Max slowly came back to consciousness, to the sound of voices speaking in hushed tones. He could not make out the words quite yet, but he felt the voices were familiar. As the cloud that surrounded his brain began to clear, he recognized the disembodied voices as his parents. He forced his brain to work, to process what the voices were saying.
He heard broken bits of his mother's voice. "...always the good brother."
"Yes..." his father spoke. "... cares a lot about Max...took one for the team."
"...will bring... figuratively closer." His mother spoke again.
Max sighed inwardly, finding it typical to overhear his parents speaking highly of his brother. If only he had just a little bit of their attention. "Mom... Dad..." Max finally spoke, his voice hoarse due to the dryness of his mouth. He slowly opened his eyes to see his parents standing a few feet away. They seemed to be by the foot of whatever bed he was in.
"Max?" his father spoke.
"Kenneth is not awake yet. Interesting... Hormones may not be synchronized yet." His mother said, though he did not understand the context.
"Perhaps, but in any case Kenneth will be waking soon too since Max has already done so. Neither can be asleep or awake for too long without the other following suite."
"Hormones... What?" Max was confused, but he was used to that. His parents, in all their brilliance, often forget they had a typical child like him. They often went on tangents that he did not understand.
"No need to worry Max." His father responded as he walked closer to his son. Max felt the warm of his father pat the top of his head. "How are you feeling?"
"Okay, I guess." He shifted his head on the pillow, and his neck immediately began to ache. "My neck hurts." he reported. He messaged the side of his neck where the pain was located, but then suddenly paused. He realized that he was moving a hand. "Is this my body?" He asked as he brought the hand into his view. Just from looking at it, he knew that it was not his own.
He tried to sit up, but he felt an unusual heaviness on his left. He attempted again, but only his right leg and arm pushed helplessly against the mattress. In a panicked moment, he thought that they had only given him half of a donor body. The left half seemed to be missing. He could not feel it. But then, he saw his father's strong arms holding him down in bed. "Don't try to sit up yet son." He said calmly.
Max relaxed for a moment, figuring that this body was still recuperating from the surgery. Perhaps the left half of his body needed time to heal, so they numbed. He turned his head to the left, but saw a short padded divider blocking his vision. Before he could ask about it, he noticed his parents share a knowing look; their expressions seemed to be a mixture of excitement and pain.
"You see son..." his father started, his tone indicating bad news. "Your body had more damage than I initially thought. The regeneration procedure was not working as it should have been."
"My body's dead..." Max felt blood leave his face and the hairs on his right arm stood on end.
"Yes and no..." His mother answered. "We could not heal the majority of your body, but there were healthy sections left in tact that were responding to your father's regeneration procedure. He saved major portions of it like your heart and a lung, but you would obviously need more than just organs to live. So, we still needed to find you a new body, not just a donor."
"Okay..." Max gulped loudly despite the dryness of his mouth. "So, this is my body?"
"Yes and no..." His mother answered again. "You see honey... it was rather difficult finding a replacement body, and a mechanical one ended up being out of the questions. The technology is just not there yet. But thankfully Kenneth..."
Max fought the instinct to roll his eyes at the mention of his brother's name. "What amazing thing did he do this time?" His voice had a note of sarcasm, but his parents did not seem to pick up on it.
"Even though you guys are a year apart... you always looked similar to each other. A genetic test verified that you hit the lottery in a sense." His mother spoke as if he really had won the lottery. "You and your brother share the majority of your genes, which is atypical for non-twin siblings. Usually, siblings only share a maximum of 50% of their genes, but the two of you share about 90-80%. Biologically, you were nearly perfect matches."
"Perfect matches for what?" Max questioned. He did not understand how this tangent about genetics answered his question.
His father sighed before trying to explain. "Your brother volunteered to donate his body, to save you."
"I have Kenneth's body?" Max was not sure how he felt about that. "Why would he give up his body?"
"He didn't give it up Max..." His father sighed again.
As if they had practiced a routine, his mother removed the divider that blocked the left side of the room from view. Beside him was his groggy brother, appearing to just be returning to consciousness. Max brain began to spin. He did not understand why his brother was in the same bed as him, but then his mother pulled off the blanket. There was only one body lying in the bed.