Part 3: Jamais Vu

A small tube is clutched in my hand when I wake. My head throbs. I’m on the floor again.

Moving slowly, I sit up, squinting in the light. I sit up groggily. I had managed to get more residue off my face than I had thought, or maybe I had cried it out of my eyes.

The tube’s width is just smaller than my pinky finger. Little rusted wires stick out of it.

Hesitantly, I reach behind my neck and touch the little hole that’s there. A metal ring keeps my skin separated. Using my smallest finger, I think I can feel more rusted wires just sticking out of the hole.

Which was odd. I didn’t think I was a cyborg.

Then again, I didn’t really know much about myself.

Using the boxy sink next to me, I get to my feet, wobbling for a moment. The sink is a dirty white, as are the scrubs I wear. That dried gelatine substance is a yellowish film everywhere on me.

It’s so contrary to my pristine dreams. If this isn’t yet another dream. That makes me oddly smug.

I lean against the sink, watching the slightly brown water spill from the faucet.

After scrubbing my face with the water, I turn the knob to shut it off, but the knob soon stops, allowing a steady drip to splash down.

The sound makes me queasy. Still using the sink to stand, I turn my attention to my surroundings.

The room is fairly spacious. Dirty white tile makes the floor with dirty white walls and ceiling with flickering lights. A few lights are out completely. Metal counters line the walls and a large digital clock is set near the top of the wall across from me, the seconds ticking away. It reads 6:04:56.

At the center of the room is a tank perfectly sized to hold a person. A tangle of tubes are attached to it and to a ... monitor, I guess. It’s spindly with a screen on the top, and it’s clicking away.

A leak. A clock. A click.

All I’m missing are footsteps.

I wait for a moment. Nothing comes.

There are surgical equipment on the counters--I assume they’re surgical equipment. They look like they’d be good for cutting people open.

Moving carefully, I walk to the door, head still throbbing. How long had I been stuck in that tank, dreaming?

Assuming this isn’t another dream.

I spare another glance around the room and reach out to touch the door.

Then comes a burble of a voice.

I freeze.

From a speaker on the wall, a barely distinguishable female voice says, “Unfor--chrrk ... hydro--chrrk ... flooded. Please--chrrk--off and dis--chrk--all ele--chrrk--”

The message continues on in this way for a minute then goes silent.

Slowly, I relax.

Just a message on broken speakers.

I grab the doorknob.

Then the steady ticking is silenced. As does the monitor. A few moments later, the faucet also goes quiet.

My heart pounds in my chest. I glance back. The glowing numbers on the clock has disappeared.

I open the door and step outside, breathing hard.

The hallway is familiar. Doors line either side of the walls. It is very much like the dreams, except for the grime. Stains mark the floor and there’s mold on the ceiling. Dust and cobwebs cling to corners--the place feels abandoned. Even the spiders gave up.

I wait, but none of my monsters appear. No doctors, no little boys, no ghost costumes. It’s another echo.

Am I still in a dream?

My stomach turns into knots at the thought.

I step out of the room and cross to the next, pushing the door open to see a room that looks exactly like mine.

I peer around hopefully to see if there’s anything different.

And there is. My hammering heart calms a bit. This room has the same instruments of invasion as mine, but they’re organized differently, some not quite put away, others looking as if they were never touched. It’s a subtle difference.

I’m not dreaming. I hope.

I walk over to the tank and peer over the side. I gasp and stumble back, heart in my throat. I stare blankly at the tank. There are goosebumps on my skin and all I can feel is a paralyzing fear that glues my feet to the floor, like that same feeling I had in the dreams.

I have to control this.

I step forward and peer over the edge again, barely aware that I’m hyperventilating.

Inside the tank is a skeleton. Hair is still stuck to her--I’m sure it’s a girl--and she’s wearing a pair of scrubs that match mine and, oddly, are in as good of shape as mine. Connected to the base of her skull is a tube. My hand reaches up to the back of my neck, feeling the hole where my own tube had been attached. Her bones have a gelatin-like residue, and judging by the stain marks, it used to fill the entire tank.

I back away from the tank, staring around at the room. The faucet is silent. As is the clock and the monitor.

I turn and run out of the room. By the time I make it out of the room I can barely breathe. I desperately suck air into my lungs, seeing only that white bone, the gaping eye sockets …

I had to see if there were any more skeletons.

No. I had to see if there was anyone else who was alive.

For the next few minutes--or maybe the next dozen--I search the rooms. In one room, I found a girl in partial decay. Another girl who appeared as if she had died only a few minutes before. Yet another whose bones were splintered and old. I searched every room on that floor. There was not a single living person.

