A Friendly Game of Chess

Légal Trap

I jolt awake when someone turns the lights. I look around. I am lying in a hospital bed, and the room is filled to the brim with hospital equipment. It is stacked right beside the bed, and some machines, some I don't even recognise, even spill into the space above me. Looming over me. Like a monster. Most of the appliances look old. The paint is chipped, the metal is rusted and sparks fly from exposed wires.

Between the sparse openings in the machines, I can see the ceiling. It was once painted green, but the paint is chipping off, revealing the grey concrete. Tube lights line the ceiling, about half of which flicker, and the other half are completely broken. Everything, From the machines to the walls to the ceiling, is covered in differently coloured spots and stains, from black to blue to green to white.

The hospital bed itself is not better. The mattress looks mouldy with holes in it, and the iron frame is rusted and covered in stains. The plastic filling spills out.

As I try to sit up, pain jolts through my chest. It feels like with every breath, icy cold air fills my lungs, freezing them from within. Yet, I don't really feel cold. The room is warm. Really warm.

I am lying on a bed, without any sheets. All that I am wearing is an old, tattered hospital gown. Unlike the rest of the room, it looks clean. It leaves my arms and legs bare. Due to the giant number of holes in it, it is barely covering my torso.

I feel the spot on my ribs where I have been shot. My wound seems to be stitched, and it doesn't even hurt. What hurts are my lungs, not the bullet wound.

And then I notice it. Across my stomach, there is a large scar.

Did they do an emergency C-section and steal my baby?!

Sweat breaks out from my body, my heart starts racing, and my breathing goes faster. I feel the cold air soar through my chest like a dagger, but that doesn't stop me. I sit up, as much as my injured body would let me, and try to get out of bed. My body is protesting hard, as pain surges through my chest, but I ignore it. I have to find my child. Someone took it.

I swing my feet off the bed, but instead of the free space I was aiming for, I hit some device, that looks like a set of brass tubes. It breaks into pieces, clattering on the floor, with an ear-deafening sound.

And then I hear it. Crying.

I couldn't see it before, but next to my bed stands an iron cradle, with inside, a newborn infant, wrapped in a fluffy pink blanket, like a little burrito. The moment she makes eye contact with me, she stops crying. She looks at me with bright blue eyes, a mirror image of Boden's eyes.

Looking at the little human, I feel all my fear, stress and pain, fade away. I feel calm and happy, happier than I have felt lately. Maybe happier than I have felt ever in my life.

I carefully pick her up and hold her in my arms. Her blue eyes seem to pierce my soul. I slowly lay back down on the bed, holding her tightly against my chest.

The door opens and a man in blue scrubs walks in. He speaks with a low voice.

"Glad to see you awake. We heard some commotion, is everything alright?"

I look up at the doctor, shielding my child with my arms, keeping her close.

"Where am I?" I ask.

The doctor smiles. "You are in a ripper doc clinic. You came in with a nasty gunshot wound, but you are going to be alright. We had to replace your lungs with synthetic lungs, and we had to perform an emergency C-section, but it turns out you and your baby are going to be fine."

Before I can answer, the doctor turns around and walks out of the room.

"Wait," I yell. "I still have questions."