The Challenge

Chapter One: Born Again

I am confused. 

How is it possible that I can understand and comprehend the things around me, when I have no memory of ever learning or experiencing such things?

The doctor led me from the room down an errily familiar hallway. It is strange that all that time I sat in that room, I do not remember walking down this hallway. How is this possible. How can I remember my room, the place I have been staying for who knows how long, and yet only feel a slight sensation of recognizability to the hallway just outside. I can only deduce I was brought to and from my room unconcious, the same with the conference room I had just left. Yet I do not remember waking up, nor did I see any of the others unawake. It was as thought we were switched on by the flick of a switch. Conscious and physically present but not able to comprehend and observe.

As I thought of the others in the room, I struggle to remember how many there were. Wasn't there a man? With a kid. I could feel the image of a lone head covered in a tangle of red hair shift away in my memory. I looked over to the woman guiding me, her nondescript face seemed to shift under the skin. Her eyes which at first appeared black and unpigmented rapidly changed to paler shades before returning to obsidian. In one instance, faster than a blink they appeared almost white. I couldn't define any descriptive features; the shape of her eyes, nose or lips. Everything seemed to dissolve into a undescribable mask. I must have made a sound as my horrified reaction made her snap her head towards me. We had stopped in the middle of the hallway.

I could only stare. My memory of all those people I knew I had just been studying was gone and I could feel the histeria rising in my breath. Before I could begin even forming a question to ask this women, though I wasn't sure I wanted to, I could hear footsteps coming up behind me. This woman scared me. I don't know what it was, her close cropped black hair concealed much of the eyes I was attempting to looked into and she stood at least a head above mine. Her face shifted again as she observed me, able to read how fast my heart was racing and how I could not stop myself from shaking. I raised a hand, almost as if I could touch her face I could make the changing stop to make her features clear. But the steps behind me grew closer as she opened her pale lips to say something.

I suddenly needed to leave. Something within me knew I needed to get out of this place. In that exact same moment a hand latched onto my arm as the footsteps stopped behind me. Her grip on my stung and I tried to pull away only to be snatched from behind off the ground in other's embrace. I no longer remembered the room, never mind the others in it. I pushed away from the tight hold on my only to feel a sharp point dig into my  lower back. The only noise I heard before I felt myself drift away, was my own voice.

"No." So small and weak. Barely a voice at all.

~~~~~

I heard a click. An endless tap and opened my eyes. Black. No light penetrated the darkness or I my sight was robbed from me. Interestingly enough, I still remember the women in red, the doctor that drugged me and left me in this room. Place. Where ever I am. The tapping accompanied the mad race of my mind to comprehend the situation I was in. All I could think was that I must of had a life before this. These doctors must be keeping me from something. They have blocked my memories and continue to keep me on some type of drug so I don't relapse. Doctors can do that right?

But I still couldn't remember anything before. Why was I even in that hallway? And if they have been keeping my memories how do I still remember my room, what felt like my sanctuary. Everything else is muddled and dark. Even my attempts to remember the few steps before that terrifying lady turned on me, came up blank. My head ached, I realized there really was no point in trying to figure it out. I need to focus on something else. Yet there was nothing in the darkness. I felt an anger rise in me as the tapping relentlessly continued. I just wanted it to stop. 

I don't know how long I sat in the darkness, there was no way to keep track of the time ticking away. I began counting the tapping a while back. I am now at 12,568. Lying in the indeleable darkness doesn't frighten me. I know that I am alone in this cell. Even if someone else was here with me I don't know if I would talk. What is there to say? I remembered how I said, "No" when the two in the hallway took me away. I didn't think that is how my voice sounded. I don't really know what my voice sounds like. Just as I was about to open my mouth, test the sound in the room I was enveloped in light. The sudden change is brightness had me squinting. My eyes had been open, I guess they didn't steal my sight. A figure stood in the doorway, standing for a seconding contemplating the situation. In less than a minute four others piled into the small room and crowded around my reposed frame. My eyes still had not adjusted and all I could do was stare as they grabed a hold of the bedframe I was lying on to transport me somewhere else. Something other than a sleeping drug was in that dose, as I realized I had no control over my body. Not even enough to lift a finger.

They rolled me down another hallway. This one not a stark white as the other. A band of red ran along the base of the wall and signs foreign to me marked certain rooms and directions. We seemed to be going the direction of a simplized building pictograph. After three more left turns and one right we stopped at double door entrance. The five standing around me seem to communicate what is to be done next within a matter of seconds. Three turn to leave as the last two bring me through the door. Not a word was spoken. My head is spinning at this point and looking around makes me more dizzy. We have stopped and the two tilt my bed so I am strapped in and standing. My head falls foreward and I am too weak to raise it, to look and see what I am in for next. It has been a few moments and I notice the two in red standing close by the door. Flanking the sides as backup if needed. I don't know what they expect me to do. The blood pumping through my viens is spreading the paralysis, making my breath laboured. My eyes close as yet again I am taken to the darkness.

It could have been hours or moments later when I was jolted away by the sound of someone walking into the room. The lights shone with the same flourescent intensity as everywhere else in this labrintine building. I could feel the neuromuscular blocking drugs wearing off as my system was restarting. I was greeted by a large impassive masculine face when I could finally hold my head up. His eyes were black as he searched by own. Where all their eyes black? I couldn't remember the colour of my own, I couldn't remember any colours other than the harsh clash of red on white that surrounded me. This man stood in white, unlike all the other figures I have ever remembered seeing. I wanted to speak again but I didn't know how. Something stopped me again before I opened my mouth to try. I could hear him in my head and the one thing he kept repeating was, "You will do exactly as we tell you to do."

~~~~

I woke up and immediately noticed everything would be different now.

My hands grasped at cool blades of green as I braced myself up into a sitting position. A noise slipped out of my throat as I realized there was pleanty of more colours than just red and white. I sat in a pool of green with blue above. Something light and invisible grazed across my skin, raising the hair on my arms. My breathing came easy with the warm sensation all over. A brightness above pulled my attention and I stared up at the blue. The yellow orb flared overhead and I knew that was where the warmth was radiating from. This place was different. I felt the need to do something. I should have been scared. I had been born again and I had no idea what waited for me within this new world.