This choice: Your best friend, Randall (though he's not really dead). • Go Back...Chapter #5Your best friend, Randall (though he's not ... by: Wassel   "...It's your friend, Randall. He's dead."
On hearing this you felt like you'd just been punched in the gut. Bursting immediately into tears. Randall having been your best friend since the two of you were like 3 years old. A consummate joker with a wicked personality who was always there when you needed him. Sharing your love of everything from video games to comics, to sci-fi movies and girls. Not being able to imagine a world without him. Without his bright red hair and trademark goofy smile.
He was gone though. The doctors assuring you of that as they tried their best to comfort you (failing rather miserably). Informing you of what exactly had happened. How the impact of the truck that hit you caused too much internal damage to his body. Having apparently died before they'd even had a chance to operate. You weren't really taking any of this information in however. Still reeling from the news. The two doctors giving you one or two last few words of sympathy before rushing off to fetch your parents. The rest of your family thankfully having come out unscathed.
Left alone to wallow in your grief, your thoughts turned to all the things that you and your best friend of the last 13 years had long planned to do together, that would sadly no longer come to pass. Like passing your drivers test and getting your own car. Finding yourself girlfriends and popping your cherries. Graduating high school. Heading off to college and away from his bitch of a step-mom. Having your first beer in a bar. So many things that you'd been looking forward to. Who would you do these things with now? You didn't have anyone else. Not anyone like Randall...
In the days that followed, after you were released from the hospital, your parents and siblings (who were also extremely close to Randall) supported you as best they could. Repeatedly telling you that "things will get better", even though it really didn't feel like they would right now. As for Randall's own parents, Jim and Alice (his uber religious step-mom), you barely saw either of them. Seemingly keeping their distance from you. Granted, you'd never really been that close with either of them due in no small part to how shitty Alice treated him. As if he were some sort of deviant just because he, like any normal 16 year old, liked violent video games and looking up porn. But still... You'd have thought given the circumstances that they'd at least try to make an effort, but they didn't. They both seemed colder than normal. Disturbed even. At Randall's funeral a week later, looking as if they wanted it to be over as soon as possible. Like they were done with him. Like he no longer mattered. This naturally making you angry. Disliking them even more. It being no wonder that Randall had wanted away from them as soon as humanly possible. Well, you got your wish buddy. If only it could have happened some other way.
After the funeral, you didn't see either Jim or Alice again. Not to check in, or to even perhaps give you some of Randall's things that you knew he probably would have wanted you to have. As for everyone else, things went pretty much back to business as usual once the 'grieving period' was over. One week turning into two, then three and soon you were back at school. Being looked upon with pity as that guy who's best friend had died.
And so this continued, and over the next two months you learned to somehow carry on without your friend. Finding a new group at school to hang with, as well as new things to occupy your time. Never forgetting about him though. Especially when you fired up your Xbox after school. Gaming together online having been the two of yous most popular past time.
"It's just not the same..." you sighed, after growing bored of playing COD on your own. Missing Randall's running commentary. Usually having you in fits of laughter as you played. "Wonder if anyone else is online. Chris or Danny maybe." Clicking on your friends list to check, you nearly fell out of your chair when you saw the Xbox ID 'TheRandallnator'. This being Randall's ID. "What the hell?" Was someone else using Randall's Xbox? Alice or Jim maybe... No. No way. You couldn't see either of them even knowing how to work the thing, never mind actually play a game, which was what whoever this was appeared to be doing now. Halo 2, another one of Randall's faves. I guess maybe they gave it to someone else or something, you figured. Though if that were the case, why would they still be using Randall's ID. Why wouldn't they have their own?
"Well, there's only one way to find out," you said to yourself. Clicking on the name and quickly typing a message that read, Hey. Who is this?, before hitting send.
You waited for a couple of minutes for a response. Getting none. It seeming like whoever it was was just going to ignore you, when all of a sudden a message came back.
Hey, dude. Hows it going? it read.
Good, you tentatively replied. Asking again, Who is this and why are you on Randall's account?
Again there was a pause. It taking another couple of minutes for a reply. What it read however, throwing you completely through a loop.
Well, that's that's the thing. This is Randall. I'm alive. Ta da!
What the fuck?! What kind of sick joke is this? Not finding it funny in the slightest.
Replying to this message in much the same way, the mystery joker on the other side was quick to type back. I know how it sounds, but I promise you I'm not joking. It's really Randall. I survived the car accident but the doctors made me swear not to tell anyone for legal reasons. I shouldn't even be telling you.
You really expect me to believe that?
It's the truth, I swear. They did this brain transplant thing. I don't fully understand it, but it meant me having to pretend I was dead. Even my dad and Alice agreed to it, even though they've pretty much disowned me now. I'm really sorry for deceiving you, dude.
Wait... Brain transplant? You remembered hearing something like that before, back at the hospital... No... No way. It can't be... Can it? Could this really be Randall that was talking to you now? Had the doctors actually lied to you? It certainly 'sounded' like him (as much as a written message could).
It seemed absolutely insane to even be considering this, but you couldn't get the idea out of your head now. Desperately wanting it to be true so that you could have your friend back. No matter what the doctors did to him. Typing back then, Alright, if you're really Randall then answer me this. Thinking up the most obscure question that you could possibly think of. That only the real Randall would ever know. Settling on, By how many kills did I beat you in our last COD match?
Fuck off, dude! You didn't beat me. You never beat me. I had like 12 and you had a measly 5. Who'd you think you're fooling here?
"Holy shit! It is him!" you squeaked. Almost dropping your controller. This being the exact reaction Randall normally gave you when you pretended you were actually better than him at games. Pretty sure he would have memorized the score too.
No fucking way! Randall? Is that really you?
That's what I've been telling you.
You were absolutely flabbergasted, yet ecstatic at the same time. He was alive. Your best friend was actually alive. It was incredible!
Anxious to find out exactly what had happened, why the doctors had lied and why exactly it had taken close to three months for him to finally come clean (which appeared to have happened purely by chance) you immediately questioned him.
It's complicated, he replied. I'll explain it all to you soon. But right now I really have to go. I'm sorry.
What? He was just going to duck out on you after dropping a bombshell like this? "No fucking way!" you muttered. Insisting then that he explain everything to you first.
Again, his reply came back that he couldn't and that he really did have to go. Assuring you however that he'd contact you later, when he had more time.
Naturally you weren't happy with this, but what could you do. Watching as 'TheRandallnator' went offline. Leaving your mind racing with everything you'd just been told. Randall was alive... His parents had disowned him... The doctors did something to his brain... What the hell was going on?
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