Overlap

Chapter 90: Premonition 004

<??/??/2012 - ??:?? | Location Unknown>

Without any warning of where I was or how I got here, my ears roared with the ringing of fatigue while my eyes were blinded by all the mysterious lights above me. Every nerve in my body tingled with a most painful sensation, making me want to scream out as loud as I could, though I held it in. In and out of consciousness, I woke, only to beg for the mercy of sleep again and again, passing by an unknown level of time through such mental haze.

Once I was finally feeling strong enough to let my eyes adapt to the new environment around me, I took very slow steps getting my bearings. However, once I saw Lumina and her sisters standing in the same room adjacent to the medical bed, I quickly pieced together what must have happened. I didn't care about the sentiment of the moment or the sensation I was supposed to feel; only all logical details mattered. Though Lumina was ecstatic to finally see me awake in the flesh, I wasn't willing to match her energy.

"Reed," she whispered with tears of joy in her eyes.

I glanced all around the room, then back down at my own body to be sure. All of my normal human skin I have been so used to was gone, replaced by these mechanical looking formations of suit and wire, mixed with white and blue. "If I'm here, if I'm in this body... Then that means, I must have died."

"It's okay though. You're with us now." Lumina stuck to her reassurance that everything was okay, given the evidence that the transperation process into her world was a full success.

If I'm here instead of on Earth, in Altiri sector space instead of the Milky Way, then I should be happy to be here... But I'm not happy at all. I don't feel anything; I care about nothing. "Inadequate," I muttered out in neutral. Even as I stood up, my facial expression was stuck where it was, to a sense of lost purpose and unhappiness. "I require a task or instruction. Please show me to my new job."

Finally confused, Lumina slowly took steps towards me, denying the obvious mistake in her desperate assumptions. "You're my husband Reed. That is your job now; to be with me forever... You do remember me, right?"

"My memories of my previous life are functional. However, being a husband is not an adequate role for a productive use of time. Please designate me to a task."

"Reed?" Though her face was beginning to melt into sadness, Lumina kept trying to bring me out, nervously keeping her distance while her sisters stood back and watched the chaos unfold. "You do love me, right?"

"I remember sustaining several emotional sensations, but I do not remember how any of it feels." I held up my hands in front of me again, acknowledging that I wasn't really back to normal, yet I could not understand why. "I feel no emotion. I sustain no leftover passion. Whatever this love is, I recognize it no longer."

That's all it took; my words, and my stone cold emotionless expression shattered Lumina's heart into tiny little pieces, while I simply stood there caring about none of it. "You... You don't feel anything?"

Rose chimed in, realizing what the problem was before anybody else. "It's not his fault Lumina. The transperation must have gone wrong in some place after all. Whatever allowed Reed to feel all emotion has been wiped away."

Lumina was having none of it though. She held herself on her knees, sobbing into her hands as if her life were over. Whatever she was expecting me to say or do when I woke never happened.

That was all I could guess anyway. The only thing on my mind were thoughts of logical tasks or jobs to complete. The emptiness inside my heart knew no boundaries, and I didn't feel the least bit guilty about Lumina's odd behavior. Until I can be assigned a suitable task of production, I shall wait patiently for further instructions.