Good Morning...2043?!

Chapter 9 - Friends Or Enemies? [EDITED]

Jonathan POV

Blinding lights. Thats the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes again, blinding white lights. My head felt groggy, and I felt sluggish, as if I had been napping for a hundred years and was only now waking up. I slowly sat up and tried to rub my head-Clank-I looked at my wrists and saw I was handcuffed to some sort of gurney, a weird monitor on a pole next to me was making constant beeping sounds and had an assortment of numbers and squiggly lines that I didn't understand. From what I could tell, I was in some sort of room with more one-way glass on one side and a number of other medical equipment. A metal door with no knob directly across the room in front of me, muffled conversations just beyond.

I layed back down and simply stared at the ceiling and groaned. The conversations outside the door stopped and everything was silent for a moment, before the knobless door swung open and a Panther Anthro wearing light blue scrubs walked in. She glared at me before standing to the side. I saw a Timber Wolf wearing a black suit with several medals and ribbons walk in, followed by two heavily armed guards. "Ah, my executioner arrives." I sarcastically reply to no one in particular, the wolf raised his eyebrows. "Uh, excuse me?" I scoff, these guys were really good at playing stupid. "Alright wolf, can I call you that? Truth be told, I don't care. Anywho, why'd you bother taking me alive and healing me back to health? Clearly another human death won't mean anything to you animals, no pun intended."

The wolf appeared distressed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh, well human, I believe we owe you an apology. We never realized you were a medevac crew until, well, after we-" I slammed my fist into the railing on the side of the gurney. "WELL, IT'S TOO LATE FOR THAT! NOW ALL MY FRIENDS ARE FUCKING DEAD!" My outburst appeared to catch him off-guard, even the nurse appeared surprised. One of the guards stepped forward, "Human, if you do not cease your hostile tone immediately, you will be-" "Oh yeah! Threaten me with death! End my miserable life! War has claimed the life of everyone I've ever known! My family! My friends! My comrades! Hell, I never even finished middle school 'cause I had to be drafted into a war! So go ahead, point and shoot!" I realized I had worked myself into a sitting-up position, and the nurse had actually stepped backwards a little. I sighed and leaned back.

"War is hell, and I'm tired of fighting. For what? When I left in that damn plane for VN, I was leaving behind a world of emptiness. No family, no friends, my home was a run-down cabin in the middle of Nowhere, Washington. The only company I had was the wildlife that occasionally came up to me during my hikes, not that they were much company either." I pointed an accusatory finger at the wolf. "When I came to fight the enemy, I met people, I made friends. In fact, we were practically family, I had a decent home, made friends, had a source of income, a reason to bother living, and you all just took it away from me. My helicopter is now a pile of twisted scrap metal in the middle of God-knows-where, my friends are rotting in some abandoned building, and yet Death still taunts me, waving the chance of a sweet, sweet release in my face before snatching it away from me, over and over and over again."

I leaned forward. "Do me a favor, and allow me to join my friends, it would be the first decent thing you've done for me ever since you blew me outta the sky." I slumped backward and observed. The nurse was rapidly looking back and forth from me to the wolf, the guards I couldn't read, due to their goggles. The wolf looked a mixture of shame and sadness. "Listen Human, we can't change the past, but we can change the future. And for your information, your comrades' bodies were recovered and buried, not left to rot. Your helicopter has been recovered from the forest and is currently undergoing extensive repairs. We want to help, but we can't without your cooperation." I sighed and looked at the ceiling. "How about this human, we get you up, give you back your uniform, no I'm not giving you back your gear yet, just your uniform, and we talk about this over a drink." I gave him a quizzical gaze; This sudden change confused me.