Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Bright, fluorescent lights blinded me. The blackness was banished, surrounded by white. Something hard gripped my face, shoving air into my mouth, my nose. I gagged, coming awake with a massive gasp followed by a violent series of coughs.

Bits of dull-blue dust exploded from the inhalation ports of the oxygen mask like a dragons exhale as I hacked, my lungs tight and dry.

Wait, oxygen mask? The disorientation twisted into full-blown panic. No. This couldnt be happening. I looked down at myself, at my body. The IV, the monitor, the bed. The ambulance ride that must have brought me here. We didnt have insurance, and doing some frantic math in my head I realized I was looking at from anywhere between $2,500 to $10,000 minimum.

Shit. Shit. I couldnt afford it. We couldnt afford it. Even the lowest number would wipe out my meagre profits from Nicks tip sheet and the highest would put us on the street. There was... something that happened. My memory was fuzzy. A natural disaster? A meteor?

It slowly came back to me. Thats right. It had exploded before impact, showering the city and street with massive plumes of dust that reminded me of the immediate aftermath of the oil refinery in Beirut. And Id been thrown from the resulting blast.

Experimentally, I leaned forward and winced, a sharp pain emitting from my chest beneath a thick bandage. Cracked rib. I had green-purple bruising all over my side and my shoulder throbbed from where I must have landed. I struggled to my feet and wheeled the IV stand towards the window.

Id expected to see husks of collapsed buildings as far as the eye could see. But the Dallas skyline was intact. The Bank of America plaza building had collapsed, damaging some nearby structures but at least from this perspective, everything else looked mostly whole.

That was almost worse. The disaster had been a freak incident, unlike anything Id ever heard of. There would be an inevitable compensation fund, but that would take time, and there had been clear examples in the past when it had taken an upward of a decade for lawmakers to establish anything remotely approaching a working solution.

Then, as if to punctuate my rising panic, the text box appeared.



I slapped the message away, retreated until my back slammed against a wall. Panic mingled with anxiety and I began to hyperventilate.

Head between my legs, I tried to come to grips with how bad the situation was. The only thing that could possibly make my current circumstances worse had happened: There was actually something wrong with me. Hallucinations. And not the fun, walls are slightly shifting and why did I leave the remote in the fridge kind. It was a hard delusion, tied to the dream Id had the previous night. Theyd want to keep me overnight for observation. It had to be a psychological issue, which would take time to diagnose and evaluate, and that was how ten thousand dollars turned into a hundred.

Hurriedly, I crawled to the foot of the bed and checked my chart. Below the listing of blood pressure and notes there was a bullet-point list detailing my condition: Severe smoke inhalation. Fractured rib. Dislocated shoulder. Exposure to an unknown substance. But I almost cried with relief when I found the field listed as M. Unidentified Adolescent. They didnt have my name. That cinched it. I had to get out. Now.

It took a few painful moments for me to remove the IV. My head pounded under the intensity of the lights. My half-folded clothes and belongings were in a plastic bag placed haphazardly on a nearby seat. I got the feeling that whoever placed them there had been called away which was likely the reason my name and information hadnt been lifted from my wallet.

The text box reappeared as I struggled back into my ruined clothes. I tried to push it away again but it shifted, moving out of my reach but remaining in my sight. I turned away from it, refusing to acknowledge the delusion when it moved to stay in my eye line. It scrolled slowly, as if it knew I couldnt help but read it.



That stopped me flat, one-leg in to putting on my pants. For the first time I doubted what I was seeing was merely a product of a damaged mind. There were few things I took less stock in than astrology. Unless my subconscious was being ironic. Could a subconscious even be ironic?



Apparently, the answer was yes. But Rene Magritte wanted his joke back.



Could have told you that, I muttered. My pants were on. My shirt was ruined, but hopefully the hospital would be too busy for anyone to notice. In my haste, my eyes lingered on the underlined title and the text expanded.



I tried not to think about the fact that I did feel strangely calm. I was panicking, yes, but it was strange that I wasnt still hyperventilating on the floor, folding to the ever growing external pressure. I dealt with pressure well, until it grew so excessive and overwhelming that I broke down completely in a series of escalating panic attacks. Yet somehow, I was coping.



I glanced at it and immediately regretted doing so after reading the first line.



Fuck off! I swiped at it, but it danced away and the text continued to scroll.



Accept my ass.



Okay, no. Any doubts that this was a delusion suddenly faded as my mood further soured. No one was better at mocking me than I was. And this was feeling increasingly like a cruel joke. In fact, most of this wasnt adding up. There was radar, satellites, thousands of telescopes pointed at any given section space at any given time. Something that big just slipped past everything?

