Project: Revenant

Chapter 4

Imagine that you are about to get into a fight. What happens inside of your body? Your pupils dilate, your breath quickens, and your adrenaline spikes. Now being in a fight kicks your brain into survival mode, leaving you like an animal with the thought that is, kill for your own life. But the rush, the fear, and the courage, that is thrilling. That is what it felt like when I absorbed the turned blood, and it was fantastic, almost euphoric.

Dr. Gillespie finally invited me out of this glass room, which I craved for too long.

"What is upstairs?" I ask.

"It's a lot," She replies, "I am going to share the truth with you, but you need to keep a steady mind. You will learn things that will be difficult to deal with. Can you do that?" She asks.

I look at the picture of my parents and back to Esther. "Yes."

"Follow me." She says.

I finally walk through the door that separates me from the rest of the lab, and for the first time, I could see it unfiltered by the glass wall. I stand still for a moment, unsure of where I should go.

Esther noticed my confusion and signaled me to follow her up the stairs. I do just as she signals, and walk up the dark staircase. We stop at a thick metal door with a lock pad on it. She enters a code onto it and nudges the door open. "The code is: three, five, four, nine, eight. Got it?" She says. I nod.

Through the door was a nicely lit hallway with blue and black wallpaper. The strange thing is, it leads to nowhere. It was just another room. Esther proceeds forward and walks through a wall at the end of the hallway. She was gone. She then walks back through and says, "Semi-permeable technology. Here take this." She extends her arm out to me, holding a watch similar to the one she was wearing on her left arm. I seize the watch and put it on my left arm as well. "This will permit you to walk through the wall. Follow me."

I walk through the wall with ease and find myself standing in a house. This was surprising to me. I thought we would be in a top-secret lab in the middle of nowhere, but instead, we were in a house that I assumed is Dr. Gillespie's.

"Welcome to my home, though I suppose it is also your home now." She says with enthusiasm.

"So this whole time I've been in your basement?" I ask.

"Yes, I suppose."

"How did you make all of this?"

"I didn't. Your father helped me. He was a brilliant man. It was he who designed that wall and the laboratory." She responds.

"That doesn't make sense. My dad was a history professor at Columbia."

"That was just a cover. Your father was a top-notch scientist. We started our own business, called Cosmos Laboratory."

"Why did he lie to me?" I ask.

"The government became involved, so we had to keep it secret. I'm sorry you've been in the dark for so long."

"It's okay. I understand, I guess." I say.

"Let me show you my research room." She says.

I follow her to a new room with large screens and a vast sea of books. "I have more to show you, but this will be one of the most challenging parts of understanding yourself. Are you ready?"

I'm not sure how to respond. What will I learn? Will I be ready? There is the only way I will find out. "Yes."

She nods and swipes at the screens. "These are your vitals."

This was hard to swallow. To imagine this, I would suggest you imagine what it would feel like if you suddenly found out that your dog or someone you loved was suddenly hit by a car. The worst part of that feeling is the sudden sinking of the stomach, and your mind goes blank. Suddenly, you are no longer present at that moment, but the rage, the confusion, the sorrow, that has taken control of you.

What I witnessed on her screens that showed my vitals, was nothing. Blood pressure: zero. Heart rate: zero. Body temperature: zero. Respiration rate: zero. I am dead.

"I don't understand, how could this be? How am I dead? I thought you brought me back, you said my vitals were normal." I begin to lose myself.

"Hector, you need to calm yourself," Esther said. "I said your vitals were normal so that you wouldn't panic."

I stop for a moment and listen to the rhythm of my breath. "I'm not even breathing right now."

"You do it out of habit sometimes."

"And my heart," Only silence from my chest. "It's not beating."

"It was at first, but I suspect when the off-world particle took over your bone marrow, it gave the heart nothing to pump since the particle is self-sustaining."

Silence fills the room. "What's happening to me?"

"I'm not entirely sure. There is still so much to learn about this particle."

Silence returns. This time it stuck for too long. "Is there anything else?" I ask.

"Well, Hector, that depends." She says.

"Depends on what?" I ask.

"How far down the rabbit hole do you wish to go?"

One last time, silence returns.