Light littered the coffee table and floor. Let me clarify something, my father is in no means an alcoholic, nor is he in any way abusive. However, like many people when he is under a lot of stress, anxiety, or sadness, he will drink. When he was dumped by a girlfriend and we moved he drank. When my mom died he drank. When he lost his job, he drank. When I went missing with no means of contacting him, it made sense for him to have gotten drunk. No doubt about it that he was miserable and sick with worry.

I locked the door behind me and checked the time. 1:30, Saturday. Great. Three days, I was gone for three days. No wonder he'd been drinking. How much though? I decided I would worry about that in the morning.

I brushed the tangled graying hairs out of my dad's face and planted him a kiss on his forehead. Grabbing blankets from the closet of our small house and laid one over my dad, and then curled up on the floor with the other, not even bothering to change.

The next morning I awoke to loud noises. My dad was frantically crashing through the house, searching for me. He probably didn't see me when he woke up. He banged on the walls, and threw open doors, pictures shattering to the ground. I threw off the blanket and ran to him where he stood in the hallway.

"Dad!" I shouted.

He stopped and looked up. He blinked, and looked again. When the realization came to him he ran towards me with open arms and scooped me up in a large bear hug, my feet dangling above the ground, like he did when I was younger. He smelled faintly of alcohol, but I didn't mind.

"Now, " he grabbed me by the hand and sat me down at our dirty kitchen table, him sitting across from me, "tell me where you were and what you were doing."

So I simply explained everything. I had never kept a secret from my dad before, so why start now. I explained how we were taken from school, my injuries, escaping from the base, and the truck in the middle of a run down town. He got a little skeptical at the part where we were sleeping in the truck, but my explanations cleared his worries. I then talked about Jarvin and what he was like, and then the hospital that he took us to, and how kind Dr. Tusik seemed.

"Wait a minute," he said, stopping me, "the doctor's names was Dr. Tusik? As in, too sick?" I nodded in response. "And he was Russian?"

"Well, yeah at least I think he was. He kept saying some foreign words and had a thick accent."

My dad sighed before shaking his head. "Never trust a Russian," he mumbled.

I breathed in and before I could continue speaking my stomach emitted a low, deep growl.

"Oh my! Food!" My dad jumped up and ran to the toaster. Immediately he started making four pieces of toast and a large batch of scrambled eggs. "Keep talking, I'm listening."

"Well, um. After the test results came back, Dr. Tusik, well, he said,"

"What is it?"

"He said I should have died."

At the news I had just uttered the carton of eggs that was in my father's hands tumbled, as if in slow motion towards our black and white tiled floor. They landed with an unpleasant squish, smearing the ground with their yellow yolk. He rushed over to me and sat down, placing his hands on the table in front of him.

"Say it again." He stated.

"What?"

"Say. It. Again."

"Dr. Tusik told me, that my injuries were so severe that I should have died." His face suddenly got pale and he started swaying in his seat. "But I didn't! I'm still here, and I'm perfectly fine, and, uh oh."

He got up and ran to the sink, and proceeded to throw up all the contents of what he had eaten, which didn't look like it was very much.

I stood up and went to the medicine cabinet.

"Here, take these." I handed him the glass of water and the aspirin and he gratefully took them.

"The eggs," he moaned.

"It's alright, we'll just order a pizza or something. The toast is burnt anyways."

An hour later the pizza man came with our small pepperoni, and I proceeded to tell my dad about everything else. I explained the school, and the powers. Let me tell you, it took a lot of explaining. I included how Justin was a nature-bender, and Andrew a shape shifter.

"What are you?" He asked, mouth full of pizza.

"They," I breathed deeply. "They don't know."

"So I'm assuming you want to go to this school that we know nothing about, just to find out who, what you are?" His tone was surprisingly calm.

I nodded slowly.

He sighed. "Just as I expected. You always were a striking resemblance of your mother. She was always wanting to take risks and test herself. Did I tell you about the time we went skydiving?"

"Out of context dad."

"Sorry."

We sat there in silence for the next couple of minutes.

"Dad?" He looked up at me. "Why don't we ever see my grandparents?" It was an honest question, and one that had been on my mind lately. He froze.

"Well, you see, your mom is an only child, and I come from a big family."

I nodded in understanding.

"Your mom's mother died when she was young, and couldn't raise your mother, so she was in the foster system for all of her childhood. Then she married me."

"What about mom's dad?"

"We don't know. We have absolutely no idea who he was."

"Oh, okay. What about your parents?"

"Like I said, I come from a big family." When I looked skeptical he quickly said, "they travel a lot."

"Alright." I felt like there was something more that he wasn't telling me, but I didn't know what.

"Look, you must be exhausted. Why don't you go upstairs to your room and rest a bit. I don't think you got much sleep the past couple of days."

"Yeah, you too dad." I paused, "how much exactly have you been drinking?"

He sighed before shrugging. "Umm, 'bout six, seven cans. A night."

"Dad!" I put my hands on my hips. There were times when I took care of him as much as he much as he took care of me. This was one of those times. "You didn't go driving did you?"

"No! Of course not!" He held his hands up in protest. I glared at him. "Okay once."

"DAD!!! Do you understand how dangerous that is!" And then I went off into a rant about the dangers of drunk driving and how he needs to be more careful before he finally said something.

"I needed aspirin. It was just to the drugstore. But you know, then I realized we had some when I came to." He looked down at me. "Sorry."

"You were drunk dad. Again."

"I know." He looked at me, hands placed on my shoulders. "But you were missing."

His words hit me hard, and I realized just how truly difficult my disappearance must have been on him. "Sorry." I mumbled.

"Let's both get some rest." He planted a kiss on my forehead before I walked upstairs to get some rest.

However, we both know that didn't happen.