Dr. Richard’s POV:

It was such a pleasant change seeing John actually standing up on his own two feet, even if it wasn’t his real body. The eyes that had always been completely lifeless, were now shining with a variety of emotions.

It was so sweet seeing his child-like behaviour. Perhaps it’s for the best that he isn’t mature enough to know what kind of a terrible life he has spent so far. I can only imagine what he might feel when he learns the truth.

His reaction on seeing how he had grown was the most adorable thing I had ever seen! It’s funny, I never thought for even a second how weird it was for a 17 year old to have such a child-like behaviour. It must have been because I knew his background… let’s not think about that terrible past right now.

As a doctor, I was always trained to keep my emotions in check while dealing with patients. But somehow, as soon as I lay my eyes on the little boy 9 years ago I had been unable to think logically. I even punched that asshole of a father right in the face!

Ah… that punch really did feel good! It always brings a smile to my face remembering that poor excuse of a human getting hurt for once.

John Doe… It had now become such a special name for me. It’s up to a point where it feels bad giving that name to another unknown person that arrives in this hospital. I still remember about 6 years ago when a number of nurses and doctors gathered around for a meeting just to decide whether to continue using this name for the patient in room 306 or to change it and choose a better one.

“We can’t just choose a name for someone who doesn’t even know we exist! Instead we should strive to cure him so that he can one day wake up and choose his own name!”

This short speech spoken by nurse Sandra was what finally decided the outcome of that meeting. We all left that day with a renewed desire to somehow wake John up. We all also unconsciously started referring to him simply as ‘John’ instead of ‘John Doe’, just to differentiate him somehow.

It’s amazing how much John has been able to affect my life. After learning of his circumstances, I became fiercely determined to advance through the ranks to somehow gain some power so that I may be able to even slightly help others in similar position to John’s. Although I have yet to find any other person in as terrible a state as John, I did find a lot of unfortunate souls that I tried my hardest to help.

I’m not sure whether it’s good or bad that I haven’t found someone in as poor a state as John…

It may mean that no one else out there is suffering as much as John did, or it may mean that I just haven’t been able to find them yet.

I really hope it’s the former.

Looking at John getting so excited about playing the game did make my heart warm. I originally thought I would get a slight pang of jealousy seeing him getting to play in the elusive Beta test, but thankfully all I felt was happiness at seeing his excitement. I don’t know what I would have thought of myself if I got jealous at the first good thing to happen to the poor boy in his life.

When John finally left to play the game, I discussed with Leonard about whether it was the right thing to do about keeping John in the dark about so much, but his answer seemed to make sense. Why not let the boy enjoy the game without any worry for a bit?

As me and Leonard logged out and returned to room 306, we were immediately bombarded with questions. With a slight amused glance towards Leonard, I began explaining what happened inside to the two nurses, while Leonard started talking with his technicians.

Their expressions while retelling the story were hilarious, horrified at how John screamed with fright at the start, relieved when he calmed down, laughing when he found out how he had grown and finally crying while smiling when I told them how excited he was to play the game. Poor nurse Sandra was practically bawling by the end!

I left nurse Sandra in the arms of the other nurse, still bawling, and left the room, only to be surrounded by what seemed like every single nurse on the floor, demanding to know what all went down. Really, their fierce expressions made me take a step back before I had to remind myself that all they wanted was information, not my life!

I retold the story again, with many stops in between as people kept asking me to repeat myself when they couldn’t hear me properly. I ended up standing on top of a chair in the center surrounded by eager nurses on all sides, I even spotted a few doctors and other staff in between.

By the end, everyone was practically in tears again and ended up in each other’s arms. I gave them a good 5 minutes to cry themselves out before reminding them that there still are plenty of other patients that need our care. They all laughed and dispersed slowly, still wiping away their tears.

It really was such a warm sight and I realized I had tears slowly rolling down my cheeks too. I wiped them away and continued towards my office with a smile. Today was really a good day.

All I hope is that this experimental treatment somehow works and John gets cured!

Nurse Sandra’s POV:

I really am getting too old for this… If it weren’t for John I would have retired long ago. He’s the only thing that keeps me going through the long hours of constant work without much gratitude.

