The Touch - Rewrite

It was Natalie who woke me the following morning, her voice soft but steady as she eased me out of sleep and back into the world I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready to face. The room felt different somehow—quieter, but heavier too, like everything was waiting for something to happen. She helped me sit up slowly, guiding me through getting dressed in the clothes Karen had brought the day before. The fabric felt unfamiliar against my skin, new in a way that made me more aware of every movement.

Once I was ready, the room didn’t stay quiet for long.

Nurses and doctors began filtering in one by one, offering smiles and well-wishes that I didn’t quite know how to respond to. Their voices blended together, kind but distant, as if they were speaking to someone else instead of me. I nodded when I thought I was supposed to, forcing small responses where I could, but most of it passed over me without really settling.

Before I knew it, I was being eased into a wheelchair.

Doctor Jerret took hold of the handles, guiding me out of the room and into the hallway, while Greg and Natalie walked alongside us. The doctor spoke as we moved, explaining something about medications and recovery, but his words drifted in and out of focus. I couldn’t hold onto them long enough to make sense of anything he was saying.

The elevator didn’t help.

The moment it dropped, my stomach twisted violently, the sudden shift making the world feel unstable again. I swallowed hard, trying to keep everything down as the sensation passed. Greg’s hand came to rest on my shoulder then, steady and warm, grounding in a way I hadn’t expected.

I almost smiled.

But the thought hit before it could happen.

I didn’t deserve any of this.

The feeling came sharp and immediate, cutting through everything else. At any moment, the Monster could step out from behind one of the doors we passed, ready to drag me back into the life I had barely survived. I expected it. That was how things worked. Nothing stayed good. Not for me.

The elevator chimed softly as it came to a stop, the doors sliding open to reveal the hospital lobby. For a second, I just stared ahead, unable to fully process what I was seeing. I hadn’t thought I would make it this far. Hadn’t let myself believe it was possible.

Natalie had told me there would be a surprise if I got better.

I hadn’t believed that either.

Even as Doctor Jerret pushed me toward the sliding glass doors, toward the outside, toward something that felt dangerously close to freedom—I didn’t let myself hope.

You’re fucking worthless, Zachary.

The words slipped into my mind without resistance, familiar and sharp. They echoed louder than anything else, settling into place like they belonged there.

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to push them back, and instead saw him.

The other boy.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes. The same as mine.

He stared at me like he could see everything, like he knew something I didn’t. I remembered the way he had called me Zyan, the way I had snapped back at him, insisting he was wrong. He had looked so… disappointed. Sad in a way that didn’t make sense.

“You’ll figure it out,” he had said.

His sadness had felt real.

Too real.

Like it had bled into me somehow.

We had been so alike—

and still, he wasn’t me.

Nobody wanted to be me.

“Make sure that he eats something, Greg.”

Natalie’s voice pulled me back before I could sink any deeper into it. My eyes opened just as Greg was opening the back door of the SUV, stepping forward to lift me carefully from the wheelchair. His arms were steady, secure, and without thinking, I let myself lean into him slightly as he carried me.

“Zachary’s meds will probably kick in before you get him home,” Natalie added.

“I’ve got it, Nat,” Greg replied easily, his voice warm and relaxed. He glanced back toward her with a faint grin. “Actually, I was thinking I’d take Zachary to Hooters first, then maybe hit an amusement park. Really make a day out of it.”

A small laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.

Natalie gave him a look, though it didn’t carry much weight. “You had better not,” she warned, her tone edged with playful annoyance. “McDonald’s is more than enough for the two of you until I get home.”

Greg chuckled under his breath like he had expected that answer and gently set me into the backseat before buckling me in.

“Take care of him,” Natalie said more softly, reaching in to ruffle my hair before stepping back. “And don’t let him bore you too much with his lawyer talk.”

“I won’t,” I said quietly.

Greg moved around to the driver’s seat, and a moment later, we were pulling away. The hospital shrank behind us, disappearing piece by piece until it was just another building in the distance.

