The Slave

Chapter 1- Am I Dead?

When I got back to my senses, I suddenly realized something was very wrong. A light in front of me hurt my eyes and I wasn't capable of even blinking. I tried to look away, tried to move my arms to cover my face with my hands without success. My entire body was paralyzed and pain and cold traveled trough it like I had never felt them before. I also tried to scream and ask for help but everything was useless, something came in from my mouth and burned my throat at the time a horrible sound hurt my ears.

Various hours in which the only thing that occupied my mind was a terrible desperation passed. From desperation I passed to terror when some thoughts could pass through the pain of my mind…

"Where am I?

"What's happening to me?"

"I'm dead!"

The mix of pain, terror and these thoughts, made me lose consciousness. Thanks the Star Spirits because I didn't stand anymore. I don't know if hours or days passed when I got back to my senses. I was still immobile, with my eyes wide open. The pain had decreased a bit, the light in front of me, blinded my eyes put it was bearable, now I was capable of realizing that the terrible noise was some kind of forced breathing, deep and strong.. it was not my breathing, I was sure.

The decreasing of the physical torment opened the door of another kind of suffering: the confusion in my mind and the urgent need of answers.

"Am I really dead?"

"Whose respiration that I heard is this?"

"What's this that I feel in my mouth and grips my throat?"

Soon I was recovering memories from I thought was the previous day; the party, the drinks, the argue with Carla and Edward's insistence on testing that stupid drogue that he thought fascinating.

"My love, stop drinking please… don't you see you're killing yourself?" Carla yelled at me "is that what you want?"

"I don't want to kill myself, I want to escape"

"Escape from what? You're crazy"

"Yes, I'm crazy and you don't understand me… no one understands me…"

I took to my mouth the pair of blue pills I accepted form Edward. That's the last I remember

"Oh, Star Spirits! I finally did it, I ended with my life. It can't be!... what's going on? Why can't I move? Why can't I close my eyes?

"That moron poisoned me" I thought "I'm in hell paying for everything I did… it's much worse than I imagined"

I didn't believe in afterlife but in that moment I found another answer.

"No, Star Spirits, please forgive me!... give me another chance…"

The sound of a door that opened interrupted my thoughts, then I distinguished a feminine voice:

"But what noise does that crap make!" she commented

"It's the only one we have, you know how things are here" a male Koopa answered

"How is it possible we only have one artificial breathing device?"

"Well, it's like this and we must do the best we can with what we have"

"And this one?... what happened to him?"

"This one? This one is doomed. Uncover him so you may see him"

I felt how she removed a blanket from my face and I could see a female Koopa wearing a white coat with a expression between amaze and fear.

"He's awake!" she yelled

The medical Koopa next to her bowed to see me

"No, they brought him like that, when he entered urgencies they said he had an accident, he was completely intoxicated put still conscious, he repeated once and once again: "Carla, Carla, forgive me"

Then he fell into a coma and a kind of Rigor Mortis, they couldn't close his eyes

"Poor Larry Koopa, he should have been better if he had died.

"It would have been better for us! Now we must keep him alive like a vegetable, occupying a bed others need and wasting energy.

"But… can he se, hear… does he feel?"

"Of course not, look…"

I saw how he moved a tube near my bed and felt a terrible twinge in my arm.

"That hurts moron!... I'm alive! I'm conscious! HELP ME!" I tried in vain to yell at him"

"take advantage to change the serum" the Koopa said "someone must water the plants"

Both let out a laugh and I was filled of rage and desperation

The koopa went out of the room, the female koopa changed a jar that hanged next to my bed and rushed out.

I had some answers now… the conversation repeated itself one and again in my mind:

An accident?