How the Flower Bloomed

Chapter 5: CIA

I was standing in a desert, very dry that it chapped my lips and dried the water from my eyes. I could see a figure coming closer to me. Dad, is that you? He's wearing the same suit that my father mostly used to wear so it must be him. He nears me, until the meter of sand that was present between us disappeared, and he hands me a icy cold jug of water. I could clearly make out the sound of the clinking of ice cubes in it as I drank from it savagely spilling water all over my clothes that were neatly aligned with sand particles all over their stitches.

When I was done draining the cup of any drop that might have been there, I looked up attentively at my dad's eyes. They had their famous rich brown color in their pupil, but there were also thick red zigzagged lines dispersing from the lens that made his face look ten years older with weariness.

"Save him." my dad whispered through clenched teeth while looking deeply into my eyes as if conveying the message by his powerful glare.

"Who?" I answered like the lost child that I am, but then after I blinked repeatedly for protection from the eye-thirsty sand, I couldn't see him anymore. I couldn't see anything anymore. The desert, the jug with the pearly water in it and my dear father vanished.

The view was melanized until it adopted a duskiness that captured and blinded my eyes. An enormous black hole was mercilessly swallowing the world around me and I could do nothing about it but watch and ponder over the possible meanings that my dad's words could've had. Save him? Who?

The darkness feigned as I cracked my eyes open to the sound of a man's ear-piercing vociferation. It echoed through time-beaten speakers and played a random beat on my eardrums that made my head shake horrendously like I was having a mild seizure. I couldn't make out what he was saying but it indeed wasn't pleasant for my ear.

I sat upright and studied the white room I was put in; its color was blinding. I was extensively worried about where I was and my reflex action was trying to get out of that impeccable unblemished bed, but my arm was attached to an IV that was feverishly helping the flow of a red liquid into my veins.

I tried to unplug it, being the nerd who reads about medicine for fun that I am, but an alarm sounded off and a nurse came rushing in.

"What have you done?" she asked like I just shot her in the heart.

"Right back at you Mrs. Galiena," I noticed the badge on her chest. When I saw her reaction to my reply I continued with my calm monotony.

"Why did you...?"

"These are vitamins not whatever your mind is telling you," she interrupted arrogantly.

"Well then why are you giving...."

"Your training is today; you either prove yourself or you are expelled from the programme and you need these vitamins to keep you standing because you are a beginner," she interrupted haughtily once again. Why does she regard herself like someone who has a tremendous amount of power over me?

"Am I still in...?"

"Yes, the CIA undergraduate programme because of your father. You have been given this privilege; first, because of your father's hardworking and magnificent character and second, because the inspector generals thought that your test results were worthy enough to be considered," she sneered like she didn't agree with their decision.

She removed all the tubes that were inflating me with liquids and motioned for me to follow her into a dressing room. She handed me a fairly tight dress suit and explained to me where the training hall was while pushing me towards it. I have never met such a vulgar nurse before, that is, if she was a nurse in the first place.