Stale Air

"Ah, yeah." was Evan's reply. His heart was turned heavy as he tried to figure out how he wanted to tell his friends about his death sentence's final countdown that has been handed down to Evan by Mallory's Disease.

The atmosphere turned tense as his friends grew quiet while they continued to skate. Judging by Evan's contorted face, they had a pit in their stomach form, but they hoped against the worst. It was good that there was no other groups skating around the four, or it might have dragged them into the oppressive mood that came over them.

"So, the reason I was sent into the medical wing was that last week one of my lungs failed and collapsed."

The three friends looked at him with concern. "What did they say?"

"Due to the shock of my lung collapsing it's started to affect the rest of my organs. If I'm lucky, my body will hold out for another 2 weeks. If I'm not, my organs will be failing by the end of the week, and I'll be gone shortly after." Evan's voice was shaking as he spoke the words. "After tomorrow they will be re-admitting me into the medical wing for my last days to 'make me comfortable'." Tears began to form around his eyes.

The others, who had hoped the worst not to come, were devastated at the news.

Alex tried to maintain a calm demeanor as he asked "Who else knows?"

"My parents and all the staff in the medical wing. I guess my mom and dad will tell the twins and Zack when I leave for the medical wing tomorrow night."

Joey slumped his shoulders " So that's why you were so insistent on hanging out today and tomorrow."

Ryan had fallen behind the others, his skating almost stopped as he listened to Evan. Noticing that he had basically stopped, Ryan began skating to catch up. "Can't they do anything like last time? I'm sure we could get you some replacement organs!"

Evan shook his head "If it was just a single organ it would be one thing, but it's almost all of them that are in shock. They already ran the simulations on if they opened me up for surgery and replaced any organ."

"And? Is it an option?"

"I'd die on the table before they could replace even half of the organs needed."

The three friends fully understood the gravity of what Evan was saying at this point. There was no saving him, Evan was going to die.

"It's not fair!" Alex cursed, the other two nodding in agreement.

"So, what are they going to do? Kill you before your organs do?" Ryan asked, his voice holding some resentment.

"I'm not sure to be honest. I'm sure they wouldn't do it, but if I go into cardiac arrest they told me I have a do not resuscitate on my chart." Evan skated up to a bench and sat down as he said this.

"And your dad didn't argue about it? I can't imagine he let that happen."

"The head and the chairs of the department had an entire discussion on it with. My dad can't overturn an order like that."

"Well, shit." Joey said as he looked up into the ceiling. "How are you feeling about it all Evan?"

"Honestly, I'm terrified."

--

The four young men sat around talking about their favorite memories, just reminiscing and enjoying their now precious and limited time with Evan. They did so for a couple of minutes, and continued skating for a bit before they started to walk around the ship aimlessly. Knowing Evan's love the parks and library they tended to end up in those areas as they continued their day. The group even walked by the old schooling section and talked about how they all met and the fun that they had.

"So here me and Jimmy were swinging on the playground watching everyone playing kickball, and we see this kid getting hit straight in the face with a stray ball. Both of us just started laughing and I say to Jimmy 'who is that kid?' and Jimmy just dead-pan stops laughing and says 'Oh dude I think that's the Mallory's kid from the class B.'" Ryan laughs, "After he says that I go 'We should prolly go check on him then' and we went over with everyone else who was rushing to Evan; and that was how I met Evan."

Evan chuckled "I remember that, my mom was furious with the teacher who let me onto the playground that day. 3rd grade right?"

Ryan nodded with a grin. The others were laughing and Alex cuts in "Same, I met Evan and a few minutes later he was hurt because we were playing catch."

"Hey you threw the ball too high."

"Yeah yeah yeah, excuses excuses."

"Man you guys met Evan in the weirdest times; I met him back in 5th grade and he was just sitting in the Heart drawing." Joey thought of his meeting "I just kinda walked over to him and thought it was cool that he had a drawing pad."

The group's mood was much lighter than it had been earlier in the roller rink, and they stopped their walk in front of one of the food courts. Using their meal access codes, the four piled into the area and grabbed some food. They all piled on their favorite foods, though the lack of meat available was a damper, it wasn't uncommon when delivery days were coming up. Some people who were in the food court recognized the four friends and dropped by to say hi.

"What jobs are you guys thinking of specializing into once you get out of the apprenticeships?" Evan asked. Being exempt from the program due to his condition, Evan was always curious about what work that his friends did when they were working. To keep himself occupied during these times Evan usually wandered around the ship, painted or would play with his younger siblings when they were home. The others were quite aware of this and would never fail to indulge Evan in his questions, each of them had even taken Evan on their jobs once or twice when the opportunities arose.

Alex was apprenticing in Leadership program to become a member of the Central Crew who were in charge of coordinating with other ships in the fleet and their local cluster. The Central Crew could be seen as being an equivalent of the ship's government in simple terms and would become extremely important in organizing the residents of the communities once they landed. Joey's apprenticeship was in the Teaching program, as he wanted to become a teacher and help bring up the next generation once they landed on Janus in the next few years. Lastly Ryan was apprenticing in the Medical program, with the intention of becoming a doctor, much like Evan's father.

"I'm going to be gunning for the Captain's chair, but who knows what that will become after we get to Janus." Alex responded.

"I want to just be a normal teacher, doesn't really matter what level"

"I want to be the chair of the medical wing. That jackass in charge right now doesn't care about the people that are admitted and just wants them back to work as soon as possible." Ryan said with some hints of anger, which had been at least partially fueled by Evan's situation.

"Well I hope you guys do well." Evan said with a bitter sweet smile. "Oh, and before we head out for the night, I have something for you guys."

Evan reached into a bag he had with him and pulled out three large pieces of paper. "Took me a bit of trouble to convince the supplies crew to give me this stuff, but I hope you guys like them."

On each of the pieces of paper was a rare sight on the ship; physical paintings. Each one was a similar image, each one having their own unique flairs. All of them were of the four friends, the difference being what they were doing. As the three friends took hold of their respective painting, they seemed much heavier than pieces of paper with paint on them.