#you will literally kill yourself after your first bus trip at rush hour during summer be fr

[sudaca-swag]

new reality show idea we make self proclaimed poor usamericans try to live in our countries with minimum wage and working class conditions and housing for a month and see how they cope

[tinkadreamchaser]

Try Again: Chapter 1 - Voicing Concern

Nobody had expected them to ever wake up again.

After Willard and Clifford Taylor had been in the intensive care unit of Piedmonts hospital for a total of five years, most of the doctors and even their parents had been ready to give up hope, when all of a sudden, on a warm summer day, the machines registered increased brain activity in one of the boys. Immediately the doctors were calling their parents to the hospital, even though they warned that he may not be waking up fully.

“Hurry up!”

“I’m on my way, dear” Sam Taylor yelled back from their doorstep. His wife drummed her fingers on the console of the car.

“I thought you might appreciate it if I locked up before we left.” he said when he slipped into the already running car.

“Will is waking up, we have to hurry!”

However, it would take much longer until anything noteworthy would happen again. Sam and Annie sat by their sons’ bedsides for forty-two hours before they were convinced to leave for longer periods of time again. They did however tend to come more often after knowing one of their twins was getting better. It filled them with hope to know that Will was waking up, even though he was the one who got the worst of the crash.

His entire right side had been slammed into by the truck that had crashed into their school bus during that fateful Christmas trip and he had to undergo surgery so that his broken ribs and his head wound wouldn’t kill him. It already was a miracle that the then seven-year-old had survived the crash itself, much less the next weeks after the surgery. But when he joined Clifford in his comatose state, it became clear that he was still far from good health.

And even now that he appeared to become more active, it was only his body starting to heal itself again.

Two years after the first ‘wake-up’ scare, their parents called off their Halloween date after another phone call from the hospital reporting that the Clifford was now also showing more brain activity than before. He had had a concussion and severe whiplash, but apart from a broken leg, and bruised back, not many worse injuries. However, the neurologists of the hospital had found that Cliff's brain had suffered great damage in the area of his cerebral cortex and that it would most likely alter and maybe totally erase his memory, should he ever wake up. Now, however, that damage seemed to repair itself.

“This is literally impossible! The connections were severed, the only way they could be rebuilt was if he was actually learning something!” ranted Cliff's neurologist, Dr. Henry Mort.

“And if you tell me it’s magic, sir, we just want to know if he’s waking up!” Sam insisted while holding his wife close. Dr. Mort sighed.

“Technically speaking, they are on the way to recovery. They are physically in the best condition they can be. Now we just wait.”

From then on, they did. The boys both took a long time waking up, and every other year they would show signs of waking up, only to fall back into their comatose state.

---B-----L-----E-----T-----E-----I----

"I just don't know anymore, dear. Will they even be the same as before?" Annie sighed and stood from the uncomfortable plastic hospital chair to cross the room. She laid a hand on Will's cheek.

"The accident alone must have been enough to traumatize them, but if they ever wake up they will be in a body that is ten years older than their minds."

Her husband walked up to her and took her in his arms.

"It will be okay, An. Clifford will certainly have it easier, he always was very mature, and I'm sure Willard will also be able to handle it. He is very headstrong; he won't give up. Neither of them will."

It was obvious to his wife that he was no longer talking about the twins’ ability to adapt to their situation, but about the likelihood of either even waking up again. A wave of hopelessness swept over her, brought on by a decade of waiting for her children to awake from their accident-induced coma.

The accident itself had been tragic. It happened during a pre-Christmas class trip that their school had organised. The bus their class had taken had been rammed by a truck driver who had lost control over the truck during a blizzard. Most of the second graders were only hurt superficially and a few got lucky and didn't get harmed at all. However, the twins that had been unfortunate enough to sit in the back row, where the truck hit the bus. The children in that part of the bus were hurt the worst and many were hospitalized for weeks, some of them took a week to wake up, so for a while, everyone had believed that little Will and Cliff would wake up soon as well.

They did not.

Annie turned towards her husband and buried her face in his shoulder before the sobs started to claw their way out of her.

Sams grip tightened around her.

They rarely visited nowadays, at least compared to the first month when they made sure one of them was at the hospital all the time. Their visits had lessened over the years and now they checked up on the boys every month and whenever the hospital called them because of increased activity. Only a few days ago, they had been visiting two motionless seventeen-year-olds and just this morning they got a call that their heart rates were picking up.

"Hng..."

