DIVIDE

~Chapter 2~

Date 18/08/2364. Time, 14:33

I float back into consciousness, becoming more aware of my surroundings. I realise pretty quickly that I'm in a hospital room, alone; I haven't opened my eyes, but the sharp smell of disinfectant is everywhere. That's the first thing I notice.

The second is the pain. There is a stabbing, almost unbearable agony in my left temple that makes me want to cry out.

There are some clear tubes plugged into the crook of my arm, and as I study some yellowish liquid travelling up one of them and into my vein I think to myself what a pathetic excuse for painkillers.

Fighting to remain conscious (as I don't much fancy being plagued with relentless nightmares once again) my eyes travel over to the double glass doors at the end of the room. I squint through the garishly bright lights to see the distorted image of my mother, a doctor in an ugly turquoise shirt, and a man that despite my apparent inability to focus my left eye, I recognise to be Taj Shamsay, who is basically in charge of relations between the two provinces and is responsible for relocating teenagers my age to their designated province. I can't quite make out their muffled conversation, but I can tell from the tones of their voice that it's a serious one. Shamsay looks at my mother like she's a piece of dog dirt on the bottom of his brogues, and I really can't say I'm surprised, but somehow this bothers me far more than it usually does. My mother even finds it hard to get a decent paying job, because everyone in Halo knows her as the woman who gave birth to an anomaly of the provinces. At the moment, she's a cleaner at the local high school. I feel guilty, because before I was born, she was a lawyer, and dealt with the first few sparks of the Inferno Uprising, back when it was just a couple off terrorists trying to climb over The Wall.

I cast my mind back to the last thing I remember. My mother at the window. The air pods. The bomb. Then I think of the uprising, and suddenly, things start to make sense.

My attention is quickly turned back to my mother and the two men she is stood with. They have stopped talking. My mother turns to leave the other two, and makes for the hallway. Meanwhile, the doctor types the code for the double doors, and pushes them open. Shamsay follows him in, and his face when he sees me makes me think that despite the all consuming agony which burns through my body like corrosive acid, my facial injuries are a lot worse in the visual sense than I first thought. The doctor, who introduces himself as Sabastian, checks my vitals and studies what appear to be my latest CT scans. This does make me wonder how long I've been in this hospital, as he does have a sizeable pile of documents related to my case, I assume, under his arm. Meanwhile, Shamsay seats himself in the armchair beside my bed, next to my only get well soon card, from my mother. I smell coffee on his breath, which mixes with the disinfectant and blood stench which already fills the room. I am repulsed. He looks at me down the length of his hooked nose, and I am filled with humiliation. I hate feeling this vulnerable. Sabastian sits down too, smiling at me. I'm shocked; I don't converse with the general public very often, but when I do, I don't get smiled at like this. It makes me feel really quite suspicious, but he seems genuine. I won't let my guard down just yet, though.

"Quinn," he says gently, "My name is Sabastian, and I'm the doctor who's been observing you and taking care of your case since you arrived here at Halo Province Infirmary two weeks ago."

TWO WEEKS!!! I can hardly believe it. There must be something really seriously wrong with me.

"There's absolutely no need to panic," he tries to reassure me. His eyes linger on the blood stain on my sheets I hadn't noticed before now, before travelling up to the place on my forehead where my province mark should be. I knew it. "How much do you remember about what happened to you?"

I open my mouth to speak. No noise comes out. There is a raging fire in my throat that needs to be quenched, and my jaw feels like my mouth has been hit with a sledge hammer several times.