“Are you hungry, buddy?” Greg asked as we merged into traffic.

“Yes, sir,” I answered automatically, though the word stirred something uneasy in my chest. A memory flickered—food held just out of reach, laughter that didn’t sound right—and I forced it back down before it could take hold.

Greg pulled into a drive-thru without hesitation, ordering more food than I expected. I stayed quiet as he spoke, watching the world blur past the window.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d like,” he said as we pulled forward. “So I grabbed a few different things. You can try whatever you want.”

“Okay,” I murmured.

“It’s fine if you don’t like something,” he added casually. “We’ll figure it out.”

We parked for a moment, and Greg twisted slightly in his seat to hand a wrapped sandwich back to me. I hesitated before taking it, the warmth surprising me more than anything else.

“Go ahead,” he said, already shifting the car back into drive. “No rush. We’ve got a bit of a ride.”

The car rolled forward again, easing back into traffic.

I took a bite, my stomach reacting instantly—tightening at first, then settling as I chewed. It felt strange, eating something without being told how much, or when to stop. There was no voice hovering over me, no rules I had to follow.

Just… food.

Greg glanced at me through the rearview mirror. “Not terrible, right?”

I shook my head slightly and took another bite, slower this time.

The road stretched ahead of us as the world passed by outside the window—houses, trees, people moving through their day like everything was normal. It didn’t feel normal to me. It felt like something I wasn’t part of.

When I finished, I hesitated again, my eyes drifting toward the bag.

“You can have more,” Greg said before I could ask.

“Really?”

“Of course.”

I reached for another sandwich, but the first bite told me it wasn’t right. I tried anyway before finally giving up.

“You don’t have to eat it,” Greg said.

“The chicken,” I muttered. “It tastes weird.”

He chuckled softly. “Fair enough.”

I leaned back into the seat as the medicine began to settle in again, making everything feel heavier, slower. The world outside softened at the edges as we drove, the motion of the car turning everything into a slow blur.

We turned onto a quieter street, the change subtle but noticeable. Houses lined both sides, each one different but somehow the same—clean yards, parked cars, lights glowing softly from inside. I found myself watching them as we passed, my eyes drifting from one to the next without really focusing on any single one.

They all looked… normal.

Like places I didn’t belong.

The car slowed.

Turned.

Then rolled into a driveway I hadn’t been paying attention to until we stopped completely.

“We’re home,” Greg said.

The words settled in a way I wasn’t ready for.

He stepped out and came around to my side, helping me out of the car and steadying me as the ground shifted beneath my feet.

“My trash…” I slurred weakly.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ve got it.”

“I have to pee,” I added suddenly.

Greg laughed. “Alright, that takes priority.”

I laughed too as he carried me inside, the world spinning slightly as I tried to take it all in. The house blurred together until we reached the bathroom, where he helped me stay upright as I fumbled through everything.

“Close one,” he said.

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

A few minutes later, I was stretched out on the couch, pillows tucked behind me and a thick blanket pulled over my legs. Greg flipped through channels before settling on something simple and set the remote within reach.

“We’ve got a much better selection than the hospital,” he said with a small grin. “Figured you deserved an upgrade.”

I nodded faintly, my head already feeling heavy.

“I’ll be right back,” he added. “I need to grab the rest of your stuff from the car.”

“I can… do it,” I slurred, trying to sit up.

The room tilted instantly.

Greg’s hand pressed gently against my shoulder, guiding me back down. He smiled, softer this time.

“Not a chance,” he said. “I’m supposed to be taking care of you, buddy. You’re just going to have to get used to that for a little while.”

I blinked up at him, the words settling somewhere deeper than I expected.

“Stay put,” he added.

“Okay…” I murmured.

The door closed behind him.

I didn’t even realize I had fallen asleep.

The light came first.

Soft and warm, filtering down from above in a way that felt almost too gentle to be real. It settled over everything evenly, stretching across the ground in pale gold as the world slowly took shape around it. The air felt calm, still in a way that didn’t belong to the hospital, carrying a quiet that should have been peaceful.

