* Bloooiii*

*Bloooiii*

*Bloooiii*

*Fump*

"God, I hate this game," muttered Erik Hunter as he tapped his phone to start another round. Flappy Bird may have been a shit game, but it did its job well, namely being a mindless time waster and keeping him away from thoughts of how he could just call this quits and go home.

It's not like anyone would've stopped him either. He could just get up out of his seat, walk to the elevated, and take the T, and-

"Erik? Come on down to room 9 dear, the doctor will see you soon." A nurse called, breaking him out of his daydream of escape.

Looking up he saw it was Jannet, a nice blonde woman who's been working here for as long as he remembers. She seemed to be getting on in years, he could see streaks of silver in her hair, and faint wrinkle lines around her eyes. Crows feet Erik believe was the term.

Wonder how her kid is doing? He hasn't seen the little bugger since last Christmas.

"Ok, thanks Jannet, how's Tommy? I haven't seen him in a while, it's almost his birthday, right? Make sure to invite me, I'll show up if I make it after today!" Prattling off every topic of small talk that he could think as they walked down the hall.

Normally Erik wasn't this talkative, guess you could say it was nervous energy.

"Of course you're invited Erik, don't talk like that, you'll be fine. I'm sure Tommy can't wait to see you get better and play soccer with him again."

"I hope everything will turn out alright"

She tried to reassure him with her words, but he wasn't convinced.

They made a detour to the nearest bathroom so that he could change into a hospital gown. Soon after Erik went into the room and dumped his stuff onto a chair. She hooked him up to an IV and gave some general anesthesia, but her words kept ringing inside his head.

It sounded empty in his ears, like those practiced lines you say to a patient to comfort them before their deaths 'I'm sure you'll make a full recovery'. After all, he had done his research, looked up the statistics, his surgery had such a high mortality rate that people died more often than not.

Thalassemia, an inherited blood disorder that is characterized by less oxygen-carrying protein and low red blood cells in the body than normal. He has had it interrupt his life ever since he was born. Being prone to illness and infection because he also had a low white blood cell count and the fact that he had a central line, a tube stuck in his chest to deliver medication directly into him.

It was pathetic. Not being able to run for more than a minute, always running out of breath even doing simple tasks, eating pills like candy just to make sure he didn't keel over. The only time he didn't feel helpless being the first few days after he gets his tri-weekly blood transfusion, maybe a whole week if he forced food down his throat.

It was disgusting.

Erik was a parasite living off other people. From his parent's money, from the goodwill of his friends, and from other's blood like a leech.

He was practically living in the damn hospital half the time. Needing frequent blood transfusions, and all manners of regular check-ups, he knew every single doctor and nurse here and the layout of the entire building.

He could navigate his way around blind if he had too.

Most just chose to live with their ailment than risk everything, but Erik was sick of it. Sick of being a burden, sick of being unable to help himself, to be a prisoner in his own body. After all, if he can't be the captain he'd rather burn down the ship than watch as it rots away drifting amidst the ocean.

That's why he came here today, to bet it all in the hopes that he'll finally be rid of this curse once and for all.

"Don't worry dear, everything will change once you wake up"

Her distorted words were the last thing Erik heard as the medicine fully kicked in. If only they both knew just how right she was.