Except for me.

At last, I lean against the hallway with a shudder, stomach ready to vomit (vomit what?).

What is going on?

Who are--were--these people?

Who am I?

I try to remember. I try to remember if I was raised here, if I volunteered, if I was stolen from my bed.

I can only remember dreams.

For several minutes, I just lean against the wall and rest. My muscles were weak. My joints were stiff and I had very easily run out of breath.

Was I like this before I entered the tank?

Eventually, I left the hallway and went downstairs. The stairwell is dark in some places, the narrow lamps having failed.

Downstairs is as musty as upstairs and is equally familiar, yet wonderfully different and foreign. A long hall stretches out ahead of me, these lined with windows as well as doors. At the end of the hall is the T.

I lick my lips and clear my throat. It takes me a few tries, but finally, I croak out a word. “Hello?” I cough and try again. “Hello?”

It feels as though I haven’t spoken in years. Maybe I haven’t.

I peer into one room after another, finding much of the same results as the upstairs: skeletons, decaying bodies.

Where are my monsters? They were the other consistent part of my dreams. Why aren’t they here?

After searching the rooms, I go to the T. I take the left and find myself facing a metal door with the words “EMPLOYEES ONLY” stamped into it. I grab the door handle, turn it, and enter another long hallway, this one wider and with more doors. I open the first door and peer inside to see a room of screens. Dozens upon dozens of screens that completely hide the walls.

I enter the room and do a full circle, taking in the chairs, small desks, and the screens. Each screen is divided into four tiles of different screens, each showing the same thing: the tank room, the bedroom, the dark room, and the white room.

My dreams.

Each room has a girl in it ... no, not each one.

One screen is completely empty.

My legs wobble, and I collapse to the floor. All I can see are the screens. The scenes from my dreams.

Shivers wrack my body. I hug myself, rocking back and forth.

What is this place?

Something crackles.

I let out a small whimper and stare around.

But it’s the robotic, female voice from before. “Unfortunately ... hydro--chrrk ... flooded. Please--chrrk--off and disconnect all ele--chrrk--”

A few minutes later, there is movement on the screens. A doctor enters the white room. A ghost costume enters the dark room. A behind them, a little boy enters the bedroom. All in perfect sync.

The girls all remain where they are.

I can’t hear the doctor, but I can count, and I can see his lips. Still in perfect sync.

My gaze searches the screens. I can’t be the only one. There has to be someone else who escaped the loop.

Did I escape?

A half scream, half sob bubbles up in me. My gaze darts from screen to screen. What changed with me? Why are they still in the loop? Because they’re dead?

What if I am the dead one?

The hysterical sob escapes my mouth, a sound so soft and foreign I instinctively slam my mouth shut.

What if I never escape the loop?

I turn from the screen. I leave the room.

For a moment, I can only stare blankly at the doors and walls. Then I begin to explore. I open every unlocked door and attempt to break into the locked ones. I found more screens with the same things on it. Some had boy on the screen. Yet other screens were blank and black. Every thirty minutes or so, the lights waver and the broken, mechanical voice attempts to get her message through the speakers, but they’re all broken.

Or just too old.

I probably heard a complete message at some point, but I stopped listening after the first few hours.

I found several bathrooms.

Which meant someone living had spent time here. More than one person.

In the bathoroom, I washed my face and my hair. Then I stared curiously in the mirror at the girl who stared back, trying to find something familiar, something I recognized.

But it must’ve been a while since I’ve looked in a mirror. I don’t recognize myself as someone I’ve seen before.

I have thick brown hair. It’s fuzzy and a bit sticky from the gel and goes down to my shoulders. My skin is pale, almost bleached, which I guess means I’m unhealthy. My face is strong and still a bit blank in expressions. I spent a few minutes just trying out different expressions, seeing how familiar they, all the time wondering how I knew these expressions when I can’t remember anything that I’d associate with them.

I also have scars. There’s some on my head, on my hairline and on my jaw, and probably a few elsewhere. There is also that hole in my neck where the tube had been attached.

After a long time of just exploring, searching, I find an unlocked, small room with a desk and a chair. The desk is cleared and the chair has wheels. Pushed up against the walls are shelves of files.

Hope rising, I quickly pull out an armload and scatter them on the desk, flipping them open to read--how did I learn to read?--and find a bunch of stiff words. I can see names and photos and basic info backgrounds. As I skim through the rest of my armload, I realize that these were all background files on girls, probably the same girls who lay in the tanks. I leave the files on the desk and pull out another armload from the opposite side of the room. These are also background files, but of boys.

