As his vision began to clear, Jonathan gazed outwards into the gray medicinal mist. His head felt as if he was circling, floating helplessly upon a wave of dizziness. ‘Where am I,’ he thought. ‘How long has it been?’
The mist swirled as memories formed and Jonathan struggled to recall the last moments before he fell into the soup of uncertainty. He saw his apartment in his mind’s eye, white and cold with steel accents. It was a small space, nothing more than a tiny kitchenette accented by a sitting area leading to a second room that was just large enough for a bed and dresser with a closet-sized bathroom at the back. As his memory gazed upon the dim living space, he contemplated the modest size for an instant. Though residents of the various territories in the Underworld were accustomed to tight quarters, his assigned living space was still comparatively tiny.
In his memory, he was seated upon the worn couch in the seating area, his kitchenette at his back side. Spread across the smooth fabric torn here and there, he was relaxing into an afternoon of laziness. ‘Wasn’t I supposed to be somewhere?’
Like an electrical shock in a pool of water, the mist burst into blinding white light with remembrance of that moment; seconds before. ‘I’m not going to make it today,’ he had said to a disappointed mother who had planned on an afternoon with her husband and son. ‘Not feeling well.’ Discomfort bubbled across his skin. He had lied.
Within, he could feel the swirling suddenly in unison with a churning sensation ripping through his muscles as the remembrance overtook his thought. He felt the need to scream, though sound would not exit his lips in this world of ever-changing mist. He could feel his chest buckling and heaving with the pain delivered on the wake of the memories. His parents were dead. The moment of realization flooded his conscious delivering angst and anguish in one stabbing jolt.
‘Where am I!’ The pain transformed him into what felt like nothing more than a buckling mass. The memories continued as he heard the cold and unfeeling voice of a woman confirming their deaths in the collapse of the iconic Boston Plaza. ‘A revolutionary raid,’ the woman had said. Jonathan could feel tears beginning to well. The mist turned gray again, but this time he could see movement through it. The mist was clearing in his emotional onslaught.
Jonathan screamed as he pushed himself up to a seated position. His wrists were restrained with thick black straps and he was in a bed in a small room not his own. The walls were gray and cold. Seeing movement, he turned his head quickly, tears now falling rapidly down his cheeks, though he could see through the haziness two women approaching his bedside rapidly. They were dressed in white; nurses. “No!” He screamed.
One woman grabbed his shoulders as he bucked to the side. The emotional pain continued to rip through his head, images of his parents drifting across his mind’s eye. The other woman raised a needle before her, preparing to inject him with it. ‘The mist, the pain, the confusion, their deaths…your fault,’ He thought before finding his voice at last. “It’s all your fault!”
As the needle approached his arm, Jonathan screamed again. “No!” His wrist restraints held him back, though as if he had pushed at her with all the strength of an emotionally disturbed man, the glass vial attached to the needle shattered and the woman became airborne until smashing against the wall. Jonathan struggled again, pushing his shoulders back at the other woman who still held him tight. It was the woman at the floor that pricked his anger though. ‘You did this to me,’ he thought as he locked his eyes upon her and felt his fury bubble up like acid having a chemical reaction. “You’re fault, you did this!”
The woman’s head shot back upon her shoulders as she released a shriek. ‘You’re fault,’ Jonathan thought as he focused his rage upon the woman. Her head fell forward, tight as if in a seizure. As Jonathan watched on, his breathing heavy, he glimpsed the white fabric of her dress beginning to sprout spots of red, soaking into the fabric and growing larger like polka-dots. The woman screamed again.
Unaware of the other woman’s movement, Jonathan felt a syringe enter his arm. “No!” He screamed as the cloudy mist began to form once more. His head rocked and began to circle. With a final vision of his mother, a feeling of heaviness upon his throat, the mist turned to the blackness of sleep.
#
Dr. Jarrod Rogue watched the playback of the incident with much intent; rewinding a third time. “Nurse Barril apparently suffered a seizure as he came to,” the voice from the back of the dark room sounded, the second nurse that had witnessed the incident. “I grabbed another dose and administered before calling for assistance. She’s out of danger now.”
“Thank you, nurse,” the doctor said, dismissing her. Reaching forward, he began the playback again, zooming in on his young patient’s face; Jonathan Dane.
“Poor boy. His parents were killed in the Boston raid.” The nurse said, her hand gripping the door prepared to exit the room. “He didn’t handle it well.”
“That will be all, nurse.” As the door closed with a wisp, Rogue glanced back confirming he was alone in the room. With a flick of his finger, he began the playback again zooming even closer in to Jonathan’s face. The young man’s eyes were intent, locked upon the woman. Slowing the image down, Rogue noticed the shattering of the vial before the woman lurched backwards. He flicked his finger again commanding another rewind and a closer look at the young patient’s eyes. The vial burst and the deep brown eyes of the frail young man were intently locked upon it before glancing up at the woman. It was then that the woman’s seizure began.
Dr. Rogue sighed, falling back in his chair. “My god,” he whispered to himself. “He’s a psych.”