The "Us" in Virus

~5~

Body aching. Head throbbing. A deep metronomic beat behind his eyelids. Thump, thump, thump.

The dentist slowly sat up and rubbed his forehead. It felt like he had been knocked out for seven months. He tried to open his eyes, but light flooded in and made his head pound even harder. His head was swirling, but one thought dominated his mind:

"Where am I?"

Answering the question would be a lot easier if he could open his eyes, but the sharp fluorescent light was unrelenting on his concussed and boggled brain. He decided to survey what he already knew while his senses stabilized: 

He had been knocked out by some supernatural explosion while exorcizing a Dasani bottle.

He was no longer outside on the gravel and debris. It felt like he was sitting on carpet.

The light that flooded into his eyes had been fluorescent, meaning he was probably inside. 

Lastly, he smelled some terrible, blood-curdling smell that he couldn't exactly place.

He stopped at this last fact. How could he have not noticed that smell earlier? It was a smell that made his olfactory nerves want to commit seppuku. God damn -- the odor seemingly clung to the air, making it heavier. It was rotten, old, reminiscent of that Tuesday night with the broken porta potty and barrel of gas station kimchi ... or maybe the incident with the senile skunk and the expired Taco Bell quesarito ... well, it doesn't matter. That's a story for another day.

The dentist decided to try to open his eyes again. If the light burned his retinas, so be it -- maybe it would momentarily take his mind off of the smell. Slowly, throbbingly, he opened his eyelids, pushing past the initial flood of light. After a couple seconds, his pupils adjusted and he could survey his surroundings.

It was a small, prim room. The walls were all pink and prim. The curtains were white and prim. There was a pink prim couch on the primply purple carpet next to a respectable (and prim) coffee table. There was, however, one very dominant and strikingly un-prim aspect of the room:

The Furbies. 

Lining the walls were shelves filled with Furbies of all colors. Purple Furbies, yellow Furbies, blue Furbies, grey Furbies. Hundreds of them with those beady little eyes and slightly ajar mouths. They added a weird tension to the room, as if at any second their eyes would all suddenly and inexplicably lock on you. 

The dentist stood up and started examining them closer. He was in the process of scrutinizing one that looked mildly familiar -- was it Nicholas Cage from National Treasure 2?! -- when a door behind him opened, and the smell he had briefly forgotten about tripled in intensity. 

"Well, well. The sleepy head is finally awake," chirped a sprightly voice. 

The dentist swung around. The voice had come from a middle-aged woman in a bathrobe. She smiled an amicable, non-threatening smile. In her hands, she held two cups -- of what, the dentist could only guess.

She placed the cups down on the coffee table. "Please, sit down," she suggested and gestured toward the prim couch. 

The woman was so calm, and the dentist still so dazed, that he blindly followed her suggestion and plopped down on one end of the couch.

The woman seemed pleased at this. She unnecessarily flattened some of the wrinkles out of her bathrobe, then sat down at the other end of the couch. She politely crossed her hands on her lap, angled her body toward the dentist, and smiled expectantly. Silence filled the room. Not knowing what to, the dentist shifted uncomfortably and decided to break the awkwardness.