Insubstantially Me

Chapter 2

I opened my eyes and stared at the unfamiliar white ceiling, momentarily dazed. The ceiling in my bedroom was painted to look like a cloudy sky and had glow in the dark stars scattered across it, which I'd added back in high school.

It only took a few seconds for reality to come crashing back and for me to remember that I'd been drugged and kidnapped. I shot up on the bed and quickly scanned the room for my abductors, relaxing minimally when I realized I was alone in the unfamiliar room. Locating what had to be the door, I threw my legs over the side of the bed and dashed for the exit.

Or at least, I tried to. A second after I stood up and tried to take a step, my legs gave out and I landed flat on my face.

"Ow," I grumbled as I pushed myself up with unsteady arms. Apparently, whatever I'd been drugged with hadn't completely worn off yet.

It took quite a bit of effort to pull myself back up onto the bed while the phrase "this is not good" repeated in my head. A monumental understatement, of course.

I tested my arms and legs a few times before realizing that I'd have to wait a little while for them to be of any use to me. I was, for all practical purposes, paralyzed at the moment.

Instead, I assessed the room I was in. It was like a mix between a bedroom and a hospital room. There was nothing typically hospital about it. It had all the normal bedroom furniture - bed, dresser, book shelf, even a television and a computer. But it had a very institutional feel to it. Maybe it was the fact that the room was in desperate need of some color. Everything was white and silver.

Not what I would have expected. If I'd had time to give it much thought, I would have expected to be in some dark holding cell or a basement or something. Probably headed for Mexico or somewhere beyond to be sold on the black market.

I suppose the room I found myself in was better than being a victim of human trafficking. Unless, of course, they'd kept me drugged for days and all of that had already taken place, and I actually was a victim of human trafficking... But this seemed to be something else. It was too organized to just have been a random thing where one girl was as good as another. They targeted me for whatever reason.

Even if this wasn't about trafficking, a kidnap victim wasn't that much better, really. But I guess I could be glad that I woke up, at least. So I guess killing me wasn't the objective. Or not yet anyway.

I sat there for a few minutes before the door opened. And not like a regular door. It was like something off of Star Trek. It swooshed open and tucked itself into the wall, leaving an open doorway. Very high tech.

I watched warily as an older man in a white lab coat entered the room. The door swooshed closed, behind him.

"Oh good, you're awake," he said pleasantly, like he knew me and thought it was totally normal that I was here.

He walked over to sit in the chair a few feet away from me and I didn't say anything. I really wished my arms and legs didn't feel as much like jello as they did. They were starting to feel a little stronger, though.

"You must have some questions," he prompted, after watching me for a minute in silence.

I looked at him, incredulous. Was he kidding? Questions? I had monologues running through my head!

"How about these questions," I said when he didn't say anything more. "Who the hell do you think you are? And where the hell am I?"

"Now, now," he tisked. "You are really much too intelligent for such language."

He was scolding me for my choice of words after kidnapping me?

"I am doctor Raymond Wescott and we are in a secluded laboratory in New Jersey."