EDEN

EDEN - Chapter 2

Once the cart was close enough for Stanley to view, Lexine hit the power button on the TV and the DVD player, but the display showed nothing but a solid blue screen.

"Stupid thing," she grumbled with a smack to the broad side of the TV, but still no picture. "C'mon..."

"D—Do you need any help?" Stanley was hesitant to offer any help to the person who proved that she can and would hurt him if necessary, but there was a chance he could get on her good side by proving himself useful. Besides, it was painful to watch her struggle with a simple technical problem that he could probably fix.

"I actually don't, thanks." Lexine opened the disc compartment on the DVD player, took the disc out to blow on it, then returned it to try again. "I know how to work a television." When that didn't work, she paced around the entire setup to give it a once-over. "It's just...been a while."

"Are you sure it's on the right input?"

"Of course it's on the right inpu—" Checking along the bottom of the television, she hit one of the buttons a few times until an image eventually appeared on screen. "There we go."

The outdated display showed a paused video, one from the perspective of a security camera. Based on medical tools on the countertops and the occupied body bag on top of a stainless steel table, Stanley could only assume that this was some kind of morgue. The still image showed a woman in a lab coat and a mustached police officer, the former peering down at her clipboard while the latter was pointing at the nearby body bag.

"What is this?"

"Shhh..." Lexine hushed his question with an index finger to her lips, then brought it down to resume the DVD. "Just watch." She sat at her desk and topped off her glass with more liquor as Stanley watched the doctor and officer begin to move.

For nearly a solid minute, the recording was nothing but the doctor and the officer talking with one another. Apparently a dead body had been found off the side of the road, and the officer was answering the doctor's many questions. Stanley was going to ask Lexine what this recording had to do with him, but something in the video grabbed his attention. The officer and the doctor had jumped at the sight of the body bag moving on the table, as if the person inside was squirming around.

Leaning forward in his seat, Stanley watched closely as the doctor rushed over and the officer clutched his chest in shock. The officer urged the doctor to stop as she opened the zipper, saying that he had been pronounced dead on the scene, but she ignored him. When she reached about halfway, a figure covered in mud began to sit itself upright, moaning as wet dirt spilled out of its mouth. The doctor and officer both jumped back.

"Hey, wait a minute..." Stanley thought aloud as he looked closer at what appeared to be a young man in the bag. His features were obscured by the mud caked onto his body and his silhouette was unrecognizable, clearly someone Stanley had never met before, but then why did he seem so familiar? When he moistened his lips, he swore he could feel a few grains of sand.

"Keep watching." She swirled the liquid in her glass.

The person in the bag weakly brushed off the compacted mud on his jacket as the doctor worked to unzip the rest of the bag. Eventually the zipper was pulled to the tips of his toes and the doctor assisted him in moving his legs off the edge of the table, allowing her to remove the bag completely. The officer had moved his hand from his chest to his forehead, rubbing it in disbelief the entire time.

"What is this?"

"Shhh!" she hushed, shooting him an upset face, "Don't they teach people not to talk during films anymore?" She huffed in disappointment, turning her attention back to her drink as Stanley turned his focus back to the monitor.