Reborn: Book 1 The McKensie Chronicles

Chapter one Reborn: the awakening

 February 21st, 2358

I began to regain consciousness slowly. It was unusually hard for me to wake up as if I had worked a long week without proper rest and followed that with a weekend of binge drinking. I lay there, my eyes closed, gathering my thoughts, trying to remember whatever I had been dreaming of but not succeeding. Slowly I began to realize I was a little cold, much like the chill you get waking too early on a winter morning because your covers have fallen off. I tried to pull the blanket up around my shoulders and realized quickly it was but a thin sheet. Unable to remember my last dream, my thoughts drifted to the last memory I had before falling into this deep sleep.

My chest was exploding; it felt as if I was caught in a giant vise. I told myself was having an angina attack, that was all, but I was terrified; I was doing 70 miles per hour in the fast lane during rush hour traffic on the 202 Red Mountain Freeway. I knew I was going to pass out, so I frantically tried to make my way to the right side of the road. I don't remember making it. I don't remember stopping my car. I don't even remember making it to the middle lane of the four-lane highway. Oh God; did I crash? Did I hurt anyone? I must be in the hospital. I say a mental prayer that I somehow managed to come to a stop without hurting anyone else.

Where is my family, I wonder? Do they know where I am? I take a deep breath trying to steady my racing thoughts and open my eyes. Breathing is oddly easy; save for the gentle, soft, and natural feeling weight on my chest, I can't remember breathing being this easy in years. My eyes flutter open; focusing is painful. At first, everything is blurry and what I soon find is but a dim light, is painfully bright to me. Even as I wonder where my glasses are my eyes come into focus. It's dark, I'm in a bed that is more of a comfortable box with a glass top. How disturbingly odd; I expected to be in a hospital bed, but this is more of a high-tech coffin.

I move my head to look around, taking in what I can see and growing more and more concerned. Crap! They think I died and I'm in a funeral home. Someone sprung for a high-tech coffin; presumably because I'm a geek at heart. I didn't even know these things came with a glass top but whatever. You'd think they would actually confirm I was dead before shipping me off to the funeral home. At least they didn't pump me full of embalming fluid; I'd be dead for sure if they did! How could they think I was dead? Don't they have tests to determine that for sure before shipping my body off to a funeral home? I mean this is the twenty-first century for crying out loud! Damn! I have to get out of here and call my wife! She has got to be beside herself with grief. Part of me mentally chuckles as I realize how much trouble I'm going to be in when she figures out I'm alive.

It's dark in the room outside my box; I really hope someone is here to help me out. As I reach to tap on the glass top, my arm brushes across the swell of my chest. My breath freezes in my throat as I look at my hand in wonder and terror. That is NOT my hand. It is small, beautiful, and delicate looking. I feel the strength in it, but it is NOT my hand. Mind you, my hands are not large. They are smallish for a man by most standards. But they are rough, calloused, and beginning to wrinkle with age. I slowly, raise my other hand to my face, as it comes into view my arm again catches, brushing on the soft swell of my chest. I see this hand is also female, and I look down seeing for the first time the sports-bra-clad breasts that are on my chest. My hands, well her hands, fly to these breasts as I gasp, letting out a squeak as they land, confirming that I have boobs. I'm gripped with fear and dread as I realize what that most likely means for what is supposed to be down below.

OK, so I MUST be dreaming. I can deal with this... After all, I have had stressful dreams before... Though, usually, that kind of dream includes a combat situation where my weapon won't fire... But why would I dream this I wonder? I dismiss the question and get to the problem at hand; just like I would in a dream. Assessing the situation, I realize that the box I am in is not lying flat on the floor. In actuality, I'm almost upside down and at an odd angle. Why I didn't realize this before I don't know. I guess the whole situation has me more than a bit disoriented. After all, I seem to be a girl right now, not something I am even remotely used to!