A playground.

It spread out in front of me, simple and familiar—swings swaying faintly, a slide catching the sunlight, and a sandbox set near the center where two small figures sat close together.

Toddlers.

They couldn’t have been more than two years old, their small bodies unsteady as they shifted in the sand. Both had light blond hair, soft and fine, catching the sunlight in a way that made it seem almost brighter than everything else around them. Their blue eyes stood out just as clearly, identical in a way that felt too precise to ignore.

They were the same.

Completely the same.

But something about this felt… different.

The last time I had seen them, everything around the edges had been swallowed by fog, the world closing in until nothing existed beyond them. This time, it wasn’t as heavy. The light stretched farther, the shapes held together longer. I could see more—more of the playground, more of the space around them.

Not everything.

Just enough to notice the difference.

Beyond the playground, though—

there was still nothing.

The world stopped where the grass ended, fading into something I couldn’t quite see, like it wasn’t finished yet.

My attention shifted.

There was someone else here.

A woman sat on a nearby bench, her long blonde hair falling loosely over her shoulders as she leaned forward slightly, a book open in her hands. Her focus was completely on the pages, her eyes moving steadily as if nothing else in the world required her attention.

I hadn’t seen her before.

Not like this.

Something in my chest tightened.

The boys didn’t seem to notice her. They stayed close together in the sandbox, their small hands pushing sand into uneven piles. Every movement one made, the other followed without hesitation, like it didn’t require thought.

They didn’t speak.

They didn’t need to.

There was no space between them.

Not really.

Then something shifted.

One of the boys paused, his small hands stilling in the sand before he pushed himself upright. He wobbled for a second, unsteady, before finding his balance. The other boy looked up immediately, his expression changing into something curious, something uncertain.

The standing boy didn’t look back.

He turned.

And began to walk.

His steps were uneven, clumsy in the way only a toddler’s could be, but there was something deliberate in the direction he chose. He moved toward the edge of the playground, toward a line of bushes that bordered the space, their leaves darker than they should have been against the light.

The other boy reacted instantly.

His small hand reached out, grasping at empty air as the distance between them widened. A soft sound escaped him at first—confused, unsure—but it didn’t stay that way.

Something in the air shifted.

The connection between them—whatever it was—felt like it was stretching.

Fading.

The boy still in the sandbox leaned forward, his body straining as if he could pull the other back just by wanting it hard enough.

It didn’t work.

The first boy kept going.

He reached the bushes and pushed through them without hesitation, disappearing completely on the other side.

Gone.

The space he left behind felt wrong immediately.

Too empty.

Like something had been taken out of the world instead of simply walking away.

The remaining boy froze, his chest rising unevenly as he stared at the place where his brother had been. For a moment, he didn’t move.

Then he cried.

The sound broke through the quiet sharply, louder than it should have been. It echoed across the playground, filling the space in a way that made everything else feel smaller.

The woman on the bench looked up.

At first, her expression softened slightly, her attention only partially pulled from the book as she glanced toward the crying child. It was automatic, unthinking.

Then she noticed.

There was only one.

Her smile faded.

Her eyes moved quickly, scanning the playground once, then again, faster this time. The book slipped from her hands as she stood abruptly, her posture tightening as something deeper took hold.

“Zyan?”

The name came out uncertain.

Fragile.

She stepped forward, her gaze locking onto the sandbox before darting toward the bushes, toward the edges of the playground, searching for something that wasn’t there.

“Zyan?” she called again, louder now, her voice beginning to crack.

The world didn’t change.

The empty space stayed empty.

Her expression broke.

“ZYAN!?”

The scream tore through everything.

And something inside the world gave way with it.

The light shifted first, draining out of the scene like it was being pulled away. The warmth disappeared, replaced by something colder, heavier. The edges of the playground began to distort, stretching and warping as if the space itself couldn’t hold together anymore.

