Oblivions Doorstep

Chapter 9

Hunter stood atop a massive pile of debris. Voices from nowhere called to him. Smoke swirled around, and the ocean before him turned red with blood. The ground shifted under his feet. He looked down and realized he wasn't standing on mere rubble but bodies. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, some still alive, writhing in agony, others already lifeless. One body dropped from the sky and landed near him. It was a child. Her head cracked open, the force of the impact flattening her body. Hunter stared in horror. She looked familiar. He cried. The child's eyes popped open, and her crooked mouth spoke.

"Why?" she asked.

Hunter fell back upon the heap and closed his eyes, shaking his head in disbelief. When he glanced back, she was still and motionless. The heavens trembled, followed by a booming voice, not God, but deep and anguished. So mournful in its sorrow that the heavens wept.

The voice rose from all around him and poured out a vow in the tragedy's wake. "I will not rest until the world feels the pain I have suffered. Man has built this empire on blood. I will call upon the fires of hell itself to bring it down, and you will help me, Hunter." The voice laughed at him.

Hunter turned and saw another figure standing next to him on the heap of rubble—a soldier in a tattered and burned uniform, his hair matted and face covered in soot. His eyes blazed with an eerie glow. Hunter stared as a warning klaxon went off, growing louder and louder. He covered his ears, the piercing noise driving him to his knees.

...

Hunter lay in the emergency room hospital bed, asleep. His eyes twitched, and sweat rolled down his brow. He awoke with a start from his nightmare and sat straight up. The klaxon's noise faded into a beeping sound.

He looked to his side and saw a vital monitor next to his bed, the alarm ringing. He gazed at the tiny machine, still half-awake, with its red flashing button. The EMT who had helped him earlier walked into the room.

"That damn thing beeps all the time, sorry," she said.

"What?" asked a confused Hunter.

"Your vital monitor cords. When you sat up, you twisted them around."

"Where am I?"

"You are in the George Washington University Hospital Emergency Room," she said. She reached under his shirt and adjusted the monitor patches taped to him. Still disoriented, Hunter looked around, trying to figure out where he was.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Shush, you've been through a lot. Try not to exert yourself," she said.

"What's your name?" asked Hunter.

"Samantha, but everyone calls me Sam. I told you before, but you don't remember. That's normal."

The door opened, and a tall, angular doctor walked in, carrying a medical chart. He tried to look calm despite the sounds from the main area of the ER, suggesting chaos.

"Well, Mr. Ellison, you've had a busy day." Hunter's eyes locked on the chart under the doctor's arm.

The doctor stepped up to his bedside and considered Hunter from head to toe, scrutinizing him like a germ under a microscope. He then opened the folder and pulled out an x-ray, showing a human skull, presumably Hunter's.

"The patient is stable and administered 20 cc's of Propranolol. His disorientation seems to be post-traumatic amnesia—neuroendocrine dysfunction," Sam said. The doctor glared at her impertinence in diagnosing a patient without a medical degree.

"Where did you get your medical degree?" the doctor asked harshly.

"I served two tours in Iraq. We got those kinds of injuries all the time," Sam replied.