Well this certainly took too long too write. And its short too, I decided too put something out there instead of taking longer to make this longer.
I think anyone reading this should assume that I will never ever update...that way we can all be surprised (including me) when I do update.
Nothing, nothing was exactly what Ivan was feeling. He couldn't see, he couldn't hear, he couldn't feel anything. Slowly his senses returned to him, the first was his hearing. A steady beep was the first thing Ivan noticed; the next was the soft hum of the lights. Ivan opened his eyes and the light stung, he tried to focus but the world was blurry.
After several minutes his eyes focused and he found himself in the infirmary. The sterile smell, the white walls, the monitors, the uncomfortable bed; all things Ivan hated. He hated hospitals; he hated how the doctors would treat you as if you were a baby, and how they would act as if you were stupid if you didn't follow their 'advice'. He hated being hooked up to all the machines, all the wires and cords, all the things they stabbed into you. He hated these places, and he wasn't set on staying.
He sat up and swung his feet off the bed and to the floor, after testing to see if he could stand he did. He began unhooking everything the doctors had shoved into him, when he ripped one off of his finger a constant and ear piercing sound filled the room. Ivan had unhooked his heart monitor and the machine though he had flat-lined, the sound instantly gave Ivan a nasty headache and he desperately tried to turn the machine off. After being unsuccessful, Ivan grabbed the machine and smashed it into the wall; the small machine shattered and the noise stopped.
Before Ivan could get out of the room though the glass door opened and a middle-aged doctor ran in with a worried expression on his face.
The doctor stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Ivan for half a second before speaking with a slight German accent. "Hey, you didn't have to break it." He smiled.
"It wouldn't shut up." Ivan responded. "What the hell happened, why am I here and why do I feel like I got ran over?"
"First off Ivan my name is Wilson." The doctor said offering his hand to Ivan. "And second, you need to stop destroying my equipment and lie back down."
Ivan gave Wilson a 'screw you' look, "No thank you, just tell me what happened, and how long I have been out."
Wilson grabbed Ivan's arm and tried to force him to sit, Ivan didn't budge and gave him a look that said 'if you touch me again I will break your arm in four places.'
Ivan freed himself from the doctor's grasp with little effort and asked again. "What happened?"
"Well plain and simple, your body is exhausted." Wilson said while stepping back, Ivan was one hell of a mean looking old man.
"What?" Anger flashed through Ivan's voice. "Exhaustion? That's it? Now that sounds like bullshit to me, exhaustion." Ivan gave a small laugh. "What's really the problem I can deal with it, I am not a kid."
"That's it, it was exhaustion. Well not entirely, Max can explain more; it has something to do with the Avatar's and linking...not my specialty." Wilson said holding his hands in the air.
Ivan grumbled, he was angry; the longest ever he had stayed awake was almost a week, and here he is in the infirmary for exhaustion. It made his blood boil, he was angry with himself; this kind of thing should never happen to a man like him.
Ivan clearly showed his anger on his face and in his voice. "Well where the hell is Max?"
Wilson walked past Ivan and picked up the broken heart monitor. "Asleep, like I was until you decided to wake up. It's uhh..." He checked his watch. "Four in the morning Ivan, you should go back to sleep; it's what you need most now."
Ivan walked towards the door. "Fine, but I am not sleeping in here." Wilson tried to go after him "And don't you dare try to stop me."
And with that Ivan was left alone as he walked to his room. The only noise was the soft thud of his bare feet on the cold floor, and the occasional eerie sound of the building creaking. His chest started burning again, pain was a constant in Ivan's life; never being able to escape and it only gets worse.
As he walked the empty corridors he started talking to himself. "Exhaustion, that's...freaking bullshit. The man that stayed up five days straight on the run from an entire town passes out from exhaustion and he wasn't even up one whole day!"
Ivan allowed the anger to boil inside of him, it was maddening to him; the last thing he needs now is to have everyone thinking he is feeble, or to actually start being feeble.
After several minutes of walking the empty halls he came to a small intersection of corridors. On the left was the way to the refinery, a sealed door separating it from the rest of the base. The hallway beyond the door was bathed in an eerie darkness, the kind that could scare any man. The refinery had been sealed off because no one needed to go there anymore, that and rumors had started about something living in the refinery. Ivan didn't pay much attention to rumors, but something could easily hide in one of the largest parts of Hell's Gate.
Ivan started walking again, it wasn't far to his room and he needed to get out of the medical gown the doctors stuck him in.
After arriving at his room and cleaning up, he sat on his bunk. The room completely dark except for a small clock on the nightstand next to his bunk; the green light from the clock was being reflected by the barrel of Ivan's ReX-50 revolver sitting on the nightstand. Ivan grabbed the revolver and made sure it was unloaded before he twirled it in his hand, then changing the direction of the spin, back and forth before stopping and pretending to holster it; then quick drawing it with a spin. He always liked the useless skill, 'Like a cowboy' he thought as he examined the weapon he purchased shortly before shipping out to Pandora.
The Rex-50 was a large six round revolver. Its designation of ReX was a sort of pun for the large size of the weapon, the 50 was for its ammo type. It was chambered in a newer .50 magnum round that could penetrate body armor at close ranges, and could even kill without the need to penetrate the armor at mid-range. Normally Ivan would have stuck with a standard side arm, but Ivan had a 'thing' for heavy hitting weapons, and this was 'heavy' in all senses of the word.
Ivan set the weapon down, and let out a long sigh. He brought a lot from Earth, he knew before he left that he would never be coming back so he took all he could. He laid down and tried to get some sleep in before the sun came out, but his mind kept going back to Earth, his home that he would never see again. It didn't matter if it was dirty and dying, it was home; and he would never see it again. Even if he had the chance to go back, he knew he could never actually do so. His thoughts drifted to the reason he was on Pandora in the first place, the same reason that would stop him from going back to Earth.
