Stein-The Early Days

Chapter Two

            I wake.

            This means I’m not dead.  Good.  In fact, other than not being able to move, I don’t feel any pain.  This means either I didn’t sustain any injuries from the behemoth landing on me or I don’t have any body left to feel.  Of course, it could be one of a thousand other possibilities as well.  I try to wiggle my fingers.  Ah, I still have a body.

            Before I can open my eyes, I gag, trying to spit out whatever is filling my mouth.  I spit again, and again, not able to gain relief for there is nothing in mouth to spit out.  It just feels completely dry.  Cotton-mouthed, I realize.  The term is exquisitely accurate.

            As I run my tongue along the inside of my mouth, I open my left eye.  Not both, not yet.  For the need to assess what is around me outweighs the need to determine where I am.  I’m on my back, I realize, as I span the soul spectrum.

Everything around me has a slight glow.  Not as bright as a person’s soul, for that is concentrated essence.  Yet I can see the outlines of a ceiling, a wall to my left, both the shape of light because every that exists has an essence.  Has existence.  I’ve been researching why this is, or more accurately, what this is.  What is a soul, and why is a person able to bring so much of it together in one place?  I’ve seen Death’s soul, and it reaches far beyond the physical limits of his body.  I can only conclude that the body isn’t the housing for the soul, does not contain it.  So what is that connection between the physical and the ethereal, the link that our weapons sever so easily and permanently?

I am alone in this space, which is about 20’ x 30’.  Two doors on opposite walls.  I expand my consciousness outward, beyond the walls.  There is, disconcertingly, no space above or below this room.  The glow is solid.  Underground?

Beyond one of the doors is a space that is enclosed, no other doors, surrounded by no space/ground as well.  So there is only one way out.  I extend my awareness through this door, and it leads to a corridor.  Then I am at the limits of my own soul.  I can reach no further.

I shut my left eye, then open both my eye’s together.  I blink away the heavy grogginess that holds me down.  I’m in a lab.  Quite clearly.  And it only takes another moment to feel the straps holding me down.  Ah.  Three across my chest, two on each leg, two on each arm.  Someone wants to keep me secure.  How interesting.

I turn my head.  No, I can’t.  It’s held in place.  I try to wiggle, but any movement is being curtailed.  Hm.  From the pressure I feel, there are nine pegs holding my head: forehead, both temples, either side of the jaw, crown, chin, just over each eye.  I know this can’t be good, but I can’t help but feel an excitement rise within me.  Clearly someone is planning on performing a procedure on me.  An intracranial exploratory assessment?  Physical stimulation of the cognitive and reflexive regions?  As I hear the door to the lab open, I wonder for a moment if I’ll be able to get any left over brain scrapings of my mind for my own research.

“Hello, Frankie.”