This choice: Discover that final frontier among the stars. • Go Back... You concentrate on the mental images of space travel, laser weapons, and aliens galore. A shiver passes through the blank expanse that you are stuck in just before the void before you unfolds like origami. You have to instantly screw your eyes shut as the light is painfully bright. Thoroughly blinded now, you also notice that you feel oddly cold and wet. It takes quite a while, but eventually you are able to barely open your eyes without feeling like daggers are being stabbed into your skull, though you can’t make much out, and everything looks really odd. It takes you even longer – during which your eyes further adjust to the light allowing you to see better still – to realize that it’s almost like you’re looking through a lens. Moving your hand up reveals that you are within a clear tube of some sort, though the motion also releases a stream of bubbles that slowly float up, drawing your gaze to watch them go. It takes a few moments for the pieces to fit together once you see that, but you do eventually realize that you seem to be floating in a jar of almost clear fluid. Beating on the “glass” to try and get out, though in your haste to escape you completely miss how you seem to have been breathing this liquid just fine anyways.
With a gurgling hiss, the tube splits apart, releasing the fluid and dragging you along too. You end up slamming face first into the floor, lying in a slowly spreading puddle of the liquid. You can feel the coolness of the metal floor pressing into your cheek as well as the texture of the flooring, leaving you momentarily stunned at how real this simulation feels. Taking a deep breath proves to be a mistake, as it just causes you to hack and cough till it feels like your insides might spill out; and while your organs don’t actually get ejected, you do end up letting out quite a shocking amount of that fluid from your lungs; again shocking you with how you can feel this ooze shooting up out of your body with each retching cough.
Thoroughly drained, you lie there for who knows how long, barely remaining conscious more by luck than willpower. Breathing starts to get a bit easier, though the air carries an antiseptic smell that irritates your nose. Sometime later, you feel a tremor passing through the floor, and it’s strong enough to send you shivering across the ground, even if it is helped with lubrication from the liquid from the tank. Struggling to hands and knees, you glance around, and see matte metal everywhere, as well as a number of other tanks arrayed along the wall, though all of the other ones are unoccupied and dry looking to your quick glance.
Bracing a hand on the wall, you manage to get to your feet, only to nearly end up dropping back to the ground when a voice comes from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
“Greetings Patient 526117,” it says with a soothing feminine tone.
Your throat is quiet sore, and your voice is barely a rasp, but you manage to croak out, “Are you speaking to me?”
“Affirmative,” the voice responds.
“Where…where am I? What was I doing in this…tube thing?”
“You are located in the intensive care unit of the New Horizon’s medical facility. You have just been released from one of the regeneration pods where you were being treated for life threatening injuries.”
Something about how the voice sounds makes you it think it might not be from a human, though if your desire for something futuristic was made properly, it might very well not be human you suppose. Shifting gears, you are also left wondering what exactly the voice meant by “life threatening injuries”, other than your throat feeling rough from the coughing spell, you don’t feel like you are death’s door or anything. You are broken from your line of thought by another tremor passing through; you can feel it through the soles of your feet as well as your shoulder against the wall.
“What is that, an earthquake?”
“No, an earthquake would not be possible at this facility. This facility is under attack by a hostile group. Most staff and patients have already been evacuated. Due to this, your treatment had to be terminated before completion. Recommend continuing treatment at another facility as soon as you are able. Someone is on their way to assist you. In the intervening time, please review your personal medical information; this information will be displayed shortly.”
Shortly afterwards, a glowing panel of light appears in midair, with a few things that you can recognize like heartbeat and breathing. A large section of the “panel” seems blank but a couple seconds later starts displaying something like an x-ray of bones, but much more realistic looking than that. As the bones continue to appear, you also see organs starting to get drawn in, followed by muscle; it’s creating an image of your body layer by layer. Eventually this deep scan reveals…  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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