Disorientation [part 3 of 9]

Morning sunlight moved slowly up the plain blue hospital bedding and finally played across a stubbled chin, some days removed from razor's contact. Hmmm, the man said, still asleep, and moved his hand up as if to wipe the light away from his face. Undeterred, the sunbeam proceeded slowly and surely up, up over the deeply tanned cheeks, down into the sunken hollows, across closed eyelids.

With a start the man sat up and immediately groaned, a splitting headache welcoming him into the land of the living.

Where the fuck am I?

The man remembered... a compulsion. He had been compelled to reach out and touch... touch what? What was this thing in his memory? Some kind of vibrantly colored... alien... surely it was not of this world? Alien flesh? Nothing else was very clear or present in his mind, but the image of that... substance... was so vivid still. It was surprisingly soft, velvety, yielding to and then embracing the finger he had poked into it.

Why did I have to touch it?

Taking better stock of his surroundings, his confusion only grew. Surely this must be a hospital room, but... stocked with antiques? Old style physical monitors? Where were the robots?

Noticing the patient sitting up in bed, a passing nurse entered the room with a smile. "Feeling better are we?"

A glacial moment passed in silence, marked by a clenching of his jaw.

"Well... glad to see you are awake. I am sure you have some questions, so I will just let the Doctor know you are up. In the meantime if you can just help us by filling in some blanks here, you see, we are not quite sure... who... you are?"

This last was said while handing over a small board with a metal clip holding actual physical paper and a pen! An ink pen!

"I am..." the man started to say, before trailing off, lost in thought.

Christ. Who am I? Why don't I know my name! I haven't seen an actual ink pen since visiting grandma's house so many years ago. Her house smelled bad. She said it was moth balls. Why can I remember that and not my name?

After a long pause the nurse cleared her throat. "I will just be getting the doctor now."

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The letters on the papers crawled around like ants. They surely formed words, but the effort of chasing each letter down as it fuzzed out of focus was too much. The thoughts in his head were metallic, attracted again and again by the magnetic pull of the alien substance. Try as he might, he had not been able to summon his name, or any bit of his past except the flash of memory of his grandma. The pain throbbing at his temples did not subside.

He must have drifted off to sleep again. The sound of the door opening startled him awake.

I think there is something inside of me, controlling my brain

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This is part three of a multi-part series.

Part 1: A crumbling machine found in the desert
Part 2: Surface Expedition Report

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Yeah yeah I said I wasn't going to be making any more posts on Steem. I have realized there is no reason I shouldn't try to milk as much reward from Steem as possible while I am powering down my accounts.

I will be reposting some of my fav old posts over the next 13 weeks (or sooner if JSun pushes through a short powerdown!) and then I will remove all the contents of my posts when everything is powered down and converted to the buzziest crypto around :)

Join me on the flip side for fresh content!