Between Two Minds: Awakening

by D C Wright-Hammer

  Unexpectedly, a fuzzy image projected itself in front of me. At first, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Straining to focusing, I could eventually see three figures: a woman and two children. After a moment, they became crystal clear, and I instantly felt very strongly for them. I was willing to do anything for them because I loved them deeply. The only strange thing was that I had no idea who they were. Instead, hollowness accompanied their picture, and I was deathly afraid for their lives.

  I’m sorry.

  The words forced their way into my thoughts followed by an intense confusion. Then the pain returned, only this time it felt much more external compared to the mental anguish I had just experienced. Doing my best to pinpoint the source of the pain, I was shocked to realize it was coming from what had to be my face. An undeniable urge to open my eyes followed, and as excruciating as it was, I gave it as much effort as I could.

  Ugh! Ahhhh!

  Fighting through the agony, I miraculously opened my eyes to more pain as the brightest light accosted my pupils. Squinting hard, my view was anything but clear. Remembering that I had a procedure, I anticipated waking in a hospital room surrounded by machinery and medical staff. But something about the light and cold temperature gave me a sinking feeling that I was no longer at ADG.

  I struggled to focus, and it became apparent that I was, in fact, lying face down on a very hard surface. I felt burning from my face again, and was certain I had gotten a bad scrape. My ears then perked up to another strange and quiet voice. Listening for numbers, I was surprised not to hear any, but instead a simple question.

  “Are you okay, man?”

  Am I okay? Okay from what? The procedure?

  Then the next undeniable urge hit me.

  Get up! With all my might, I rose up from the ground to an erect position. I stood up! On my feet! With my legs!

  It was then I remembered exactly what I had been through. Mind migration. They put me into a new body! Looking down, I confirmed it was everything I could have hoped for. I could even feel the slightest pain in what had to be my left ankle, but I didn’t care. My spine was healthy and aligned! They’d told me mind migrations were good, but damn! It was amazing!

  My stomach dropped. Something wasn’t right. Blinking rapidly, I tried my damnedest to take in my surroundings.

  “You okay, man?” A bearded man in outdated, pretentious clothing said. “Hey, you okay, man?”

  I couldn’t help but back away, stumbling a bit with the worst sinking feeling as I turned to look around. There was a large condemned warehouse behind us and somehow knew I had to get away from that place as fast as possible.

  Run!

  As if possessed, my lower half responded to the fear, and I instantly darted down the sidewalk. Hell, I was sprinting like I had always dreamed! Even through my confusion, I could feel each and every one of my core muscles expand and contract as I stretched farther and farther with each stride. The wind blowing my hair back only added to the experience.

  Trying to get some reference as to where I was, I panned my gaze. There were old apartment buildings lining the street and old-fashioned cars parked along both sides of the road. I hadn’t experienced anything like it in the simulations before the migration, so sure as hell wasn’t prepared. After blazing through seven or eight blocks, my lungs ached badly, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  I tried to gather my thoughts to make sense of the situation while still running at top speed. I was scared. I had to get away from something or someone? But what or who? The warehouse? Who was inside? Nothing came to mind, and that scared the hell out of me.

  Gasping for air after running for a couple hundred meters, it became impossible to maintain the pace and hope to get away from anyone. My already fearful state had escalated to pure terror, so when an alleyway presented itself to my left, I was compelled to take it. Tires screeched as a car entered the alley behind me, engine revving as it completed its turn. I couldn’t bring myself to look back nor could I keep my thoughts focused on where I was going.

  What the hell is going on?!

  The worst part was that it seemed familiar but completely new all at the same time. Regardless, that car had to be what—who—I was running from, and I couldn’t let them get me. On my right, a machine shop was closing its garage door, and I needed to be on the other side of it before that happened. As I slid into the building, the skidding tires from my pursuers became muffled by the closing door. Taking the briefest second, I looked for an exit. Spotting a door across the room, I darted in that direction, passing two grizzled machinists on the way.

  One of the men pushed me as I tried to get by. “Who the hell are you, buddy!”

  Stumbling into a hallway on the other side of the door, I regained my balance and took a left toward what had to be the front of the building. Entering what looked like the front office, I saw two massive picture windows divided by a heavy steel door that led to the street. Dashing for the door handle, I simultaneously grabbed it and read the sign next to the door jamb: “This door is locked. Use the side exit.”

  “Shit!”

  I could hear pounding on the garage door in the back and knew I didn’t have much time. Doubling back to the side exit wasn’t an option, so I had no choice but to leave through the front of the building. Scrambling to find something to open the door, I compulsively reached around to the back of my waistband expecting to find a weapon, but nothing was there.