There was no way. It wasnt just the text box. This whole thing was the delusion. There had never been any meteor, any impact, any ambulance ride. This wasnt happening. In all likelihood I was strapped to a gurney somewhere, drooling

I stopped myself just shy of dissociating completely. If I went down that road there was no coming back. I needed to accept what was closest to reality, and reject the clearly fantastical elements. Namely, the text box that still danced in my vision.

I needed a distraction. Something to buy me a moment.

Of course. It was a hospital. There had to be doctors on the way, and they'd be allowed to work as soon as the guy next door was secured.

Okay. I leaned my head against the door. Then something else came to me. Wait. Why aren't they using subsonic ammunition? More importantly, why was he shot? Drop the weapon. Answered with I cant. He didn't sound insane, just distraught and terrified. It's an emergency situation so the hospital would be filled floor by floor. I'm at least six floors up so I wasn't the first one rescued. Maybe they started picking up the people around the fringes first, then made their way inward, which would mean I was likely one of the last. More importantly that means everyoneand specifically my neighbor was more than likely a victim of the blast. What if the fallout changed us

Fuck, I was losing it. I'd entertained the delusion and now my mind was fraying. Two figures in white coats sprinted toward my neighbor.

As soon as I heard raised voices I moved. The door clicked open and I turned the opposite way, catching snippets of furious dialogue, one-sided. The black orb-like cameras were placed in obvious locations, and I somehow knew where they were pointed. I weaved a zigzag path around them, making sure my exit left no evidence.

I dared a look up at the convex mirror mounted above the upcoming cross-hallway. I caught a glimpse of myself. My dark hair was matted and my brown eyes were wild.

Worse, I saw behind me. A single SWAT guy trailed me, head cocked to the side, speaking quietly into his radio. My face flushed. Dammit, not now. I'm so close. I kept my pace even despite my pounding heart, moving with confidence.

I made it past the computer desk at the front without turning a head. There was a ding and the elevator doors closest to me opened. It was going up, not down, but I didn't have the luxury of being picky. Three women in business casual walked out and I squeezed between them.

Hey! A deep, gruff voice. The SWAT guy. It had to be.

I slammed my hand down on the close door, button and backed away. SWAT guy was caught behind the three women and pushed one of them aside, trying to get to the elevator before it closed. The last thing I saw was his outstretched hand.

Thing was, I knew this hospital. I knew the floor I stepped out at was the ICU. And I knew it had a back stairway that led out to the parking garage.

I accidentally looked at the woman at the floor desk and felt a jolt of alarm as her eyes went to my ruined shirt. Hey, sir?

I blew past her, walk blasting into a run.

Sir you can't be back there!

I'd reached the stairway and the door had nearly closed when I heard her call out one final time,

He went that way!

SWAT guy had found me. If I pushed this any farther they'd be able to charge me with attempting to elude an officer and resisting arrest. Still, there was a chance.

I flew down the stairs two at a time, clinging to the unevenly painted guardrail. In seconds footsteps pounded behind me.

I shouldered through the heavy door and into the garage, my side stinging from the impact. Needed to hide before

Not one more step. The deadly ire in his tone spoke volumes and I knew before I turned around that the barrel of the rifle was pointed at my chest.

I held my hands up. No need to make things worse. Okay.

You're one of them. The anger in his voice took me off guard.

I... don't know what you mean. I said, but the truth was I could guess.

He lowered his rifle, and unbuckled his helmet, taking it off his head. His face was twisted in an expression that was the very picture of hatred. A scar ran vertically across a nose that had been broken one too many times.

Wanna guess how many friends I've lost today? He seethed. Too fucking many. SWAT guy dropped his helmet to the floor with a clatter, then brought his rifle back up. His finger was no longer on the guard, but on the trigger itself. Reality began to dawn that he had no intention to arrest me.

What the hell? My voice cracked. I'm just a kid, man. Please. I don't even know what you're talking about.

Yeah you do. The people closest to the impact came back wrong, changed. And you're one of them.

I watched his eye down the barrel of the scope and realized he was aiming for my head. My mouth was dry. Suddenly my mind shifted, and everything recontextualized. None of this was really happening to me. My arms, my legs, my chest, none of them were mine, none of them were under my direct control. I was someone else, far away. But in that moment, in the stillness, I realized something had changed.

I didn't want to die. I wasn't willing to let it happen like I had before.

Please. Don't.

His finger tightened on the trigger. Time slowed down, dilating exponentially. I could see it in his face. He wouldn't change his mind. And he had already made the call.

He was too far away for me to reach. Every car I might take cover behind was too far to be viable. I had no real options besides one that that wasn't real at all.

The me that was not me reached out with a single hand. Mentally, I called out for the ability right as he pulled the trigger.

Probability spiral.