Glitch #ONC

Chapter Two (Edited)

Luke tensed himself for pain as he felt his consciousness start to return. Nothing.  He started to hyperventilate as he struggled to find a reason, other than death, that he should be painless. The ghost of the top step greeted him every time he thought about it. 

His shifting caused the cushion under him to roll slightly. A strange sensation. It resisted the pressure of his head more than his cheap synthetic pillows ever did. The mattress spring that stabbed him in the shoulder every night was strangely absent. 

Forcing his hands to flop to his sides he ran his fingers over the rippled surface of the bed. Warmth greeted his fingers. He plunged his index finger knuckle deep into the jelly-like substance and found the firm base. He shuddered at the sensation of pulling his finger from the gel.

Where am I?

It took an age for his eyelids to shake off their weight and respond to his command to open. Impenetrable darkness greeted him. He shook his head and tried to scream, but his voicebox failed to deliver more than a muffled groan. 

The shaking allowed a slither of light to creep under his blindfold. He tried to wipe his face along the mattress to drag the mask from his face. Something tugged on the inside of his nose and made him gag. The more he tried to free himself from the blindness the worse the sensation became.

He lifted a hand to swat it from his face. His leaden hand landed on the mask covering his eyes and pushed them even harder into the soft flesh of his face. As his right hand tumbled it caught the silicone tube from his nose. Tears dampened his cheeks.  

I'm in the hospital, full of tubes and wires. I've done a real number on myself, we're screwed. We're going to lose the farm.

The beeping beside him intensified. An alarm sounded. His heartbeat throbbed in his neck to match the machine. 

I need to calm down if I am to get out of here.

He slowly filled his lungs with air. He counted to five before allowing the used breath to leave his body. The monitor's beeping matched his steadying heartbeats. A wave of calm enveloped him.

 His hands tingled as they came back to life, shaking off the weight of the medication. He squinted as the mask lifted from his eyes. The light blinded him to his surroundings. Without the thick elastic band over his ears, the sound of multiple machines greeted him.  

As his eyes adjusted to the light he pulled himself up to a sitting position, cautious to create enough slack in the nose tube to stop it from making him feel sick. The room was larger than any building he could remember being in, almost like an aeroplane hanger. 

Beds filled the room, twenty rows each with over a hundred beds. Luke traced his wires to the machines beside his bed. He watched his heart trace quicken until the orange light glowed atop the monitor. He steadied his breathing and the light extinguished. The tube connected him to a small box and a bag of fluid in a silver pouch. He stretched for it but his fingers merely made it swing.

The overhead lights shifted from white to purple-blue. His heart leapt into his throat as he clung to the bed with white knuckles. His eyes flicked between the east and west doors waiting for someone to catch him. 

A mix of disappointment and relief washed over him as the doors remained closed and nothing else happened. Curious he leaned over to the next bed. Another human lay there, a smile plastered to the parts of his face that were not obscured by the large black mask over their eyes. Luke shuddered.

This is no hospital.

Luke's monitor registered his fear. He ripped the cords from his chest and threw them over the side of his bed. A ringing filled his head. A static sound that disabled everything but the most primitive thoughts of fight or flight. 

He clamped his hands over his ears but it did little to quell the noise. He lashed out at the machine connected to the nose hose, his barely functioning fingers struggling to get him free of the tether. His frustrated scream echoed through the room.

Once free he hauled himself towards the edge of the bed. More tubes connected him to the bed. He yanked them from the collection port. Embarrassment and violation flushed his cheeks. He gave the bed a defiant punch that made his hands ache.

His legs resisted the call to wake up. Every other fibre in his body prepared to flee as they lay limp and lifeless, his big toe barely able to wiggle. Eventually, his legs cooperated enough to bend his knees and allow him to clamber over the side of the bed.

The cold floor sent shockwaves up his newly wakened limbs. He squealed as his legs cramped up, he staggered forwards to the neighbouring bed. The person within remained blissfully unaware of his predicament. He scratched the person's leg and called for them to wake, but nothing happened.  

He stood shaking, his eyes roaming from bed to bed, body to body. Dread filled his core as the buzzing in his ears intensified. 

"Apologies, there appears to be a technical fault with this simulation. We have our best team working on it and normal service will resume shortly," said an automated female voice.

He couldn't place the voice in the room, no matter which way he looked. It was too loud to be more than a foot away. He searched under the bed for any sign of a speaker. Finding none he turned back to the body in the bed. 

A masculine shape laid there, oblivious to the world. A soft light glowing from underneath the mask obscuring his face. 

On weak knees, Luke hurried back to his bed and the discarded mask. He ignored the wailing of the monitors and the flashing red lights on the screen. His hands shook as he turned the mask over.  He squinted to read the tiny words written on the inside. 

Virtual Reality? A Simulation? What the heck is this?

His legs gave in, he slid down the end of the bed to the floor.  Tears flowed freely as his tired limbs refused to move. 

"Where am I?" he wailed, "Why are you doing this to me?"

He focused his anger on the man he could see in the high polish of the floor. 

Pale and sickly slim it looked like the man was being haunted by pestilence. The stranger's hair was buzzed close to the scalp on the sides. The longer hair up top hung limp and greasy against his forehead. 

It was their eyes that held Luke's attention. Hazel with a fleck of green. A mirror image of his own.

He rolled onto his back purposefully smashed the back of his head on the floor. He winced as something dug into his scalp. Reaching his hand up to the back of his head he felt it. Small and round, no bigger than 50p piece. He tapped it with his finger and the reverberation made him nauseous.

The static sound increased until he could no longer keep his eyes open more than a crack. It blocked all his senses to a degree, but it couldn't mask the sound of people running. He felt them groping at him. They forced him to yield. The sound in his head incapacitating.

The female voice repeated her apology, an all too cheery voice. 

Men lifted Luke into the bed. They fought his feeble attempts to escape and reattached the various cables and tubes. One of them pressed Luke's head into the bed to stop him from headbutting the man reattaching the catheter.

The blindfold covered his eyes once more. He kicked out as the screens repeated the message reverberating through his skull for the umpteenth time.

"Keep him still." A nurse popped the cap of a glass vial and drew up the contents into a syringe, "I need to get to that cannula, move your hand."

Luke's vision grew fuzzy, he felt drunk and nauseous. "Why?" he slurred as a cold substance tracked its way up the vein in his left arm.

He sent a wave of pure hatred in their direction. Glass smashed. Pain blossomed in his ribs as the man punched him. 

"The lights!" One of the orderlies yelled. "The Monitors, it's all going down."