Okay, number one, it was severely bright when I tried to open my aching eyes. Number two, I smelled hospital, and number three, I remembered what I was doing before everything went black and figured that I was more than likely in a morgue instead of a hospital. I was on some sort of hospital bed type thing, though, unless future morgues put bodies on mattresses.
I mean, I thought I was still in the future.
“Why is it so freakin’ bright?” I tried to say but my throat somehow wouldn’t work.
Odd.
I tried to say the same thing for about a minute of two and, after a lot of effort on my part, was finally able to get out a sort of gurgling sound.
It took me a little while longer and I was able to say two words consecutively.
“Sushi… tacos…”
“He’s awake,” I heard a female voice say from somewhere behind my head and I tried to turn and get a look at the owner but realized, in horror, might I add, that my head seemed to be held in place by a vice.
Panicking, I tried to grab at the restraint and realized—yes, with more horror—that my wrists were bound as well.
Have I ever mentioned that waking up strapped to a table/bed is not the greatest feeling in the world? Not sure if you’ve ever had the pleasure of the experience but let me tell you that if you haven’t, you’re not missing much.
“Let me… go…” I managed, instantly out of breath from the sheer struggle of just three words and I silently swore that if I got out of this alive, I would definitely go to the gym.
Then the owner of the voice appeared at my bedside.
Or tableside, maybe.
She was maybe close to thirty, I was guessing and had jet—black hair and was a tad different looking. Not hot, not hideous but somewhere in between.
“Name?” I got out, trying to narrow my eyes at her.
“Rest, Mr. Johnson,” she said, typing at something in her hands and in a few seconds my eyes closed and I was out.
This happened more frequently over what I could only discern as weeks upon weeks. Me strapped to the bed, (yes, I’d finally decided that it wasn’t a table after a few days), the no—named, plain woman appearing after I’d talked to myself (which was really me trying to get anyone to talk to me) for a while and sedating me, and on and on.
It was pretty much the worst month of my freakin’ life. At least, I hoped it was only a month. It really could have been longer, I guess, because there wasn’t exactly a clock on the wall.
Then, the day of reckoning finally, finally arrived.
I said a complete sentence.
Nay, so strong were my newly trained vocal cords that I shouted a sentence.
“What the helheim, people? Why am I here and what are you planning to do with me?”
Yeah, I was pretty proud of that one. Not that it did much good to get anyone’s attention but a guy had to keep trying.
After that day I was able to talk, shout, scream or even, on one occasion, do a little rap number I’d been working on in my time of solitary confinement.
About two weeks post sentence I was taken aback when the lights shut off in the room.
“Finally,” I said. “I was wondering how long you idiots would make me sleep through miniature suns.”
I wasn’t worried about ticking anybody off, if you hadn’t already deduced that on your own. I mean, sure, I was, in fact, strapped to a table and at their (whoever they were) complete mercy. But I figured that they wouldn’t have been going through all the trouble of keeping me there hooked up to a lot of machines with a nurse checking in on me every day just to get annoyed at my wit and slit my throat, or something.
Then one lone light appeared above me and I closed my eyes. “And it’s back. Thanks for the tease, guys.”
“How are you feeling, Mr. Johnson?” said the only other person I’d seen in months as she materialized beside my bed, her face shrouded due to the bright light above her head.
“Am I really wearing nothing but a cloth around my nether regions like it feels like I am?” I asked her.
Since it seemed a harmless question, she answered, “Yes.”
“Then, please, call me Jericho,” I said sarcastically. “As much of a player as I might look like, doll, most of the time I do know a girl’s name before she gets this far. Just FYI.”
“FYI?” she asked, and I could feel her frown of confusion.
“It means ‘for your information’,” I explained, not knowing exactly why. Maybe because I felt like she should have known that one.
“Oh,” she said quickly, referring back to the hologram—clipboard thingy in her hands.
I felt like I was trying to sneak up on a deer and that the least little bit of commotion would scare away my mystery nurse’s seemingly talkative mood. Since I might only be allowed one more sentence, I decided to make it a good one that wouldn’t frighten her.
“So, are you, like, a mad scientist, or something?”
See? I’m a genius.
“No,” she replied. “I work for a scientist.”
“Is he the mad one?”
“No.”
“You sure? ‘Cause the last time I checked I was strapped to a bed.”
“It is merely for your own protection, Mr. Johnson, as your new bio-muscles are not fully compatible with your new synthetic ones.”
What. The. Helheim?
“Back up, darling,” I said, rolling my eyes around, mainly because that was the only thing I could actually move. “I could have sworn that you said I had synthetic muscles inside of me.”
“You do. Only about 45% of your muscles were salvageable after the explosion- and even those weren’t the easiest to save.”
Who was this lady? She was talking about salvaging my body like she was discussing what to make for dinner with her husband, for God’s sake.
“So you and, uh, whoever the mad scientist you work for, like, pulled me out of rubble, or something?”
“Exactly, yes,” she said, still looking at the device in her hand.
Sighing, I told her, “Look, I dated a chic that was always on her smart—phone and I got to say, it’s kind of annoying.”
She flicked her eyes to me to see if I was serious. When she saw that I was, she hit a button somewhere on the clipboard-sized green tablet and it vanished.
“How’d you—?” I started but stopped myself. I’m pretty sure I’d seen too much of the future to get all geeked out on the hologram tablet thingy. “I mean, uh, why did you and whoever save me?”
“I don’t have clearance to tell you anything, Mr. Johnson,” said the silhouette.
“Then why talk to me now? I’ve been here for two months, maybe.”
She was silent.
“Hello, strange-mad-scientist-lackey chic, why talk now?” I growled.
“You’ve been here longer than two months, Mr. Johnson,” she said quietly.
“Ok, two months was undershooting it a little—“
“You’ve been here almost three years,” she cut in, and then gasped softly as if she wasn’t supposed to tell me that.
My breathing became rapid.
My vision blurred.
“What?” I asked as calmly as I could, my voice quivering.
“It’s December of 2344. You’ve been here since February of 2342. We’ve been—“
I didn’t hear the rest because by then I was screaming.
“Sedate him,” I heard a male voice crackle over a speaker in the room. “Now!”
I felt severely hot and began thrashing. I can’t explain what was happening to me right then. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t pretty. The bulbs in the bright lights above me suddenly shattered, dropping pieces of glass and phosphorous all over my almost naked body.
That’s when I felt it the first time.
The small tingling in my palms.
Then everything went black again.
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