I count myself so lucky that I was one of the few people who have been with John ever since he arrived all those years ago. Taking care of him all these years while he grows up from a young boy to a handsome young man has been one of the greatest joys of my life!

I can’t even imagine what those animals were thinking when they made dear John go through hell. I felt bad when I shouted at my own children with anger, and they didn’t even bat an eye while they did horrific things to their own flesh and blood!

Yes, I checked it 3 times myself to make sure, John really is their child. How someone could mistreat their own child in such an extreme manner I have absolutely no idea!

I sometimes feel bad that I wasn’t there earlier to save John from their evil hands. I feel like if only I had put just a bit of an effort into looking at what people were doing, I would have been able to find John somehow. It won’t have been too hard, for I only live a block away from where John suffered.

That’s my greatest shame, to even be slightly associated with those animals. It’s also my greatest fear, I shudder to think what my colleagues would think of me if they found out how close I was to John for all his life and yet was unable to do anything.

They would probably think I’m a monster too.

I immediately started looking for a new house, and after convincing my husband and children with great difficulty, we were able to move away from that terrible neighborhood about 2 months after John first arrived.

By that time, both his parents had already been sentenced to 20 years without parole. I have kept a sharp eye on any news regarding them, but so far I’m glad to know that there are no signs of them being released early.

I’m not really a supporter of the death penalty, but let’s just say I know two people who would look very nice sitting on a certain electric chair….

Anyway….

I tried to to compensate for not doing anything while being so close to John all those years. I talked to him as much as I could, shared with him stories about my daughter and my two boys, read him books and massaged him as much as possible to stop his muscles from completely deteriorating from lack of use. It obviously wasn’t enough, but it really is the least I could do.

Although it first started off as me compensating, it soon turned to something much deeper. I actually started thinking of John as my own son, though I have no idea when this started.

When I learned of how some unknown game company wants to run an experiment on little John, I became so scared. I knew I didn’t hold any power to stop them from coming and performing their experiments, I really felt helpless. But Dr. Richard calmed me down and explained to me how it was all going to be fine. He really is a fine young man.

When they started wiring all sorts of God knows what in John’s room, I really couldn’t stop shaking and had to hold onto nurse Joy for support, lucky she was there with me in the room.

When the man called Leonard and Dr. Richard put on some kind of headgear and closed their eyes, the entire room fell silent. I thought the TV they had connected would show us the entire meeting but apparently Leonard asked the technicians not to show the meeting live… I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the Leonard guy much!

I had never felt such a tense silence before in my life! If it weren’t for the constant beeping of the machines, I felt as if the absolute silence would have suffocated us all!

After what felt like an eternity, Dr. Richard and Leonard finally arrived back to Earth! I immediately went to Dr. Richard and demanded he tell me all about what happened at once!

My heart broke when I heard about how John had first reacted, I should have known something like this would have happened! But then Dr. Richard said he calmed down soon after, thank God!

It was so nice to hear about how surprised he was with his bigger body. I had to laugh when Dr. Richard told me how John said, “OH MY GOD! ! How am I so tall? When did I grow so big?" Such a precious child he is, it’s so refreshing to hear about his sweet reactions.

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t hold back my tears while Dr. Richard was telling us about how excited John was to play the game where he could run around or do anything he likes! It must have been so wonderful for him to be able to walk again, even though it wasn’t really his real body.

How I wish I could have been there inside that room too to greet John. I feel so jealous of Dr. Richard and that Leonard fellow! I really don’t think I’m going to like him much…

I wish I could have seen John standing, hear his voice and look into his bright eyes. I can’t wait any longer to speak to him! That’s it, next time I am going inside that room no matter what!

As I cried my eyes out on the shoulders of nurse joy, all I kept thinking was, ‘I pray to God that this treatment works!’

Leonard’s POV:

I remember how I used to think how unlucky I was when I was younger. My family never had much money. We lived in a small apartment and barely got by. I remember how I used to blame my parents for their inability to provide a better lifestyle. It was obviously their laziness that was to blame. If someone works hard enough, they should be able to get plenty of money.