Ivan awoke like every other day, to the blinding orange light of the sun piercing the veil of darkness that was his room. He never needed to set his alarm on this planet; the sun woke him up every day for the past six years. He headed out to the indoor gym and did his morning exercises, after yesterday's incident he couldn't afford to start letting his body get out of shape.
After his exercises were done he headed to the mess hall, for another ritual of his; horrible coffee and a worse meal. But after preparing his coffee and grabbing an MRE he sat down at a table and only stared at his food. He was too tired to even eat, sleep didn't do much for him anymore; and every day it only got worse.
Max, always being one of the first people up in the mornings besides Ivan; went to check on Ivan in the infirmary. When he only found Dr. Wilson asleep in his office he started to panic, Ivan was in no condition to be wandering around Hell's Gate alone. Without waking Wilson to ask about Ivan, Max ran off to find Ivan. After searching for Ivan at his room, the gym, and all the hallways in between without success, Max began to seriously worry. What if he had another incident, he could be dead for all Max knew.
But the sound of snoring caught his ear, and the smell of coffee. Max walked into the mess hall to the sight of Ivan asleep on a table, his head laying on top of an MRE, the contents had been squished out of the packet.
Max gave a sigh of relief and walked over and placed his hand on Ivan's shoulder to wake him up. Max was so glad that he hadn't found Ivan dead that he forgot one important rule when dealing with Ivan, don't touch.
The next thing Max knew, he was slammed face first against the table with his arm twisted painfully behind his back.
"Ivan it's me, it's me Max!" Was all he could choke out between the pain.
He felt the grip on his arm loosen, and then he was pulled off the table.
"Jesus you idiot, I thought you knew better than to do what you just did." Ivan mumbled, while trying to wake himself up.
Max rubbed his arm, and checked to see if his face was still in one piece. "I was looking everywhere for you, you should have stayed in the infirmary; in your condition you don't need to be running around alone."
"And what condition is that?" Ivan asked. "Dr...what's his name...told me I passed out from exhaustion?" Anger returned to his voice, but he suppressed it best he could. "That's bull…exhaustion. Ha, exhaustion my ass. What the hell is going on?"
It was Max's turn to get angry. "What's going on? We took some blood samples, you have been drinking?" Max almost yelled the last part. "Where did you find..No it doesn't matter, what the hell were you thinking?"
"Ah, piss off." Ivan said with a wave of his hand.
"Do you know what effects alcohol has on you during a link? Do you? That, plus the fact you are breaking almost every single regulation there is concerning Avatar drivers."
"No I don't doctor. So please...enlighten me." Ivan mocked.
"First off, the alcohol will affect your brain, motor skills, judgment..."
Ivan interrupted. "Can I get the cliff notes version please?"
Max had to stop to dumb down his explanation before continuing. "It affects your brain, and during a link, we link your brain to the Avatar...being drunk tends to screw with the process."
"I wasn't drunk; I might have had a hangover bu-"
"It still causes problems. All of that, plus the broken regulations; you are a disaster waiting to happen. How you even got to be a driver in the first place is beyond me." Max threw his hands in the air.
"What do you mean? What regulations?"
"First off, you are way too old; there is an age limit if you didn't know. Second, you suffer from PTSD; people with mental disorders are not allowed to be drivers. Third, you are suffering from a major illness, linking takes a lot out of your body and having cancer isn't helping. You don't get enough sleep, you don't eat...you drink!" Max toned his voice down incase people started showing up, no need to make a scene. "Your body cannot handle this. Not in this condition and not at this age, and NOT when you do stupid things like get drunk."
Max was fuming, how someone like Ivan even landed a spot on the Avatar program was beyond him, it was supposed to only be for scientists; not mysterious special forces soldiers who were to stupid to realize they were completely unfit to link up; and stupid enough to do something like get drunk.
"Well." Ivan said in a calm tone. "No, I didn't know there was an age limit. PTSD...mental disorder, its just some bad memories...Major illness, you got me there. I have never slept much in my life, I don't eat much either, and you don't have to worry about me drinking...I ran out."
Max was still angry but he calmed down. "Ivan, you are going to have to take things easy. You will have to limit your time you spend linked up, and make sure you take care of this body." Max pointed at him. "You can't take much more, you may not think so; but you are close to the end, you mess up now...well...your dead. We are trying to save you, you can't go and do things like get dr-"
Ivan cut him off, "If you say 'get drunk' one more time, I will rip your throat out, I told you I am out of booze."
"Alright, alright."
With that Ivan ate what was left of his squished MRE and ignored his coffee. Max fixed actual food, and offered some to Ivan but he refused it. After finishing up, they headed to the link center.
Ivan sat down in the link capsule and got ready for his first, or second day, he wasn't sure if yesterday counted, at home tree.
"Remember" Max called out. "Take it easy; what you do in you Avatar does have small effects on this body too. And don't spend all day in it either."
"Alright mother." Ivan said in a dry voice as he closed the lid on the link capsule.
This was supposed to cover the entire day, but I cut it short...because it's 5:00am and I haven't slept, nor will I sleep any time soon.
I have written a piece from a much later chapter, and am wondering if I should put it out as a bonus thing. Its a part of the story I want to get to, but I have to actually start writing first...getting things off the ground is hard.
Also, as far as character and location descriptions go; I won't be overly specific unless I need to be. I find that when I read, I forget the long descriptions of places and people, and instead replace them with my own mental image of the character or place. So feel free to interpret locations and characters how you see fit.
P-wease read and Review...makes me feel better bout me-self.