I stand out on the balcony of my New York City apartment, watching the sun slowly dip behind the buildings on the horizon. Being in a high place always seems to help me think. I don't really know what it is, maybe it's because it always seems quieter when you're a few hundred feet above the busy streets. It could also be that nobody's around to distract me. However, no matter how high up I am, I will always hear the yelling from the people who seem to never seem to sleep. That's what makes this moment so unsettling. The streets below me, they're silent. I walk over to the edge of the balcony and look down to make sure that the avenue wasn't deserted. If it was, I would feel like I was I'm some zombie apocalypse movie. Luckily, there are people. Most of them are crowded around the electronic that shows news as it happens. The slide switches, showing a different headline that I can't read from my angle. I don't have to read it to know what it says. I can take a pretty good guess at what it says. The once silent crowd, erupts with yells and screams is a clear indication for what that billboard says.
I hear the door to the apartment fly open and slam shut, a clear sign that Gabe is back.
"So Gemstone, guess who's going to the war with the West," his extremely loud voice tells me that he isn't really all that phased by any of this. It's almost like a Civil War happens every week.
"Hm, that's a tough one. Us?" I reply sarcastically.
"Nope. Not us, me." I stare at him in shock as I try to process what he just said.
"You're actually going to enlist? I thought you were joking when you told me that you would," I reply slowly, still taking everything in.
"I was joking. At least I was then. I started to actually think about it and now, I want to"
I slowly opened my eyes only to be blinded by a candy white hospital room. I attempted to sit up but immediately failed because of a stabbing pain in my lower stomach. 'Why did i dream about something that already happened?' I thought. I heard approaching footsteps of hopefully a doctor in the hallway. The door opened silently to reveal a woman with blonde hair and a white labcoat. It took her about three seconds to realize that I was awake. She quickly slammed the door shut and started to run down the hallway.
"Dr. Olliver! Dr. Olliver! Jade's awake!" The mystery woman yells out. Even though her voice is muffled by the walls, it's still enough to make my head pound. I hear another doctor coming that I assume is this Olliver person. The door opens up again to reveal, this time, a man thats probably in his late 50s with red hair that looks like its starting to gray. The labcoat and thick glasses give him a bit of an Adam Savage from Mythbusters look. He smiles and starts to slowly approach my bed. I clutched the cotton blanket covering the lower half of my body as I tried to move away from him.
"Hey, calm down. I won't hurt you, I promise," he said softly
"Who are you? Where am I? Why am I here?" I said everything in one breath. I had about a million questions racing through my mind fasted than an indie car.
"Sh, calm down Ms. Aquila. I'm sure that you have many questions right now, but I'm afraid that I can't answer them right now. I'll advise you to not sit upright very fast right now because we wouldn't want you tear your stitches"
"How do you know my name? Why did I need stitches? Did you put something inside me?" I start to lose it. My breathing sped up to the point that I was uncontrollably hyperventilating. I bring my legs up and wrap my arms around them in attempt to comfort myself. My freak out session is interrupted when I got extremely dizzy and black spots clouded my vision. I felt my bed slowly lift from the ground. As the bed lifted, the Olliver's chair gets pulled from under him, the door swings open and the power turns off. I gasp and my bed fell back to the ground. Everything happened in what felt like the longest second ever. The lights turn back on to show Olliver still on the floor smiling up at me, clearly overjoyed about whatever it was that I did.
"Perfect," he says. He walks out of the room, shutting the door and locking it.
'What the heck did I just do' I thought. I was too lost in my own thoughts that I didn't even realize that the same white fog from the library was quickly filling the room. I don't have the energy to fight it. I lay back as I let myself, yet again, fall into the darkness.