The adults snapped around at the sound, eyes darting between Cliff and Will, trying to figure out who had made the sound. Neither of them had heard a single sound from their boys in years and now both of the twins’ heart rates were getting faster than before and Willards face twisted into a pained frown.

Sam hastily let go of his wife and pressed the button to call a nurse, while Annie rushed back and forth between Will and Clifford, the latter now also beginning to stir.

---I-----&-----A-----A-----A-----V----

Hurts.

Too bright.

Why is it so bright?

Isn't it supposed to be much darker?

Ouch.

He was barely able to peel his eyes open before he had to clench them shut again. Immediately after, sound seemed to explode around him.

"-ights off, he ca-"

"-ard is waking up t-

"-ease, you should lea-"

"-aven't been with them for years, how ca-"

"-some calm and quiet, come on."

It got much quieter.

"Are you doing alright?" A calm, female voice asked.

He tried to get his voice to work, but could only manage a small groan.

"Who?"

A deep voice came from his left, seeming groggy and slurred.

"That is your brother, I believe he might be awake too. Are you? Clifford?"

He tried opening his eyes again, since his voice seemed to fail him for the moment. This time, he was not met with the harsh brightness from before.

"There you go. We dimmed the lights and closed the curtains. It should be better now, right?"

He turned his head. Even this small movement made him feel like lead. He could slowly make out the fuzzy shapes of a room. There were white walls, a soft blue floor, a table with chairs and another bed. Suddenly, there was movement at the foot if his bed.

He didn't even realize he was in a bed.

The movement had come from a person in soft blue scrubs.

'Nurse' his brain supplied.

He has no idea how he knows this.

"What...?"

He wanted to ask what happened, what is going on, where am I. So many questions and he was pretty sure he already mangled that 'what?' beyond recognition.

Nevertheless, the nurse answered.

"Now, you both are awake right now? Try to make any movement that is easiest for you."

He tried to move his fingers, his head, anything at all, but didn't feel like he was having any success, so he croaked out a hoarse "Yeah".

"Oh dear, try not to speak too much, alright? Those vocal cords haven't been in use for a long time."

He heard rustling and then the female voice, slightly panicked: "Don't! You cannot sit up on your own yet! Let me help you!"

He hadn't even realized that his eyes had slipped closed again, so he reopened them and concentrated more on keeping them open.

The nurse was standing near the other bed, helping a young man sit up and adjusting the bed so it supported him.

"There. Please don't do that again."

“Why?” He whispered as loudly as he could without using his vocal cords. Kind of like speaking with a bad cough.

"Oh, both of you. You," she turned towards him " are going to break your vocal chords if you continue, and you," She turned back towards the other " are going to overwork yourself. You will get your answers soon, I'm just here to let you get adjusted to the light and to make sure you are conscious before the doctor arrives."

She walked over to the window to the left of his bed.

"I am going to open the curtains step-by-step, alright? Try not to look directly into the light, please."

She opened the curtains to his left side and a small bit and bright sunlight spilled inside. He immediately clenched shut his eyes, before turning the other way and looking at the person in the bed next to him. The man, or maybe still a boy, had his eye mostly open. He blinked a few times to confirm. Yes, eye. His right one was covered with gauze.

“Is this alright?” asked the nurse.

After receiving the barest of nods from him, as well as a spoken confirmation from the other boy, which she immediately scolded, she sighed. “I’ll go get some water, do not” she fixated the other “move.”

After she opened the curtains a tad more, she left through one of the two doors in the room. As soon as it closed behind her, the other grinned weakly and looked at him.

“Hey” the Other whispered hoarsely.

What the nurse had said before kept him silent. His voice was important to him. He didn't know why, but it was scary to think of losing it. He shook his head slightly, with what he assumed was a scandalized look on his face.

The Other made a weird sounding noise that might have been a chuckle.

“Who?” he asked the Other

‘What is he asking? Who? …. Who am I?’

He paused, his eyes widening.

‘Who am I?’

He frowned. The Other was still staring, so he shrugged. He stared back intensely.

“Me?” the Others face twitched in an odd way. He looked scared for a second.

“Same…”

There were only a few seconds of silence before the door opened again. He could catch a glimpse of soft orange tiles. He kind of liked that colour. The nurse was pressed a few buttons on his bed and he felt himself sitting up.

“Alright, I have some water for you.” The nurse raised a cup to his mouth to help him drink. The water rushing down his throat was an incredible feeling.

“There, try to say something now.”

“Who a-” his voice got stuck. He coughed for a short while, before the other glass of water the nurse had was offered.

