Wednesday Briefs #11 Diventando: Becoming

Copyright 2013  JC Wallace

 



Welcome to another installment of Diventando: Becoming. If you are new and haven’t read the previous chapters, click on Wednesday Briefs in the left hand column and start with #1. This week the prompt I chose: use a football term. Enjoy and feel free to leave a comment. 

 

Once the drug paralyzing his body had worn off, Owen had struggled and fought for hours against the restraints holding him to the gurney. He’d screamed and yelled and pleaded until his throat was raw and his voice had given out. Nothing made sense anymore. He’d come to the hospital for a death sentence and got what? A prison sentence? Did he have some highly contagious disease making him a threat to public safety? But why throw him into a dark room, alone, without an explanation? Shouldn’t they be treating him? Unless...it was too late. He was going to die alone and in the fucking dark.  

Please, someone, get me out of here.

This had to be a mistake. Someone, somewhere, had mistaken him for someone else. Soon they would realize their error and set him free. There would be apologies and pleas for him not to sue. Anything. He’d agree to anything to go home. Too many explanations as to why he was in that room competed for dominance in his exhausted mind. No matter what explanation he considered, though, one thought stood out. He was in big, hairy balls, trouble and no one was going to save him.

The lock clicked and the door opened. The bright light stabbed sharp pains into Owen’s eyes. He clamped his eyes shut until the pain subsided. The overhead light was on and someone was moving around the room.

Tattoo Nurse stepped up to the bed. “Have a nice nap?” he asked with a sadistic chuckle.

“Why am I here?” Owen’s raspy voice barely made a sound.

The man ignored his question and fiddled with something on the table next to the gurney.

“Please,” Owen whispered, imploring the man to answer.

Owen tensed as the back of the man’s hand connected hard with his cheek. The pain exploded through his head. Owen breathed through the agony as his eyes watered.

“You will not speak unless asked.”

What the fuck?

Had he fallen down some freaky ass rabbit hole? Stepped into the twilight zone? He had to be dreaming, right?

Tattoo Nurse turned around and, shit, he had an IV needle. He shoved the needle into the back of Owen’s hand and pushed it around under his skin.

“Fuck,” Owen said through gritted teeth. Owen started to doubt the title of “nurse.” Sadistic bastard was more like it.

Finally, the man hit the vein then haphazardly slapped on pieces of tape to hold the IV in place. Fucking touchdown for his team.

Owen debated whether to say something about his straining bladder. That might get him another smack. If he pissed his pants, would his sadistic nurse have to clean it up? The man would probably let him rot in the urine so that wasn’t a good idea.

Along with the pain in his hand, an icy cold sensation filtered under his skin at the sight of the IV. The cold worked its way up his vein and into his arm, expanding to fill his chest and gut and legs. Even his head took on a chill and soon his teeth were chattering. What was in that IV? Ice water?

The door opened and a woman in a lab coat and holding a clipboard entered. Her olive complexion was ruddy and she wore brown framed glasses with thick lenses. Her ashy brown hair was pulled back into a tight bun. Her expression was devoid of any emotions as she surveyed Owen with cold, detached eyes.

“Has subject number 3134 been given the PX62, Malcolm?”

Who was subject 3134?

Tattoo Nurse—Malcom—turned and nodded.  The woman wrote something on her clipboard and stepped closer to the bed surveying Owen. Every few seconds she stopped to note something on her papers. Was she even going to speak to him?

You will not speak unless asked.

The shivers that racked his body grew stronger. Even his bones were cold. Still the woman said nothing.

“The solution seems to be having the intended effect. I would say we can safely move onto the next phase,” she said to Malcolm.

“Yes, Dr. Sealy. I’ll set it up now.”

The cold infiltrating his hand ceased to Owen’s relief. He needed answers. None of this was right.

“Dr. Sealy?” Just talking flared the pain in his cheek.

She continued to look at her clipboard. “Listen, I think you have the wrong person. I came here for my checkup, and for some reason, Dr. Noel sent me here. What’s going on? What the hell is wrong with me?”

Dr. Sealy blinked and looked to Malcolm. “It’s talking to me,” she said, with a look of disgust.  

Owen frowned. “Yeah, it’s talking to you,” Owen said, trying to speak above a whisper. “And it wants some answers.”

Malcolm turned and slapped a wide piece of tape over Owen’s mouth. Owen’s eyes widened at the action. They fucking taped his mouth!

Owen struggled briefly in the restraints and screamed into his taped mouth, but neither person paid any attention to him. Adrenaline flooded his mind, paralyzing all thought except for one. They were going to kill him.

A hot spike stabbed into his hand. Another IV bag had been set up. The heat spread under his skin like molten lava and raced through his body in record time. Sweat beads formed on his skin and ran in rivulets down onto the bed. The intensity of the heat grew in his gut, flaming and searing. He cried out, but the tape muffled the noise. The heat continued to rise until he was sure he’d spontaneously combust.

As in his dream, tense expectation spread through Owen with a restlessness that burned beneath his skin. Screams echoed in his head yet he clearly heard a voice speak to him. The voice from his dream.

“I will be free.”

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