(Alex Rider Fanfiction) Floating in the Dark

Fifteen

He laid in hospital-type bed, all alone in the center of an empty room. Empty, save for the machine that monitored his heart rate and blood pressure, and the IV stand that dripped fluids into his arm. It was silent, too, save for the steady beep of the machine.

His eyes moved beneath his lids as he dreamed. It was a dream of something ugly, a dream that was more like a nightmare.

There was a one-way window on one wall; through it, no less than four pairs of eyes watched him. They'd been there for hours, yet none of them felt the need to move. The boy in the hospital bed had caught their interest in such a way that none of them were willing to step away.

What were they going to do with him? They had wondered. Was it even worth the effort? They hadn't known how far gone the boy was. Yet, in each of them, some more than others, there was something that urged them to try.

So they watched the sleeping boy in the hospital bed. They gazed as his white, tired face, and his messy blond hair, and they waited.

ararara

The boy came awake slowly. It was slow drift from the world in his dreams to the world of reality, and when he first opened his eyes, he was unsure if he was still in a dream. The white room was cold and quiet, and he felt very alone.

A dull pain throbbed in his chest. He tried to lift a hand to see what caused it, but soon realized that the only movement he could make was a mere twitch of the fingers. This, he inwardly decided, could only be a part of his nightmarish dreams. The real world was surely not like this. But with that thought, came the suspicion that he must have been dreaming for a long, long time.

A door opened. Three people walked in, and the boy's eyes widened a bit when he recognized one of them. That man, he knew well. He hated that man, yet had obeyed him more than once. That man had led him into so many dangerous situations, and had stolen away his childhood.

The boy opened his mouth, and whispered hoarsely. "Alan. . .Blunt..."

Alan Blunt didn't smile. He frowned, and pulled up a chair to sit near the foot of the bed. The tall, thin man did the same. The third man, dressed in the white coat of a doctor or lab tech, rolled in a small table, which held a thick file, and a small bowl of peppermints.

The boy watched these proceedings with a tired curiosity. He wondered what was going on, but his fogged mind was too weary to try and figure it out. He waited, sure that one of them would tell him what they were doing.

"Good afternoon," Alan Blunt said, once everything was organized. He leaned over, and plucked a peppermint from the a bowl. The boy watched as the Head of MI6 unwrapped the candy, and popped it into his mouth. That action was strangely familiar...and brought a deep ache to his gut. He couldn't figure out why.

Blunt moved the candy to one side of his mouth so that he could talk. It made a bulge in one cheek, and the boy couldn't help but stare at it. However, Blunt's next words grabbed the boy's attention, fast. "We should have done this right from the start; it would've prevented this whole mess. However, we will tell you now — the truth about your father."

The truth about my father? The boy felt like he'd been blindsided by a truck. The truth? His father? Wasn't his father a Scorpia agent? What did Blunt mean, the truth?

"Algonthin," Blunt made a gesture towards the tall and thin man sitting next to him. "If you would."

Algonthin took a moment to stare at the boy. His facial expression was . . .nonexistent. Yet those eyes in the mask-like face were very alert and intense. He blinked, then picked up the folder laying on the table. Pulling out a black and white photo, he held it up so the boy could see.