There are many sounds most people hate waking up to, the buzzing of alarms perched besides your bed, an elder sibling or parental figure urging you to get up… but the most worry one is a heart rate monitor.
I slowly began to open my eyes to the world around me, my blurred vision masking most of my sight from the horror I was in. As my vision cleared my worries were confirmed. I was in a hospital and not as a visitor. A nurse who was walking by noticed me out of the blue, before I could ask anything she gasp and run off shouting someone's name whom I assumed was the doctor.
I took this time to analyse the room, it looked like a private room since I could see no other beds or patients around me. I also noticed a vase of white flowers sitting to the left of me. Perhaps my family had a recent visit but that still didn't answer the question of what happened to me.
Luckily, the man I presumed was the doctor walked in and took a good hard look at me. He was bold with tan skin, he wore a long white cloak and glasses. He murmured to himself occasionally while writing something on his checkboard. It wasn't until he handed the checkboard off to the nurse that he began talking to me.
"Mr Loud, do you remember what happened to you before you ended up in this place" the doctor asked in, what I assumed was, a Pakistani accent.
"I was… I think I…" I stammered out, trying to think of the last thing I had done "I don't know."
The doctor nodded at the nurse then turned back to me with a slight grin on his face.
"Mr loud, my name is Dr Stari Prijatelj, this might come to you as a surprise, but you have been here much longer than you think." He explained in a calm demeanour, "But first I will need you to answer some questions."
He politely took the clipboard out of the nurse's hands and began writing on it ask he asked me questions.
"What is your name?" "Lincoln Loud." "How old are you?" "Eleven." "What town where you raised in?" "Royal Woods, Michigan." "How many siblings do you have?" "Ten sisters."
Dr Stari went silently as he wrote on his checkboard which carefully covered the lower parts of his face. When he was done writing he put down the clipboard and grabbed a seat next to my bed. His expression became very serious.
"Mr loud, this might be hard to take in but please try to remain as calm as possible. You are not eleven, you are seventeen, you have been in a coma for six years-"
What! I began to freak out as he said that, six years of my life have been spent laying on a hospital bed. The heart rate monitor sped up, I struggled to settle down, but Dr Stari and the nurse had me pinned and kept telling me to remain calm. After a while, I stopped but I still wasn't over it.
"Good, now that your settled I can get into why. A day before your birthday you were kidnapped by a gang and taken to an unknown location. While you were there, the gang that captured you got into some complications with another gang and… you were caught in the middle. An explosion went off and you were left to die, if not for the local authorities you wouldn't be laying there." Dr Stari explained.
The story started to make sense in my head, I remember the kidnapping and the explosion… but not much between that. I looked up to see a worried look on his face, obviously he wasn't done yet.
"you were immediately rushed to hospital and treated for serious injuries including shrapnel imbedding and third-degree burns, we also had to treat you for one other major injury." Dr Stari elaborated as he pulled out an x-ray image and placed it on a glowing board.
The image was a torso, most likely mine, but something was off about it. What looked to be the lower half of the left arm was blanked out. Worryingly, I raised my left arm to find my suspicions to be true. The lower half of my arm was replaced with what looked to be a prosthetic limb with a hook on the end. A wire attached to the hook fed down and under the prosthetic plastic which now replaced my phantom limb. Yet again, I freaked out as the heart rate monitor went into overdrive. I had almost managed to break lose from the doctor's grip until I felt a sharp pain in my right arm. My head fell back as I lost all control of my body and returned to the place I had been for six years…
…
…
I reopened my eyes yet again, this time coming to grip with my surroundings much quicker. Dr Stari was already standing over me with a hardened look on his face. I small array of light reflected from his glasses as he walked over to one of the side tables and pulled out a mirror.
"Since you have been in a coma for quite some time, I am obliged to show you how you look nowadays" Dr Stari explained as he held the mirror up to where I could see it.
I looked at my face and it was certainly different to what I was used to. My face was long and skinny with an arc where my nose is, speaking of which, my nose was also a lot smaller. My face still had the familiar features like my freckles and the outlines on the side of my eyes. My hair was still pristine white with my ever-famous fringe, it had grown a little longer around the back and my cowlick was missing all together. Needless to say, for someone who's been in a coma for six years, I wasn't looking too bad.
"We had nurses taking care of your appearance through the years, regular haircuts and shaving of course. We've also been massaging your muscles as to keep them active but do be warned that it might take some time before your use to walking again. As for your prosthetic limb, it's one of the more basic models out there. It contains a wire that runs to your muscles which triggers movement in the upper claw." The doctor explains rather quickly.
"I'd recommend finding a much more suitable limb as nowadays we-"
The sound of Dr Stari chocking was all I could here after that last part. As he dropped the mirror, I saw someone behind him with a wire on his throat. The wire cut deep as blood rushed out and the doctor struggled to breath. He soon dropped to the floor with blood dripping everywhere as the figure reviled themselves to be a rather large man in a suit and tie with sunglasses on. He looked around the room before turning his attention to me. I was scared stiff as he moved his hands around my throat. I felt the air leaving my lungs as I struggled to lose his grip. I flung myself off the hospital bed, but he still had me by the throat. I felt my vision fading as I thought of my family and how they might have been these past six years.
Just then, I heard the sound of a knife carving through skin, but it wasn't my skin. I felt my body drop to the floor as my vision return and my breathing commenced. I looked up to see that the guy in the suit had a surgical knife sticking out of his head. As his body fell to the floor, I saw a figure standing tall and proud. The figure had bandages rapped around his head with slight bits of brown hair sticking out. He was skinny but had a few muscles on his arms and had his left arm filled to the brim with tattoos. He stretched that very arm out to pick me up as I popped off the question.
"Who are you?" I said between my raspy breaths.
"Names Abe, this place isn't safe for you or me so we gotta' bail." He said in a rushed tone.
"Why? Are we being hunted?"
"Sort of, let's just say that a bunch of people want me dead and you're endanger of being mistaken as me."
Mistaken as him? I suppose with the bandages over the face he could look like anyone but why would someone want me dead?
I had no time to ponder as Abe grabbed an orange jacket that was sitting on my bed and put my arm around his shoulders. We ran as fast as we could through the hospital avoiding anyone we saw. As we finally reached the outside I heard gunshots coming from within the building. It was clear that whoever wanted Abe dead didn't intend on leaving any witnesses.
We ran off into a clearing where we ended up on a hill overlooking a harbor. Massive ships laid dormant awaiting their captains to take them to somewhere. Abe let me go as I struggled to stand on my own. He lit a cigarette and offered me one, though tempting, I ultimately declined.
"Where are we?" I asked
"We're in Britain." He flatly responded.
Britain! Why am I in Britain!
I pondered that as Abe threw the jacket at me.
"In there you'll find a ticket for a boat ride to America, some money and a phone. When you arrive in America, call a cab and go back to where you came from." Abe explained.
I was shocked
"Why would you give this to me?" I asked
"You've been through enough and it's clear that I have unfinished business here." Abe explained as he threw his cigarette on the ground and stamped it out.
I looked threw the pocket of the jacket to see all the items he told me about.
"Thank you, Abe, this means so much to-"
I looked up to see that Abe was gone. He must have ran off while I was riffling through the jacket. I took a look at the name of the ship on the ticket before making my way to the docks. I put the jacket on over my hospital clothes making sure to cover as much of my hook hand as possible.
It'll take me a while, but I will see my family again.
Hey! Thanks for making it to the end of the Story. I've go so much more plans for this series in the future so stick around. I will be hopefully updating this once a week (I might even update sooner if the demand is enough). I'm looking forward to making this but until then... Peace!
