Altered Reality (AoR #1)

Chapter One

All I did was blink.

Blink. Desk at school. Blink. Hospital bed.

The room was darker than I expected, which confused me. Having seen my fair share of hospitals, I can tell you even when they try to make them dark, they are still obnoxiously bright and noisy. But there was no trace of artificial light bleeding in from the hallway. No faint glow from streetlights outside. Just shadows that continued to grow longer and stretch closer to me, threatening to consume the room I was in.

I sat up and pulled the thin sheet to my chin, then immediately regretted it when I got a whiff of the musty smelling bedding. I realized then I didn't smell antiseptic. Didn't hear the whir of machines monitoring me or any other patients. No intercom or phones ringing. No TV noise from the waiting area. Just...quiet. It was all eerily silent and not the normal sterile environment I was used to when visiting the hospital.

As I scanned my surroundings in the dimming light, I realized I wasn't in a typical patient room. The hospital had obviously been typical at one point, with the dead fluorescent bulbs overhead and a cheesy poster denoting the horrors of smoking hanging haphazardly on the door. But the graffiti on the walls and the broken cabinets told a different story. This place had been abandoned for some time. I felt like I had woken up in some post-apocalyptic video game. I was half-betting some brain-craving corpse would shamble through the door at any second.

Chills danced across my skin. Where on earth was I? After a few minutes, I gathered the courage to find out. I wanted to call for someone, but every horror movie I'd ever seen told me this would be a bad idea. I always threw popcorn at the screen when the horror movie girl left the safety of the house, but now I understood her urge to go explore. Whatever waited outside was bound to come in and find me eventually. With that thought, I slid off the bed and onto my weak and shaky legs and made my way to the door.

I opened it just a crack, but I didn't hear or see anything in the hallway. In fact, the hospital was so devoid of any noise, my breathing felt obnoxiously loud to me. I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle the sound and ventured out of the room. Between the nervous shaking of my knees and the strange weakness in my muscles, it took me much longer than I'd like to admit, but I finally made it into the hallway and stumbled onward until I reached the waiting area. Papers were strewn everywhere, chairs overturned, and graffiti covered the walls, but I didn't take the time to read any of it. It all looked like the scribblings of a madman.

A faint breeze blew through my hair, and I turned to find the source. The air came from the pedestrian overpass I usually traversed to get to my neurologist. Below was one of the busiest streets of the downtown area, but I saw no sign of headlights as I slowly made my way to the bridge. The fragile barriers closing me into this familiar building made me feel even more naked and vulnerable than when I'd woken up, but I had to see what was beyond them. Curiosity propelled me forward. Glass littered the walkway; most of the windows had been broken, which meant I had to take care not to slice open my bare feet with each step.

My heart felt like it had been ripped from my chest when I finally looked out at the city below. It looked like a warzone. The parking garage across the street was barely more than a charred husk, though it must have been empty at the time. Very few cars lined the streets. Some were flipped over and obviously burned. Others were smashed into poles or other cars. The wind stirred the debris below and I shivered as the breeze blew through my hair, whipping strands across my cheeks.

How had this happened? I was staring down at my city. My home. But it was like the jagged glass stubbornly hanging on the frame had formed a window to hell. "This can't be real," I whispered to myself. I was startled by the sound of my own voice. If I couldn't hear anything, this could still be a dream. I'd never had a dream before, but always heard there was this hazy quality to them. There was nothing hazy about the gruesome scene around me. It was all crystal clear.