SILVER EYES (GXG)

Chapter 2: The Assignment

Dark.

A soft whisper. "Grace? Can you hear me?"

I couldn't feel my body. My breath accelerated. Calm down, I ordered to myself. I tried to summon my senses and mentally call out every limb of my body.

The voice continued. "Honey, if you are listening, try to look at me."

It was as if my physical body had gone far away, leaving behind and alone, only my conciseness in the void. A tingle grew through the pours of my skin. I was coming back. Slowly.

I tried to open my eyes. Damn, they hurt a lot, almost as much as the day I was challenged to stare at the sun during the forbidden hour. I nearly went blind; thank God Michael was there. He cried and shouted and literally forced me to give up before my corneas melted. I saw blurry for two weeks.

"Where am I?" I said.

A shiny light blinded me for a moment until my eyes managed to adjust the view. An old woman in a white gown stood beside me.

"There you are! This is the Reg hospital for immigration. Your recovery treatment has just ended." She said glancing at a monitor on my left.

I tried to sit in, but my returned legs, arms, and head sent me a prick of pain. Thanks, body, thanks.

"Recovery treatment? I feel like shit."

The woman's eyes widened in shock. "What a language... Is that how you talk on The Other Side?" She said tapping away at another monitor on my right.

"This is how someone in pain talks."

The woman stopped and looked at me while sending a polite and at the same time, very artificial smile. Then she adjusted a tube I had connected with a needle on my left wrist. She pressed it.

"Ouch!" I mutter. She didn't even blink but smiled. Creep.

"The recovery treatment lasted for three days, so feeling some discomfort is normal. You haven't moved since you arrived, but trust me, your leg and head look much better now."

I knew about recovery treatments, how advancements in data had led to personalized medical care. But knowing didn't make the pain any easier.

"Okay, so can I leave now?" I asked.

The old woman laughed hard as If I had said the funniest joke in the world. I wondered if she was mentally okay.

"Where in God's name would you want to go, honey?" She said playing with the clearly fake stethoscope that hung around her neck. She tapped it softly with her also fake nails, which were long and painted in silver. What an original color, right?

"Why do you wear that? It's not real." I said pointing at the stethoscope.

"You're such a smarty, aren't you?" She said, refilling a glass of water I had on the little white table next to the monitor.

"My dad was a doctor." I stated.

"A doctor? Wow." That wow seemed even more fake than her nails. "Here we don't need many things you do on The Other Side. But we wear them anyway, so you don't feel so lost when you get here." She explained.

Get here. HERE. A Frenzy. A hit. And it all came back to me. Memories crashed over like a tidal wave, and my heart raced. "Michael." I whispered.

The old woman frowned. "What did you just say?"

"I have to go." I leaped from the bed, my right hand pulling the needle out of my wrist. A splatter of blood flew. The old woman didn't have time to stop me and I ran. No idea where. No idea how. But I had to find Michael.