The sandbox blurred.

The swings twisted.

The bench pulled away.

The crying didn’t stop.

It changed.

Lower.

Closer.

Mine.

The ground beneath me hardened.

Sand turned to tile.

Cold.

Unforgiving.

The air thickened, pressing in around me as the light above flickered, uneven and weak. The walls rose up where there had been open space, closing in until the playground was gone entirely.

And then—

he was there.

The Monster.

He stood in front of me, fully formed, his presence crushing everything else out of existence. The same twisted sneer stretched across his face, his dark eyes burning with rage as his mouth moved, words spilling out that I still couldn’t hear.

The silence hit harder than the sound ever could.

Confusion flickered for a second—

then pain.

His hand struck me hard enough to send me backward, my body slamming into the wall behind me as glass shattered on impact. The sound exploded all at once, sharp and overwhelming as fragments scattered across the floor.

I screamed.

He didn’t stop.

He never stopped.

His hands were on me again, gripping, shoving, throwing me down before his kicks followed, each one landing harder than the last. I tried to move, tried to block it, but it didn’t matter.

It never mattered.

He hauled me up again, slamming me back against the wall, his face close as his mouth kept moving—still screaming, still silent.

Something inside me snapped.

I swung.

My fist shot forward, connecting with his face. I felt it this time—the impact solid as it struck his eye. He staggered back, a sharp sound finally breaking through as his hand came up to cover it.

For a single moment—

he wasn’t in control.

The moment shattered, but the feeling didn’t.

The impact of my fist still lingered in my arm, sharp and real, like it had actually connected with something solid. The image of it—the Monster staggering back, his hand flying to his face—stayed locked in place for just a second too long before everything around it collapsed inward.

Then the world snapped.

I couldn’t breathe.

Air tore into my lungs all at once as I jerked forward, choking on it, my body reacting before my mind could catch up. My hands shot out blindly, grabbing at whatever was in front of me as the pressure of being held down, of being trapped, refused to let go.

“Hey—!”

The voice hit me, but it didn’t register.

Something was in front of me—too close, too real—and I reacted the only way I knew how.

I swung.

My fist connected with something solid, the impact jolting up my arm as a sharp grunt followed it. The resistance was real—not like the dream—and for a split second, everything froze in that collision.

“Whoa—!”

The voice was clearer now.

Different.

I blinked, my vision struggling to catch up as the room shifted violently between what I had just seen and what was actually there. The Monster wasn’t in front of me anymore.

Greg was.

He had leaned back slightly from the hit, one hand instinctively coming up toward his face, more from surprise than pain. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t yelling. If anything, he just looked caught off guard, like he understood exactly why it had happened.

My breathing didn’t slow. If anything, it got worse.

“I—” The word caught in my throat as panic surged. “I’m sorry—I didn’t— I thought— I didn’t mean—”

“Hey, hey—easy,” Greg said quickly, lowering his hand as he steadied himself. He didn’t move toward me right away this time, keeping just enough distance so I wouldn’t react again. “You’re alright. It’s just me.”

That didn’t make sense yet.

Nothing did.

The room finally started to come into focus—the couch beneath me, the dim light from the television, the walls that weren’t closing in anymore. The glass was gone. The Monster was gone.

But the feeling wasn’t.

“Zachary, look at me.”

Natalie’s voice cut through differently—softer, but clearer somehow. It didn’t push. It didn’t demand. It just gave me something steady to hold onto.

I forced my eyes toward her.

She stood just behind Greg, her expression tight with concern but controlled. Not angry. Not scared of me. Just there.

My chest still heaved as I tried to steady my breathing, but it came out uneven, like my body didn’t trust that it was safe yet.

“I hit you…” I said, my voice barely holding together as I looked back at Greg.

He shook his head slightly, already lowering his hand completely. “You’re fine,” he said simply. “I’ve had worse.”

Confusion slipped in through the panic.

