His eyes opened as he stirred from sleep. His limbs felt heavy, and his chest ached as he drew a deep breath. The room was dark and his vision was blurry as he attempted to recall where he was. When it didn’t seem familiar, he immediately lurched from his bed.
A number of nightmares resurfaced as his mind raced. He was bound, his arms tight against his chest. He screamed against pain, crying out at the top of his lungs. He remembered blue light washing over him like water.
He shivered and pressed a hand to his shoulder. He felt the sleeve of a cotton shirt. He slid down his arm and felt his skin: cold and covered in goosebumps. His fingers then found a small wire strewn across his arm. He followed it up to his forehead where it ended with a sticker to hold it firm against his temple.
He looked again into the darkness, finding himself in a room full of small cots, each with a small, amber-lighted box set beside it. Wires ran out of the box and straight up to the high ceiling, where strands were bundled together and funneled away among the exposed rafters. He, too, was seated on a cot, and he turned to find a similar box with wires at its head. His light, however, was blinking a cautionary yellow.
He swallowed, pulled the wire from his head, and slid forward until his bare feet touched the ground. He winced at the cold, and gnashed his teeth further as he attempted to stand on weakened legs. He took a few staggering steps forward, got his heel caught in his oversized pants, and stumbled into the neighboring bed.
The unconscious young man lying upon it broke his fall.
He gasped and fell backward, his heart pounding into his ears.
Now, from the floor, his head darted from side to side to find that every cot was occupied. All appeared in a deep sleep, including the young man before him.
He looked back to his empty cot. The box was now blinking red.
Somehow, he was awake.
Breathing hard, he scrambled back to his feet and hurried through the maze of cots to a window on the far wall. He shuddered as he passed cot after cot, person after person. There had to be at least a hundred beds within the room.
At last, he reached the window. He was heaving as he pressed his hands across it, and his warm breath coated the glass in fog. He wiped it away and attempted to look past the glaring light on the side of the stone building below.
The distant clanking of a door broke the silence. His breath caught in his throat.
He needed to find a way out.
Eyeing the ceiling, he followed the bundle of wires running across the room until they entered a wide hole above a door. He ran in its direction, yanked on the door, but it proved to be locked. He turned his eyes to the wire conduit, but a quick jump proved he was too week to pull himself into it from the ground. He pressed his lips together, eyeing one of the cots at his side. Wincing, he gently pushed it over and climbed onto it, careful to position his feet around the unconscious figure laying upon it. He rolled his head and shoulders into the hole and climbed in.
He crawled on his stomach below the bundle of wire and slowed both his movements and his breathing as he approached the exit. The room before him was brightly lit, but it appeared unoccupied. A long, narrow desk with a wall of glowing screens took up most of the room, and the bundle of wires above his head fed into them. There were empty chairs pushed against the desk at various points, and a half-open door at the far end of the room.
He swallowed and inched forward to look below him, and was relived to find the space empty. He reached for the bundle of wires and gave them a few strong tugs. When they didn’t budge, he grasped them with both hands and pulled himself out of the shaft.
He dropped to the ground just as footsteps scuffled near the door. He slid under the desk and crouched behind a chair as the door creaked open.
“And everything is exactly as we left it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Give me a break; this is my first time on night shift.”
Two pairs of feet had entered the room. He held his breath as one started closer.
“Hold up,” the feet quickened. “You—you’ve got to be kidding!”
“What?” The second pair ran over. “What’s that mean??”
“A-077 stopped responding.”
“Are you serious?? And you said everything was exactly as we left it!!”
“I didn’t see this until now!”
“So—okay—what’s not responding mean?”
“It’s probably just the monitor malfunctioning.”
“Oh my gosh,” two feet stepped backward. “What if they died? What if they died on my first night shift??”
“Okay, calm down! Let’s just go in there and take a look. I bet all we’ll have to do is reboot the monitor. Come on.”
The two feet left the room with a fair amount of mumbling under the second pair’s breath.
The hidden man let out his own breath and inched his way out from under the desk. He slipped through the open door, into the moonlit hallway, ducked into a shadow between windows to await the disappearance of the two men down the hall. When a door heavily opened and closed, he shot down the hallway.
He found a set of stairs at the end and hurried down, gripping folds of his pants at his thighs so as not to trip over the extra fabric. He found a dark room that resembled a kitchen with a few chairs around a short table. At last, on the back wall, he found a door.
He instinctively snagged a dirty butter knife from the kitchen counter in case he needed to pick the door lock, but thankfully, a simple turn of the inside latch did the trick. The door swung open and at once, a rush of cold night air caught his unkempt tan hair. He rushed out, shut the door, and darted into a brushy area nearby, shaded away from the stark light beaming down on the side of the building.
Within the relative safety, he collapsed to his knees and sighed heavily with relief. His body trembled from adrenaline and weakness. He bundled his arms against his chest and rolled forward until his forehead touched his knees. He remained curled up until the shaking subsided and his weakness faded. With renewed strength, he got back to his feet, eyed his surroundings, and hurried away from the building just as lights flicked on from the window above the door.
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