Hey everyone! On to week three of my new story, Denied. This week's prompt is: If you're not to busy there, can you give me a hand?
“What is he doing here?”
“Captain—”
“I left express orders not to bring him to the infirmary. Do
you want to terrorize him? Why is he sedated?”
The harsh, angry voice made me flinch, and I started
breathing faster, but then something grabbed ahold of my body and control was
wrested from me. My breathing slowed, the panic welling up inside faded, and
the protesting voice shushing the furious protest couldn’t capture my attention
from the strange, peaceful twilight I floated in.
If it was possible, I wanted to stay here. I hurt, but it
was distant. Like my memory of the bed I’d slept in for my early years. I’d had
a soft, puffy pillow I’d bury my head in as I fought against getting up for
schooling.
A pillow was a luxury I hadn’t had in too long. Nothing
soft, nothing warm. No sensory input that would make me seek out touch. I’d
learned control, especially once they put me in the suit, but that desire for
comfort was like a sickening need inside me. Sometimes I’d take the pain, just
to ease it a little.
Right now, I felt nothing. Physically, emotionally… just
nothing.
But I would be afraid, if I could have been. That was how
they’d wanted me to become, the aliens. Indifferent to comfort, even averse to
it. A physical null, an emotionless robot. But they never managed it.
Or maybe they had. Maybe that was what this test had been.
One last, major test to see if I’d pass or fail. But was this distance from my
body a reward or a punishment? I couldn’t be bothered to figure it out, because
even as the thoughts tried to pierce the veil around me, they floated away,
leaving me once again in darkness.
A metallic taste flooded my mouth. I smacked my lips a few
times, grimacing. I blinked my eyes open. I was in a big room and there were
flat surfaces—beds—along the walls. There were people here and there. There
were also beings. Aliens in colorful plumage and iridescent bodies like I’d
never imagined seeing.
The aliens who’d held me had been gray, hard skinned like a
flexible shell covered their bodies, and they’d had next to no features. Just
two eye slits and a lipless slash across their face that was covered with some
sort of bristles. The one time an alien came in my room I couldn’t smell
anything or feel any heat from its body. The device it carried spoke in a
monotone digital voice—it hadn’t even made a sound. I’d never even seen them
touch or speak to each other when they observed me where I could see them.
It made me wonder if they were experimenting on me to change
me to more like them. I’d been trained to avoid touch, emotion, contact. My
suit was molded to my body and hardened away from my joints. I shivered, oddly
cold. The air was swirling in the room.
I glanced down, the cold distracting me from the taste in my
mouth. The sight of my arms, pale and bony, was something I hadn’t experienced
in all the long years I’d been held in that room. I lifted both arms and held
them stiffly out in front of me. There was a garment covering my chest, but it
was loose.
“W-what—” My scratchy voice broke.
Aparoe stood on one side of the bed. They held out a container
with fluid inside. “We removed that wicked thing they put on you. Here, you
have to be thirsty. We’ve had you on fluid replacements, but it took several
days for you to recover after the nerve surgery. I’m sorry we had to keep you
under, but your body needed time to repair. It would have been agonizing if you
were allowed to wake.
“I did… one time.”
“Yes, just after the surgery was complete, but we kept a
body block active to prevent the damaged nerves from causing you any pain. They
couldn’t heal that way, though, we had to keep you under.” When I didn’t take
it from her, Aparoe put the container on a table that hovered beside the bed,
then pushed it close. “Please drink.”
I picked up the cup, sniffing the pink fluid. It smelled…
sweet. Like fruit. I vaguely remembered eating fruit one time. I took a sip. My
taste buds practically danced. Flavor! I greedily tipped the cup, but it didn’t
hold much.
“You can have more soon, but we need to make sure your body
doesn’t reject normal food and fluids. All the tests we’ve run show a
successful removal of that horrible technology, and your nerves are
regenerating nicely. You’ll be healthy in no time.”
Food? I’d had nothing but a bland paste I sucked out of a
tube. Sometimes I pretended to chew, just to make sure I didn’t forget how. Maybe
they’d have fresh food. When I was a kid, I’d looked up spaceship jobs, and the
rations had seemed pretty bad. But compared to what I’d survived on… anything
would be an improvement.
“Aparoe, if you’re not too busy there, can you give me a
hand?” one of feathered beings asked. They nodded and stepped away.
“Do you remember me?” Captain stood on the other side of the
bed.
I nodded, staring straight into his eyes. Captain was carved
on my brain. He took me out of my cell. He was warm and smelled good, standing
close to me. I leaned closer to him, closing my eyes. What was it about him?
“Good. Do you have a name?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. The first thing that popped
into my head was seven-six-delta-nine-nine-two. I’d almost said it, having
responded to it for years. But those memories I’d struggled to remember were a
little closer. Maybe from the dreams I’d had while they drugged me. I only
remembered snatches… but I knew one thing.
“Kohen.”
TBC
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