A Second Chance

Part 4 - I'm always up for it

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!"

I groaned as the lights showed up to make me suffer... seriously? My beautiful quality and quantity - not really quality - sleep was gone.

"Hmm?"

"Come on, it's time to go!"

I rolled onto my back and forced myself upright, blinking groggily at the room. My limbs felt like they weighed a ton, but I didn't want him to catch me lacking.

Mark's mansion was my new home since I'd left the hospital. It was supposed to be a more temporary setup, but turns out I had a ton of other stuff I needed to take medication for. The doctors also said that I had to eat a lot of food, so Mark gets me a lot. Honestly, I couldn't argue with the good treatment I'm getting.

"Alright, alright," I muttered with a small smile on my face.

I couldn't show a good amount of gratitude, but I own this guy. Mark saved me when I was going to die twice now... that's right, two times. For the first time in years, I slept on an actual bed; ate real, delicious food; and even watched TV without worrying about anything. That probably sounds normal to many, but after nearly a decade in the Desert of Doom, it was a luxury for me.

In the Desert of Doom, comfort wasn't a thing. My bed was often the bare sand, and my daily entertainment was running from predators that thought I'd make a good meal. Food was so scarce that I went weeks - sometimes over a month - without eating anything. All I found were scraps that barely even filled me up. Comparing that life to right now felt so surreal.

"This is gonna be good," Mark smirked. "Time to unveil the lair."

My interest was piqued instantly. He kept talking about a lair that he had with some superhero suit and a bunch of cool tech. I was finally going to get a tour of the lair!

...

We headed toward an elevator tucked into a corner of the mansion. It was a pretty rusty elevator... I mean, Mark did neglect the place for a very long time.

Except, the inside somehow shattered my expectations in a good way. This was futuristic interior straight out of a sci-fi movie. I could now guarantee that whatever was waiting for me down there would be visually appealing.

Mark hit a sequence of buttons on the panel so fast that it felt like he was typing on a computer. He then pulled out his phone and did something else, like some other layer of authentication. This guy wasn't messing around.

The elevator hummed softly as we descended.

...

When the doors opened, though, my expectations were met with a reversal again. There were concrete floors, run-down walls, and a carton of boxes stacked to the left of the wall.

"You sure this is the base?" I skeptically asked.

"Just wait,"

He used a key to open a rusty door, and my expectations flipped again!

There was another giant futuristic door that looked like some vault. It had a keypad to its right that required both letters and numbers for the passcode. I frowned as Mark started entering what looked like a ridiculously complicated code.

"This is it,"

The door opened, and for the first time, I got a glimpse of what lay beyond.

It was like walking into the ultimate tech paradise... because that's what it was, literally. There was a treasure trove of computers, gadgets, and everything tech-savvy people dream about. There were at least thirty monitors with faded screens that lined the walls. Mechanical arms, tools, and what looked like prototype devices were scattered across workbenches.