A New Future

Beacon Academy

   People die all the time. I'm not an exception. I should be dead... So why don't I feel that way?
   It was as though I were floating through an empty black void. Drifting aimlessly, until I saw a reddish light. It grew brighter every second and I squinted at it. The longer I stared at it the brighter it became, the red color slowly leaving as the light turned whiter and whiter.
   'Is this what it's like to die?' I thought. 'Weird.'

   Then I felt my eyelids. My eyes were closed. I hadn't been staring at anything. And... I wasn't floating, I was laying on something. Slowly but surely I slipped into consciousness and slowly tried to open my eyes. For some reason my right eye was unable to open at all, and trying to open it gave me a dull headache. So I cracked my left eye open.

   A blinding white light immediately filled that crack and sent a sharp pain to the back of my head. I closed my eye quickly, retreating from the harsh light that had invaded my vision. Meanwhile, the rest of my body slowly started up again.

   I felt relatively okay until I tried to move. The smallest twitch of my fingers sent pain shooting across every inch of my body. It was like a wave that pulsed through my veins and bunched up in certain parts of my body. My right shoulder was absolutely killing me. My chest had reflexively tensed up from the pain and it felt like it was burning and being ripped apart at the same time. My legs felt like acid had been poured on them, and the headache I got from it all was almost enough to send me back into unconsciousness.

   "Uuugh," I let out a low pained groan. I laid still let the pain slowly recede until it wasn't coursing through my entire body and was just a dull ache in my shoulder, chest, and head. After I decided I could handle it, I slowly began to move different parts of my body. It was excruciating but I needed to know how badly I was screwed up.

   I found that I couldn't move my right arm and my right eye was still unable to open. My chest was also tightly constricted by something and it hampered my breathing quite a bit. I laid still for a moment to test everything else before I attempted to open my good eye again.

   I made an even slighter crack than last time if that was possible, and the light flowed in again, yet it wasn't as blinding as it had been before. I slowly continued widening the crack before I was finally able to distinguish my surroundings through the light.

   I was alone in a hospital room laying on a cot. Everything I could see was sanitary and stark white. It was a small room with a sink, a single door, and no windows. The only objects in the room were my cot, the sink, and the mirror placed behind it.

   I slowly shifted my legs off the cot and sat up. I looked down at myself to see my right arm in a cast. There were bandages covering my shoulder so I assumed that the bullet had been removed. My chest was wrapped in bandages and I was wearing hospital pants. Which led me to question where my other clothes had gone. The instant I asked that one question, everything came back to me and a hundred more questions came flooding in.

   'How did I get here? Where is here? Where are those girls? What happened?' I panicked, hurting my chest.
   "Ak.." I hissed, reflexively clutching my chest with my free arm. I gathered myself and carefully stood up.
   Once I was standing I made my way over to the sink and mirror.
   I stumbled over myself in my weak state and started to fall. I grabbed the edge of the sink before I could fall any further and painfully pulled myself up so I could see my reflection in the mirror.

   I hadn't ever seen my own face before... Or maybe I had just forgotten what I looked like, but the face I made eye contact with in the mirror was foreign.
   The man I was staring at had messy white hair and fairly tan skin. He also had a large eye patch strapped around his head, that covered his right eye. I reached my hand up to my face and touched the eye patch. That would be why I couldn't open my right eye.
   'Must've gotten one heck of a black eye from that last punch Blondie threw.'
   I noted my height in the mirror as about 6'2, and my age, just as I had previous assumed, to be about 18. I was wearing nothing but the hospital pants and bandages. My weapons were nowhere to be found. I turned on the sink and washed my face with my free hand, careful to avoid the eye patch.
   The water was cold and it felt refreshing on my face, further awakening me. I grabbed a hand towel at the side of the sink and rubbed my face with it. Lazily, I threw it down on the floor and lumbered back to the cot. I sat on the edge, thinking and staring suspiciously at the door.
   I had no idea where I was or what was going on. It could be safe to assume that since my wounds had been treated, that someone wanted me alive.
   'Maybe that someone is still around here somewhere?,' I thought. 'Maybe that's what's on the other side of the door. People who might have helped me..? But who would have helped me? And why?'
   I continued to think about it for a moment and I realized that I'd just have to open the door and find out myself.