The Persuader

You wake up. You are lying in bed. You feel warm and comfortable, though a little numb. You look around. You are in a small square room with lavender walls and white ceiling tiles. Dust motes float in the air above you, illuminated by the beam of sunlight falling across the bed from the open window to your right. You don't know where you are. You don't remember how you got here.

You try to sit up, but your arms are too weak. You rest your head on the pillow, trying to remember what happened to you. Your hand feels funny, like there is something pulling on it. You lift it up and look at it. It is bandaged, and there is a tube sticking into the bandage. You follow the tube with your eyes to a bag filled with clear fluid hanging from a hook. IV drip. You must be in a hospital. You turn and look the other direction, but the left side of your bed is enclosed by a white curtain.

An attractive young woman with a blonde pony-tail walks by the end of the bed. She is dressed in a plain cornflower blue uniform. She sees that you are awake and smiles.

"Good morning, John," she says cheerfully. "How do you feel?"

"Weird," you say.

The sound of your voice freezes her in mid-step. She is looking at you in complete shock. She struggles for a minute to find words. "Did you just say...Did you say that you feel weird, John?" she asks with a weak smile and a furrow in her brow. She is looking at you like you are some kind of strange animal.

You feel uncomfortable. You don't know why she looks so horrified. "Um...yes," you say, swallowing hard. Your lips feel fat and swollen and your throat is tight. Your voice sounds funny. You feel like you haven't spoken in quite a while.

She points over her shoulder in the direction she came from. "I'm going to get Dr. Pembrost, John," she says, her voice trembling. "You just sit tight and I'll be right back, ok?"

You try to nod, but the pain in your neck makes you grimace. The young woman runs out of view behind the curtain and you find yourself alone again.

You wonder why the young nursing assistant looked so shocked when you spoke. Has it been a long time since you talked? Have you been in a coma? You have no idea. You can't remember anything. The girl called you John, but the name sounds strange to you. Like a stranger's name. You can't say for sure whether it is your name or not. What happened to you?

You try to stitch together the pieces. All you know for sure is that you are in a hospital bed, so there must have been some kind of accident; or possibly an infection, or heart attack, or some kind of sudden physical change. You have amnesia, obviously, but it doesn't alarm you nearly as much as you imagined it would. You are confused, sure, and concerned by the girl's reaction, but other than that, you don't really have any concerns. You feel weak, and tired, true. But other than the pain in your neck when you tried to nod, you feel pretty good, if a little numb. Your face does feel a little funny, though.

You raise your hand to your face and feel it. It feels strange. It's numb and tingly, like it's been frozen. But it doesn't feel the way you expect it to, either. It's bumpy and has ridges in places you expect it to be smooth. Are those scars? What kind of accident were you in? The thought of your face being badly scarred is a little disturbing, but you don't remember what your face looks like, either. The entire experience is very surreal, and you are starting to feel a little frightened. You are suddenly overwhelmed by a need to know what happened to you....