“We might need some syrup.” the nurse said, as if to herself, before reaching for her phone and typing something in. Then she opened the curtains a bit further and returned to the bathroom again.

He caught the look the Other was giving him. ‘Ask’, it said. He nodded, and the Other grinned, a bit less pained now.

When she came back however, she gave the two glasses to the Other, who voiced his concerns the second she set the second glass down.

“Who are we?” the Other croaked. He didn’t seem to have trouble with speaking as much as he himself did.

The nurse gave the Other a look. “Shush.” Then she sighed and looked from the Other to him. “Do neither of you know your names?”

They shook their heads. She went to the table and scribbled something on a notepad before going to the curtains again and opening them the rest of the way.

“You’ll have to speak to the doctor I’m afraid.”

Just then, the door opened and said doctor entered the room. He was relatively short and skinny, with glasses and a giant smile on his face.

“Hello, boys. It is great to see you awake. I’m Dr. Daniels.”

“Anything else you need?” the nurse asked, but the doctor shook his head.

“Go and take care of Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, they must be worried. Just tell them everything will be fine and explain why you had to kick them out.”

“Yes, sir.” She leaned closer to tell the doctor something he couldn’t make out. Dr. Daniels just nodded once and wrote something on his notepad.

Once the nurse left the room, Dr. Daniels turned to them.

“Alright, boys, first things first: Mrs. Frosts tells me you have mentioned not knowing your names, is that correct?”

He nodded and saw that the Other did as well.

“Alright then, I hope you know that speaking in your condition might not be beneficial to your vocal cords, I hope you were told this?”

Again they nodded. However, he did sense a lot of annoyance coming from the Other.

“Good. So, about your names…I assume it is not just those, am I right? Do you remember anything from before?”

He shook his head. The Other thought for a moment, then did the same.

“Alright, alright…” the doctor wrote down some more on his clipboard.

“Names.” the Other insisted with a gruff voice. It seemed to stem more from frustration than the condition of his throat.

“Oho, alright, didn’t mean to make you wait. You are Willard Taylor” he gestured at the Other “and Clifford Tylor.” Now Dr. Daniels was looking at him.

��Clifford? Seems like a fancy name.’

“You are twins.”

He looked across the room to the Oth- to Willard.

“Will.” the boy insisted.

“That’s what your parents called you, do you remember that?”

Will shook his head. “Willard’s just stupid”

Dr. Daniels laughed loudly. “Alright, I can’t argue with that!”

He took out two pens and gave one of them to Clifford.

“Here, how do you use this?”

Clifford looked down at the pen. It was a simple ballpoint pen, he just had to push on the button at the end.

“Good. Now here” he handed him his clipboard. A worksheet was tacked in.

“Could you please fill this out?”

Dr. Daniels then went over to Will and repeated the process.

“I’m stepping outside for a bit, I will be back with your parents in fifteen minutes, alright? Also, don’t copy! There is a camera in here, alright?” he grinned and left the room.

Clifford looked down at the sheet.

 Name:

 Age:

 Gender:

 He stared.

‘Dr. Daniels has told us our names, but not how they’re spelled… Is he trying to see how we would spell them? And he didn’t tell us our age either...’

He looked down at himself, then at his supposed twin. He smiled and brought the pen to the paper.

 Name: Clifford Tailor

 Age: around 17?

 Gender: Male

  Math

 5+3=____

 11+12= _____

 10-5= _____

 17-8=_____

 2x4=_____

 4x4=_____

 9x7=_____

 6/3=______

 21/3=______

7/2=_____

(1028/4) + 3= ____________

Clifford frowned. Except for that last one, these questions were easy.

‘What is this test even for?’

  Math

   5+3= 8

   11+12= 23

   10-5= 5

   17-8= 9

   2x4= 8

   5x3= 15

    9x7= 63

   6/3= 2

   21/3= 7

7/2= 3,5

 He thought for a minute.

(1028/4)+3= 257+3= 260

                   /2 = 514

                   /4 = 257

There. That should be right.

   Spelling - Correct the following text

 i see a snoman

 _________________________

 he is waering a black hat

__________________________

 the scarf is red

__________________________

 my neybour build it

__________________________

 he also build a egloo

__________________________

He chuckled. Will looked over for a second, then skimmed his sheet and grinned as well.

   Spelling - Correct the following text

 i see a snoman

 I see a snowman.

 he is waering a black hat

 He is wearing a black hat.

 the scarf is red

 The scarf is red.

 my neybour build it

 My neighbour built it.

 he also build a egloo

 He also built an igloo.

