1000 YEARS - Book 1 - Awakening

2. Strange Discoveries*

DAY 3:
She had awoken, abruptly, into broad daylight, to the presence of the three of them. Nakamura and Phelps, looking expectantly on either side of her bed. Seth, motionless, at the foot of her bed. His face once more devoid of any expression. But his half-closed eyes had been fixed on her. She had felt him watch her — intently, ...scrutinizing even, when the day prior his glances had been all but disinterested.

The doctors' interrogation had repeated as before: had she slept restfully? Did she remember her name? Had any memories come back? Had any familiar faces entered her dreams or awareness?
Again, there had been that peculiar bedside manner — the vacant stares at some spot above the center of her bed. And this time the stoic man had joined in. Her answers had been dismal: there had been no change from the prior day. Her past and her identity remained shrouded behind a dense white fog that was the vacuum of her memories.

What confounded her though, was that she had awoken on top of her bed covers, dressed from head to toes in what resembled a black ...wetsuit? ...complete with socks and fingered gloves. How she had gotten into this tight-fitting attire without so much as waking up seemed like a bit of a mystery. Then again, her entire existence — everything about her current situation seemed a mystery, and strangely surreal.
She felt her nerves quiver.

"Today we will start reactivating your neural pathways and muscle tone. The, uh, Seth will be with you throughout the process," Nakamura had chirped. But beneath the cheerful tone and polite smile there had been something else...

— A weariness? An apprehension perhaps?
Or perhaps her high-strung nerves were just imagining it?...

"These will help with the visualization process" Phelps had said and slipped a fully enclosed visor over her face. She had heard a 'click' near her temple flowed by a slight prickling sensation and everything had gone black. Then the visor had activated, and she had found herself staring at a brightly lit white space.

They were really quite fond of their all-white color scheme...!?

An androgynous figure materialized in front of her field of view, and its genderless voice spoke to her: "Welcome Alfafor. I will demonstrate the motions and you will experience the equivalent stimulation. Please focus your attention on the sensations and allow your mind to remember them. Please do not fight anything you feel."

— Huh, what?

Then it began.
The left hand of the figure came into focus, palm up, and slowly the fingers closed into a fist. An instant later she felt pinpricks in her own left hand and could have sworn that she too was tightening her fingers into a fist.
The exercises continued: finger mobility, palm flexing, wrist rotations, first on one hand then the other, followed by arm lifts, bends, and stretches. Little electrical jolts pulsed through her limbs, giving her the distinct impression that her body was replicating the motions exactly as demonstrated — even as her mind told her that some of these motions were quite impossible in her recumbent position. This became particularly evident when the figure demonstrated standing leg lifts, waist rotations and side-bends, and it felt as if her body were faithfully reproducing them all. Impossible — yet the involuntary tightening and releasing of her muscles in the respective areas gave an uncanny impression of the real thing.
She understood that the suit itself was stimulating her muscles and neural pathways, and, somehow, — there was something familiar about this physical therapy, though for the life of her she could not narrow down what.

She had no sense of how long the exercise session had lasted, but when the visor finally went to black, she felt a mix of exhilaration and bone-deep exhaustion. The visor clicked and was removed from her face, and she found herself looking straight into the sky-blue eyes of Seth.
His probing gaze stood in stark contrast to his expressionless face, and the unexpectedness of it jolted her back into her pillows. He withdrew immediately and motioned to the food tray that sat across her lap. Then he brought her bed into a reclined position.