For the Love of Money

Chapter 4

Every part of me was disconnected, and I was like a puppet, completely out of control, unable to do anything but what my master wanted. I couldn't. I felt my body being moved, but I was powerless to know where. I could be headed over a bridge, right in the Chesapeake, maybe, but I couldn't do much to stop it. The truth was, I was afraid, deathly afraid to even budge, because anything form of movement would surely awaken and rekindle the fire that I had only just managed to put out. I would surely let go if it came back. I wou;nd't be able to survive such an inferno again.

The people who were trying to relocate me didn't seem to care about that. I felt as though I was being carried on someone's shoulder, their blades jutting into my pelvis like a sword, and with every step my body jumped downwards, and I could feel some of the flames coming back. I couldn't conjure the ability to think. I couldn't make a plan, and honestly? I couldn't find any care to. It was as if I were cut off from my own soul, as if some force were blocking the highway to my mind. I did make an attempt to say something, but all I could do was mumble some alien language. The person carrying asked me what I said, but I was already drifting out of consciousness, and I couldn't find the willpower or desire to hold on.

The next thing I knew, I was being plopped onto what I guess was a bed, a rather uncomfortable one too. The mattress was what I imagine plushy cardboard to feel like, and the covers were so starched and harsh that I assume that if you weren't careful, you could cut yourself. I jumped a little on impact, startled from the sudden transition. A flare came from my legs, my arms, causing me to groan. I heard someone say, distantly, "He's alive, but I think it's too late."

Too late? So I wasn't in heaven? Or was I on my way to hell? Wouldn't be too surprising, considering that I was a heartless bastard.

A rubbery-feeling hand gripped my left arms, feeling up from my wrist to my bicep. I wiggled a little. I didn't like to be prodded, and I wasn't planning on being experimented on. A finger poked my bicep once, twice, and then there was a prick, followed by the sensation of cold liquid flwoing through my veins. So I was being drugged. Again, I had a hard time caring about that. I couldn't find it in me to care. Immediately afterwards, the feeling subsided to nothingness.

There was mute click, and then I was assaulted by pure light. My eyes rolled in their sockets, and I jerked upwards a little. So bright, it penetrated my eyelids and actually managed to leave after-images on my closed eyes. Like magic, my connections seemed to come back, and I was myself again. And I wanted to know where I was. My eyes flicked open and I sat up abruptly, bumping into someone in the process. A yelp, and jump back, and I was staring at some puny man in a lab coat, scrubs, holding a clipboard.

I shot daggers at him. "What the absolutle hell?" I exclaimed.

The man looked as though he had seen a ghost, the color draining from his face. His mouth opened, closed, open, as if he were meaning to say something.

"Oh I'm sorry," I said with harsh sarcasm. "Did I catch you in the headlights there? Cat got your tongue?"

He adjusted his glasses, but didn't respond.

"Well?" I yelled harshly. "Did you not see me sleeping?"

"I'm sorry," the dude finally managed to say in a high-pitched, annoying voice. "I thought you were...were-"

"Dead?" I scoffed. "How the hell are you a doctor if you can't even tell if someone is dead or not? Where did you get your degree, because I'm telling all my friends to never go there." Even though I had no friends.

"You-Your condition was critical and it was very unlikely--" he explained, but I didn't let him finish.

"Do you know a pulse is? I'm a poor kid who lives on the streets and I know what a pulse is. How old are you anyway? Twelve?"