Altered Reality (AoR #1)

Chapter Three

I opened my eyes to the blinding light of the sun shining in through my window and turned away from the harsh glare. Thomas sat at my bedside again, his head drooped against the back of the chair he rested in. He must have heard me stir, because he woke up, and I fixed him with my best scowl. I could guess from his worried look and finding myself in bed that I had either fainted or had another seizure, but I wasn't concerned with my epilepsy. More pressing on my mind was what I had discovered before my ill-timed collapse.

"Madeline," he breathed as he clumsily sat forward and tried to take my hand. "Thank God―"

I jerked away and sat up. "Don't you 'Thank God' me, Thomas Mackenzie! How could you? It's Brandon. Your brother. He's never going to speak to you again. Do you understand that? It wrecked him before when Ana cheated on him. How can you not realize how much worse it would be when she cheated with you?"

Thomas turned his head to the side and drew in a deep breath, as if trying to gain some patience. "Madeline, I have no idea who this 'Ana' is, and I can tell you now Brandon and I don't really have time for romance. Not with everything we do to keep you safe."

"Keep me safe," I repeated, questioningly, as I looked around. I immediately recognized the graffitied walls of the hospital room from my seizure dream. "No... this can't be happening."

Thomas took my hand and held it up to his tearful face. "I know. I hoped beyond all hope you would wake up again. And now, here you are."

"Which is where?" I was beyond confused. Logically, I knew this must be a dream. But it didn't feel like a dream at all. In fact, this felt just as real as my life did.

"We're in the hospital."

I rolled my eyes impatiently. "How did I end up here?"

"We've been here since the explosion. It was the closest place we could take you after it happened."

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. I was incredibly angry with Thomas and his poor explanations weren't helping his case. I took in a deep breath and dared to look him in the face again. "After what happened, exactly? Who decided it was a good idea to drop a bomb downtown?"

"The Lord Commander." He glanced back at the door and sighed in defeat. "He was trying to thwart a rebellion. But it wasn't a rebellion. It was just people trying to get things back to normal."

"Start there," I interrupted him. "Back to normal how? What happened to change to this?" I gestured all around us.

He furrowed his brow. "The nukes getting dropped on us, for a start."

I couldn't speak. He waited for some kind of prompt to go on, like getting nukes dropped on us wasn't a revelation, but I sat there. Slack-jawed and numb.

He covered my hand with his comfortingly. "You don't remember? Do you?"

I shook my head. When I spoke, my voice was weak and barely audible even to my own ears. "I don't remember this life. I remember being at school today. Ana knocked me into my locker, which makes a whole lot more sense now I know what happened," I added as an aside, but it was mostly for my benefit. Ana always took her shit out on me. It shouldn't be a surprise that she's staring the end of her relationship with Brandon in the face and slamming me into lockers as a result. "I went to the diner after school. You were there with Austin." I looked up at him now, my eyes filling with tears. "My parents were there too. But you're telling me they died in a nuclear war. I don't understand."

His hand tightened over mine reflexively. "That's not how they died. The nukes were about ten years ago."

"You said they died four years ago. And I was with them?" I waited for him to explain, but the subject was choking him up. I didn't understand. I was the one waking up to find I had lost my entire family. "Were we attacked again? Or is the war still going on? Who attacked us?"