Radioactive

Chapter 5

I wake up feeling more on edge than ever and covered in sweat. I try to move my hands to wipe my forehead but find I can't. I look down at my arms and see that I'm strapped down to the bed I'm in, my legs the same way. I look around the room and find it empty besides the machines buzzing beside me.

Something on the ceiling catches my eye. I look up and find a mirror as long as the ceiling above me. I look like shit. I have small cuts all over my face and a blood stained bandage wrapped around my head. It looks like my hair was cut off extremely short. My ankle is in a dark red cast that ends just below my knee which softly throbs.

I look back down at my restraints. I push against them, but they don't budge. I continue to push until I feel the leather straps threaten to bruise me.

"Dammit!" I whisper to myself.

"You were thrashing in your sleep." a familiar voice says, startling me.

Alex stands in the door way looking at me worriedly. His hair is a mess and his eyes have dark circles under his glasses.

"You hit your head really hard on that fall. We didn't want you to re-open the stitches." he says walking over to me, "Let me get those things off of you. They can really hurt if you try to break out of them."

I sigh and flex my free wrists and ankle as he releases me.

"So how much longer do I need this bandage and cast on?" I ask putting my hand on my head.

"The bandage can come off whenever you want it too. You were out long enough for it to not become infected." he says reaching for the bandage.

"I can get it." I say pushing his hands away gently.

I unravel the bloody bandage from my head and look up into the mirror. My hair has been reduced to a dark stubble and a thick long scar runs diagonal from the top left of my head to the bottom right. I gasp at the sight.

"It was a bad fall, wasn't it?" I say looking back down at Alex.

"Yes. It gave you a concussion and knocked you out for three days." Alex answers taking the bandages from my hands.

"Three days?!" I shout, which hurts my head slightly, "I- I've gotta get back to the HQ! I missed Graduation!"

I swing my feet over the side of the bed and my vision goes dark. Alex grabs my shoulder and steadies me, allowing my vision to return.

"Hey! Not so fast now! We've contacted Major Hallmark already. He knows what happened. He wants you to stay here only until tomorrow and then he will allow you Graduate, just not with everyone else. He said that your promotion will just be a small ceremony in his office." Alex says.

"Alex, what about my ankle?" I say moving it slowly up onto his lap.

"Well...We have this new substance that the older scientists and I have been working on. Coincidently it is for small broken bones. It heals them in two hours. Amazing isn't it?" he answers setting my ankle back on the bed.

"Do you have any on hand?" I ask.

"There is usually a vial of everything new we are working on in every room." Alex says looking under the bed, "And here it is!"

He comes back up from under the bed with a small jar of a creamy substance. He pops open the lid and scoops out a hand full of it.

"Okay, so this may look like a kind of rotten smelling lotion but it's not and you can't rub it on the afflicted area. You have to eat it." he says dropping it into my hands.

"You've got to be kidding me." I say and recoil at the rancid smell of the miracle healer.

Alex shakes his head sadly and motions for me to eat it.