“I didn’t mean to,” I added quickly, gripping the blanket tighter. “I thought you were—”

I couldn’t say it.

Greg didn’t make me.

“Bad dream?” he asked instead, his tone steady.

I hesitated, then nodded faintly. “It didn’t feel like one.”

“They usually don’t,” Natalie said quietly as she moved closer and sat beside me. She didn’t touch me right away, just stayed close.

“I hit him,” I said again, slower now. “In the dream. I actually hit him… and then I woke up and—”

My voice faltered.

“And you were there.”

Greg nodded once. “Yeah. That was me.”

There was a faint shift in his expression. “Good hit, though.”

I blinked at him, thrown off by that response. It didn’t erase anything, but it softened the edge.

“What if the nightmares come back?” I asked quietly, the question sitting heavy in my chest.

Greg leaned back slightly, giving me space. “Then we deal with them when they do,” he said. “You won’t be dealing with it alone.”

I shook my head faintly. “That’s not how it works. People say that… but they don’t mean it.”

Natalie’s hand came to rest gently against my arm, grounding but not holding.

“We do,” she said simply.

The certainty in her voice didn’t match anything I was used to.

It made something in my chest twist.

Before I could stop it, the fear pushed forward, breaking past everything I had been trying to hold down.

“Please don’t send me away,” I sobbed, the words spilling out before I could think about them. My voice cracked as I shook my head, my grip tightening in the blanket. “Not back into the system… not with someone else. I won’t do it again, I promise—I didn’t mean to, I just thought—”

My breathing hitched hard as the panic surged again, everything coming apart all at once.

“I’ll be good,” I rushed out, the words tripping over each other. “I won’t mess anything up, I won’t talk back, I won’t—”

“What’s wrong, Zachary?” Natalie asked softly, her hand lifting to cup my cheek. “Why would we ever send you away?”

“Because I messed up,” I choked, my voice breaking as I looked down. “I hit Mr. Harris…”

For a second, I braced for something.

But Greg just laughed.

Not loudly. Not harshly. Just a quiet, surprised sound as he reached over and pulled me gently against his side, his arm wrapping around me like nothing had changed.

“Trust me, Zachary,” he said, his voice warm and steady. “It’s going to take a lot more than that for me to get rid of you.” He glanced toward Natalie with a faint grin. “Besides, Natalie hits me all the time, so I’m used to getting punched.”

“I do not!” Natalie shot back, immediately smacking his arm.

Greg looked back at me with wide eyes. “See? Happens all the time.”

A small laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.

It felt strange.

But not bad.

Natalie rolled her eyes, though she was smiling as she stood. “Are you guys hungry?”

“I don’t know about this guy,” Greg said, giving me a light poke in the stomach, “but I’m starving. He’s gotta be hungry after that workout.”

Workout.

That wasn’t what it felt like.

But I didn’t argue.

“I’ll see what I can come up with,” Natalie said, heading toward the kitchen.

I watched her go before looking back at Greg, something still unsettled in my chest.

“What did I do?” I asked quietly.

Greg’s expression softened. “You were stuck in that dream pretty bad, buddy. Couldn’t wake you up for a minute. Had me thinking we might need to get you checked out.”

“I don’t want to go back to the hospital,” I muttered.

“And we don’t want you to,” Greg said easily before pressing a quick kiss to the side of my head. “Now let’s find something better than hospital TV.”

I nodded faintly and shifted closer without thinking.

He didn’t react.

He just let it happen.

His hand moved slowly against my back, steady and absent, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The tension in my chest eased.

Not gone.

Just quieter.

“I love you too, buddy,” Greg said with a quiet chuckle.

I didn’t know what to say to that.

So I didn’t.

I just stayed there, leaning into him as the television flickered in front of us, filling the room with soft noise.

For a moment, everything felt… okay.

But even then, something in the back of my mind refused to settle.

I kept waiting for it.

For something to go wrong.

For everything to fall apart the way it always did.

Because nothing good ever lasted.

And it wasn’t like I deserved for it to.