Memory

Chapter Twenty-Five- Trystan

I awake with a startled gasp.

The first sense that returns to me is sight.

White lights blind my vision momentarily before clearing into the images of rectangular lights on the ceiling. I blink slowly, swallowing, attempting to bring some moisture down to my parched throat.

Something warm presses against my back, and it takes me a few seconds to realize that it is the rough fabric of bedsheets warmed up with my body heat. I slowly brush my hand over my thigh, feeling a softer fabric over it. I am dressed in a hospital gown. I turn my head to see my other surroundings, but the movement makes my vision double and sway, a deep pounding in my head. I close my eyes to block out the disorientation.

“Please refrain from moving too much, miss,” a quirky voice pipes up above me. I open an eye to see a dark-brown haired man with glasses in a lab coat standing over me, holding a clipboard in his stubby hands. He is currently writing something on it rapidly.

Frowning, I look away. I struggle to collect my most recent memory, but everything before the time I woke up is in broken pieces. I don’t think I can remember anything.

Why am I here? Where is here?

“Where...am I?” My voice sounds feeble and weak with disuse.

“You are in the Central Building infirmary, young lady.” The man with the clipboard backs away without another glance at me, turning to a metal table to his right, my left. I take this moment to glance around the room. The four walls of the room is pure white, and the door is not too many strides away. I can probably get away if not entirely impossible.  

He picks up a metal tube and brings it over to me. He lifts it into my right eye, pressing something on it. A bright light shines into my eye, and I turn my head away from it. But he grips my head and forcibly opens my eye. I reluctantly allow him to do so, and after a few seconds, he backs away with wide eyes.

“Incredible,” he murmurs. Placing the metal flashlight down, he writes down on his clipboard again. He shakes his head.

I blink, feeling my eyebrow twitch with annoyance. “Would you stop your mumbling and explain to me what is going on?” I begin to sit up, but I realize that I am bound to the bed by a tight leather strap around my abdomen. Glaring at it with a mixture of anger and confusion, the man begins to speak.

“Well, to bring you here, we had to shoot you down with a tranquilizer. But the one we used on you was enhanced with deadly chemical pathogens that should have eradicated your intestines, nervous system, everything. But your body’s enzymes broke down any effect the chemicals…”

He faded off as he noticed the blank look in my eyes. Then he sighed. “What I mean is, your body resisted the virus we put in you and fought it.”

“Oh,” I murmur. Then I frown again and hiss, “What’s the use of all this?”

He looks down on his clipboard, reading the paper on it. Settling himself in a chair beside the bed, he says, “It was an experiment on my half and an order on the other. The General Enforcer issued us to take down one of you for ransom and as a test subject. He’ll-”

“That’s enough, Dr. Grigory,” a new voice growls.

We both look towards the door, where a tall bulky man dressed head to toe in black stands in the doorway. He has his hands hidden in his leather jacket pockets, his dark brown eyes pressing my further into the warmth of the bed, as if his gaze sucked out all the heat from my body. I look away.

No doubt he’s the General Enforcer.

“Ah, welcome, General,” the man known now as Dr. Grigory says, rising to his feet and saluting clumsily in his haste to stand.

I knew it.

“At ease.” Dr. Grigory visibly calms down and sinks into the chair. “Now, what do we have here, Doc?” He steps further into the room, closing the door behind him. He takes off his large gray fedora that he has donned on his head. Tucking it under an arm, he walks over to the foot of my bed and stays there.

“Well,” the doctor begins, “we have found a strong antibody carrier to our pathogen injections. But I do not get it, General. Don’t you want to use these pathogens to rid of the disobedient civilians?”

“Silence, fool!” the General hisses. “Do you want her to tell her little friends our plan?” He changes a mysterious glance with me, and I shiver nervously.

Dr. Grigory shuts his mouth, keeping his eyes locked on him. I watch in silence as the General smile mischievously. “No need for that, actually. We can just use her to get to Impedance

and make them surrender with the Other Resistance.”

How does he know about us?

“All we have to do is render her slightly unconscious and then pry the information out of her. We can do that by my most favorite method. Want to know, little miss?”

I most certainly do not.

I refuse to respond, and when I turn my head pointedly away, he grunts with disapproval.

“Whether she is a success or not, I will not waste time. Now, put her to sleep. I must prepare for the procedure. We’re supposed to have an audience for this.” He turns away and ominously leaves the room. I quickly look up at the doctor, and he avoids my gaze. Reaching over to the table again, he picks up a syringe filled with a orange liquid. Turning to me with it, he flicks the tip of it, sending miniscule sprays of unknown substance down to the floor.

Immediately, I protest, reluctantly leaning into the bed as he pushed me back. “What is that?” I demand sharply.

“Something to help you fall asleep.” Without another word, he takes my arm, sticking the needle into the IV that I had  just noticed was in the fleshy part of my elbow. I watch as he presses down on the needle.

Just as he backs away, my vision begins to blur and double, just like it had when….

When I was shot down by Ethan!

I remember now. Boy, is he in for it now.

My thoughts are tumbling now, and my sight is fading by the second, all my other senses obliterated in a blink.

Then, the world goes black before me again.