With that in mind, I worked extremely hard my entire life and climbed up to be the CEO of a gigantic global business at the mere age of 24. I remember how proud I felt then and how I had moved my parents to a grand house showing them how easy it is for me to get money.

I remember how the looked at me that time. And I remember how I didn’t care at all what they thought about me.

That all changed 16 weeks ago.

It started by someone discovering how our game could somehow be used to treat patients with mental illnesses. It originally was only meant to be restricted to people with social problems, to help them grow more confident while interacting with people inside the game.

However, soon enough it spread out to a seriously wide expanse of diseases which could potentially be cured. From letting blind, deaf and dumb people see, hear and speak for the first time, albeit in a virtual world. To helping patients with movement disorders by allowing them to move about freely in the virtual world. It finally ended up by people claiming that they could even wake people up from a coma with this game!

I remember thinking how wonderful all these new aspects were, even if we didn’t cure people we would at least be able to help them with enjoying their life again.

But before we started getting too excited, one of the directors pointed out that these were all just baseless theories, and we needed solid proof of if we can actually do what we are thinking about. He then ordered us to find someone, preferably unconscious for a long period of time, not too old not too young and not have many family or relatives that could be troublesome.

3 weeks later, we had found the perfect subject. A 17 year old young boy had been in a coma for the last 9 years, with no family/relatives around. It was all that we were looking for!

No one really cared about why the boy had been in a coma, all everyone cared about was how it could result in even more profits if their device somehow managed to cure such a serious illness!

I was the same, but curiosity got the better of me and I went to see for myself what the young boy looked like by finding out from the staff where exactly he was staying. A short flight later, I arrived at the Cleveland Clinic and went towards room 306, where I had been informed the boy was situated.

I calmly slipped into the room and saw the boy, and had barely taken a step forward before the door burst open with two nurses in front and three at the back, fierce expressions on their faces. “And what exactly do you think you are doing in here?” The elderly nurse in front asked me.

Gulping, I made an excuse of “Sorry, wrong room” and hastily fled out of the room at top speed for fear of my life! I was thankful that I had worn a hat that hid my face otherwise who knows what would have happened if they recognized me!

After escaping, I immediately ordered some staff to collect the information while I fled away to the safety of my office. After a few more days of waiting I finally got the details of the boy’s story.

It really was heartbreaking! How could someone treat their own child this way? I couldn’t even imagine it…

Suddenly I remembered how my parents had taken care of me. How they fed me till I was full while only eating a little themselves. How they had always let me have the most comfortable bed while themselves sleeping on the almost broken one. And how had I repaid them after all the love they showed me….?

I am a horrible human being!

I thought they were terrible parents for not having enough money to support me, but now I knew what terrible parents really are like!

I immediately bolted towards my parent’s house and bowed in front of them while begging them to forgive me. We all hugged and cried a lot that day.

This John Doe had unknowingly allowed me to see reality and ended up bringing me closer to my family. I vowed that day to not let John down, and to help him no matter what.

Everyone was surprised by how much I personally started to get involved with John, while giving my duties towards the upcoming Beta test second priority, but no one said anything to the me, after all I am the CEO here.

I personally double and triple checked everything before finally going towards the hospital, this time without hiding my face, to ask them permission.

I kept a really close eye all the way through the day where John finally took his first steps into the game world. It was lucky I remembered to ask the technicians not to show the meeting live on the TV, as I feared the nurses would do something terrible to me if I made even the slightest mistake!

It was really refreshing to meet John in person, and I felt extremely privileged to have been one of the first people to have met this gem.

I promised John not to show his game on the TV and I fully intend to keep his promise! He wants his privacy and he will get it! Obviously we have to keep monitoring his brain waves and health, and we have access to all stats of all players, including John, but I won’t allow anyone to get ahead of this!

As I left the hospital to go back to my office that night after seeing John off to play the game, all I could think was, ‘I really hope this experiment works and is able to help John.’

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As always any and all feedback is welcome. Let me know if you spot any mistakes.

P.S.: Nurse Joy.... Yes, that had to be done! I might even bring in Ash, Brock and Misty... who knows?