I collapse in the chair, thinking. There must be hundreds of files from both sides. That meant hundreds of people I’d have to sort through before I found me, if I would even recognize me when I got there.

It might mean there are hundreds of skeletons here.

Which most likely means there’s more than just me.

I spend only a few more minutes on digging through files before I go back out and go to one of the few doors I haven’t opened. At least, I haven’t opened it here, in the grimier version of the hospital. I opened the door in my dreams.

The door that brought me out of my dreams.

It’s dusty, the metal knob a bit rusted. It takes a bit of pushing to open the door and get through to the other side.

The other side is an enormous room--at least, enormous compared to the other rooms.

There is a long counter--like a place to sign in--and there are chairs lining one side of the hall (like for waiting?). I wander into it, my bare feet making little sound on the polished, dirty floor.

To my left is are a pair of double-doors.

Instinct, or maybe some remnant of memory, said I was in the front entrance room, and that those doors would lead outside. Would lead me into the world.

Curiosity turns me to my right, to smaller door with a sign reading: “WAITING AREA.” I consider the sign for a moment before taking the knob and opening the door.

Inside it is small and dark with one large screen and one chair. I step inside, glance around, and I’m about to leave when the screen lights up. A man appears. He looks like the doctor from the white room. Perfectly combed hair, perfect white lab coat, perfectly placed smile. When he speaks, I flinch away. He has that same oiled voice.

“Welcome to BioTechnologies,” says the man. The speakers crack only slightly. “I am Dr. Liam Grayson, leading scientist in our mission to help people live without fear of never experiencing life after death.

“Many people are afraid of the afterlife--but what if you could subvert that fear by never experiencing it? Our goal is to create that subversion, and today I’m happy to tell you that the first step is well in process.

“I know what you must be thinking. Who are you to play at God? Cheating death is not a good end-all. My friends, you’re right. This will not be the remedy for all of you, but I dare say it may be the remedy for most of you.” He smiles, big and bright. I’m too busy thinking to scowl at him. Cheating death …

“Before you walk away, let me explain what I mean,” Dr. Grayson continues. He disappears and a new image appears in his place, a picture of a … brain? “How the brain works is a mystery, and an even greater mystery is how the consciousness works. At least, it used to be.” The image switches to that of a small piece of plastic. “See this SD chip? You use those to hold the pictures that you take on your cameras. Keeping all the scientific jargon out of this, I have created, essentially, an SD chip for the brain. In this SD chip I have created realities, and when connected to the chip, a person can enter these realities. It’s almost like a video game.”

My muscles go cold.

“You can put your memories into the chip,” Dr. Grayson continues, “you can create different places and do whatever you want in them. It’s like controlling a dream. And all of it will be recorded onto this little chip so that you can live on.” He smiles again. “If you die, you can continue living in this reality, these realities you’ve created.”

He continues talking, but I’ve stopped listening.

The dark room.

The white room.

The bedroom.

All of them … a computer made reality?

Doesn’t seem any less likely than a never-ending dream.

And someone made the decision to put me in those nightmares?

My hands are shaking again.

Something had happened. Something had gone wrong with me. I’m alive. This place is abandoned, cleared out.

Dr. Grayson’s face disappears for a moment before reappearing. The video has started over. “Welcome to--” he flickers out of sight. The screen goes dark.

The calm, female voice speaks, her voice clear for once. “Unfortunately, we are experiencing unexpected power surges due to a failure in the hydro system. The subfloor has flooded. Please turn off and disconnect all electrical devices. For your safety, we are temporarily turning off the water system as to make sure there aren’t any more leaks. All doctors are recommended to check on their patients during this time. We will be turning it off in 10, 9, 8 …”

I freeze, listening to her voice echo through the room … down the hall ... throughout the building. I know that count. I had counted it at least eighty-three times.

“... 3, 2, 1.”

I hold my breath, waiting the 6.4 seconds it took for the doctor--monster, little boy--to cross the room, to come to a stop. I count the 3 seconds for the pain to enter my head.

I force myself to stop imagining that scenario, the scenario that had happened at least eighty-three times.

I turn and leave the room.

Answers aren’t worth this.

I am a failed lab rat. This place is abandoned. That is all I need to know.

I cross the large room to the double doors. I suck in a breath, then push them open.

Fresh air smacks my senses, fills my lungs, moistens my skin.

It’s different. Refreshing.

Unpredictable.

I won’t be bound by that place. Not for anything.

I’m going to be free.

The End