The Reaping [malexmale]

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Death was so cold.

Or maybe it was just my death. I wasn't sure. I just know I was freezing cold and I wanted someone to bring me a blanket, or a heating pad. I wanted to curl up with something hot. I felt frozen inside and out. My bones felt like blocks of ice, muscles like slush, and blood like cold running water. The cold was so painful. It felt like bitter talons ripping through my flesh.

I got my sense of hearing back next. Through the agony spreading through me, I managed to pick up on a few foreign noises. It sounded like bubbles, maybe. A blorp sound followed by several more, mingling with the sounds of a machine beeping and another one hissing with air. The sounds were faint, but a bit off-putting.

I didn't like them.

Something about them was familiar, but the feeling it gave me was cold terror. I was so scared that I couldn't move. All I could do was lay in the cold. I parted my lips to breath in air, and much to my relief, warm fresh air flooded my lungs, causing them to expand, then contract, expand, then contract.

Was I still dead?

Could I breath while dead?

I didn't think so.

The next sounds I picked up on were voices. As I strained to hear them, I realized it was two men that sounded like they were arguing. One man, the one with a deep baritone voice thick with a foreign accent, sounded more annoyed. The second man sounded fed up, his voice was just a bit higher than the first man's, but not by much. He too had an accent, but it was different from the first man's. I focused in on their voices, trying to block out the piercing pain pulsing in my veins.

"... doing what I can and your bitching isn't helping. This isn't an easy procedure." The first man chided the other. He sounded like he was right next to me, but maybe muffled by some kind of barrier. A wall maybe? I couldn't tell. Everything was still black. I strained to hear the other man, and as I listened, I noticed his voice sounded more mechanical, or maybe just disrupted by static. Was he on a television screen of some sort?

"Hades, please. Just tell me how he's doing." The second man said, distressed. He sounded so fed up with this Hades person. I almost felt sorry for him. Who was he worried about? Was there someone else in the room I didn't know about?

Or... was it me?

No, it couldn't possibly be me. I don't remember anyone like him.

Actually... I couldn't remember anyone. A sliver of fear went through me as I tried to fish around for memories of the man, or Hades. I couldn't remember a single thing about them. I wasn't even sure where I was or what was happening. I just remember dying, or at least, I think it was dying. It sure felt like dying. It was painful and terrifying. But aside from that, everything else was a blank state, except my basic memories. How to eat, sleep, function properly. Mostly.

But it scared me that I couldn't remember who I was. I didn't even know my name, or the name of the other man. I wasn't sure where I came from, who my parents were, if I had any other family. I just remembered being cold, waking up so cold that it hurt. I needed to be warm.

Much to my relief, my eye sight was steadily returning. The blackness began to fade until I found myself staring at the inside of some kind of container. A long tube was coming out of a mask stuck to my face, and the tube disappeared through the top of the case I was in. It was some kind of breathing mask. I tried to move my body, but that luxery I hadn't regained yet.

I looked beyond the glass case over my head and found myself staring up at a ceiling designed to look like... like the sky maybe? It was a deep shade of navy with bright streams of light in shades of blue, green, pink, yellow.