Cliff frowned. There was nothing else on this page.

“That’s it?” Will flipped his sheet over to look at the back of it, then threw a sceptical glance at his supposed twin.

Cliff just shrugged. After taking a look at the clock and seeing that the doctor had only left the room 3 minutes ago, he started doodling on the back of his sheet.

Will, however, got bored after doodling a little Christmas tree in the corner of his sheet, so he put it on his nightstand and then braced himself with his elbows against the bedding.

The other teen saw him move.

“Hey!” he whispered with a scolding tone.

Will just threw him a smirk and pushed himself further up into a sitting position, legs dangling off the side of the bed. He looked down and grimaced at the sight of his IV.

“Just gonna…” he trailed off in a cough, which turned into a whole coughing fit.

Apparently, the doctor had heard this, and shortly after the first few coughs, the door opened again.

“Oh, Will, what are you doing, boy? You shouldn’t be sitting up.”

The coughing boy let himself flop back down into the bed and wheezed a few times.

“Here, have some more water.”

Dr. Daniels offered him his glass of water, which he drank greedily to soothe his dry throat.

“Done.” He rasped.

“And you shouldn’t be talking either, alright?” Dr. Daniels shoulders slumped and he had an exasperated look on his face. “You were less of a troublemaker when you were still asleep.”

Will rolled his eyes and pointed to the worksheet on his table, and then at Cliff.

The doctor fixed his glasses and reached for the paper. After looking it over, he frowned.

“Alright?” he gestured to Cliff “I guess you are done as well?”

The boy nodded and gave his worksheet to him. He looked this over as well, then he nodded.

“I’ll be back in a while. I’m going to get you more water and some cough syrup, alright?” he asked with a concerned look.

The twins nodded, then the doctor left again.

---L-----B-----S-----R-----L-----E----

Annie and Sam sat outside their sons’ door, waiting for the doctor to come back out and let them see their children again.

A while ago, they had been sent outside to wait, since they would have scared the boys in their frazzled state. By now, even Annie had calmed down enough to see the reasoning behind this.

"Oh god, I must have acted so childishly. Do you think that I was irresponsible? What if they don't let us take them home?! That happens sometimes after giving birth, they don't let the mothers take their babies home because they think they are too irresponsible or-"

"Calm down, An." Sam laid his hands on her face and leaned in to lay his forehead against hers. "You and me both are worried parents who have waited ten years for their sons to wake up from their comatose state after a terrible accident. I believe they won’t judge us for being a little childish and thoughtless. We didn't expect the boys to wake up again and now that they have, we don't know what to do or expect. And that is alright. And you know Henrick, he’ll understand."

"You're right. Of course you are. I'm just......worried? Like you said, we didn't expect that they would wake up and now.... we still have their old bunk bed. They won't even fit in there, and I don't even know if they still want to share a room now. And we don't even have another room left, unless we clear out the attic."

"Let's worry about that later, alright? We know we have a lot to do, but for now, let's wait for Henrick and see how our sons are, alright?"

Just then, Dr. Henrick Daniels came back out of the room. He had been with the family for the entire experience, and they had become well acquainted over the years. The Taylors knew he felt a sense of responsibility for the boys and they were glad to have someone they could trust. Right now, however, they were a little concerned, since the doctor no longer wore the large grin he had since first hearing the boys had officially woken up.

“What’s wrong?”

He sighed.

"I would like to ask you not to expect too much, alright? There is little to no chance that they will be the same as all those years ago. Waking from a coma is more than just the actual waking up. Usually, patients will have to relearn many things, from basic motor skills to speech. Most likely, they are going to be very different in personality and temper. Their head injuries may influence their mood, make them prone to sudden aggressiveness, so I suggest to prepare yourselves for that, alright? And these are just general effects the brain damage could have. After the MRT, we will be able to tell you more. We just need you to understand that before getting up your hopes too much." He paused and looked down at the two sheets of paper. “Alright. Now, I need you to try and remember: When they were in second grade, what had they already learned, and how good were they at those things?”

“Huh, why?” Annie stood from her seat.

“Due to the… rather unusual new connections that were made in their brains during the past couple years, our neurologists allowed themselves the gag of putting in a few harder tasks into their tests. They believed the boys might be able to solve them with the new layout their minds seemed to have. But those were not problems they should have been able to solve as second graders.”

He handed over the tests.

“They solved all of them in less than five minutes.”