  One of the machinists entered the room with a scowl on his face, and while I couldn’t focus long enough to make out his exact words, I was pretty sure a lot of them were expletives. I eyed the picture windows, instantly assessing that they were too thick to break. Looking back past the machinist, my eyes lit up with excitement when I saw a large hammer on one of the desks. As I dashed toward the desk, the machinist held his ground. Instinctively, I lowered my shoulder and made solid contact into his chest. He stumbled back onto and over the table, giving me the moment I needed to grab the hammer. Darting back to the door, I came down on the handle with all my might.

  Clank!

  But it only bent slightly.

  “Dammit!”

  Panting hard, I gave it another strike.

  Clank!

  The second hit nearly did it—the handle was holding on by a thread.

  I could hear the garage door opening in back, then immediate chatter about my location.

  The machinist I’d just knocked over had recovered, and gave me a hard shot right to the kidney as he cursed at me. “You bastard! I’m going to—”

  Through the pain, my instincts took over. Whirling around, I bludgeoned him in the temple with the hammer. His hot blood spattered onto my sleeve and face, followed by his lifeless body slumping to the floor.

  What in the hell did I just do? God damn, I was some kind of monster. Looking down, I noticed more not-so-fresh blood on the front of my coat, but I didn’t have time to care. I just needed to escape.

  I slammed the hammer down on the handle again. Clank! The door flung open, and I spilled onto the sidewalk of a fairly busy street. An opening in traffic allowed me to cross the street to another alleyway. Once clear from witnesses, I pulled off my coat and used a clean spot to wipe off my face, then tossed the coat in a dumpster as I ran down the alley. At the other end, I turned right on another busy street to head back toward the original street where I had woken up.

  I found a nook between two nearby buildings where I was able to hide away and catch my breath. In spite of the chill outside, sweat poured down my forehead and soaked through my shirt. As I huddled down, I had the undeniable urge to pull an old netphone from my pocket. I found the contact, Plan B, and I dialed it up. An automated voice played, but I didn’t even need to press the phone to my ear. I dialed the passcode, 9230, and with a ding, it confirmed my entry. The automated voice played again, and I dialed the next passcode, 800— Before I cou
ld key in the last number, the phone buzzed, scaring the living shit out of me and causing me to drop it. Looking at the caller ID, chills ran down my spine.

  Incoming Call from the Padre.

  I was never very religious, but something told me that my life depended on ditching the phone so it couldn’t be used to trace my location. I tapped the answer button, set the phone down, and ran like hell.

  Once back to the main street, I cautiously walked a couple of blocks, watching the street signs until it made sense for me to make right onto Pulaski. I reached into my pants pocket to find a set of keys. Ahead was a giant, old-fashioned black car, and I inserted the key into the lock, turning it with some force. Lifting the door handle also took a little extra oomph, but then the massive door creaked open. In one motion, I plopped into the driver’s seat, pulled the door closed, and started the engine. Gathering myself before putting the behemoth into gear, I remembered that I usually kept a weapon in the glove compartment and leaned over to check, but it was empty. I focused on the road in front of me while catching my breath and attempting to make sense of things. I didn’t know where to go, only that I had to drive. And the last thing I wanted was to draw attention to myself, so I shifted into drive, checked my side mirror for an opening in traffic, and cautiously put my foot on the other pedal.

  After driving a few blocks, I cracked the window to let the cool breeze dry the sweat off my face and, to a lesser extent, my shirt. The smell of fall in the air was distinctive, calming. I impulsively reached into my shirt pocket and discovered a crushed, moist pack of menthol cigarettes and an old Zippo lighter. While I despised smoking, it was soothing to think about the first drag. I peered into the pack while keeping an eye on the road, and to my joy, there was one left.

  Must be my lucky day. Hearty laughter followed the thought, providing a much-needed break in the tension.

  I shook the pack to pop out the lone cancer stick and simultaneously flicked open the lighter and flamed it up. Puffing hard, I was afforded the smallest bit of relief as I scratched the addictive itch that had subconsciously overcome me during my getaway. The exhale was almost as rewarding; out went the deadly smoke along with a lot of fear.

  Rolling to a stoplight, I had finally settled into my seat for the briefest moment when rage replaced the tranquility in the car.

  “The whole damn job was a set up!”

  No details came to mind about the job or how I was set up, but my ire grew nonetheless. My renewed frenzy was short-lived as a glance at the review mirror confirmed a car pulling up behind me.

  It was a squad car—a son-of-a-bitch squad car with two cops in it.

  “Well, shit.”

  Face forward, I averted my eyes toward the mirror again to look more closely without tipping them off. I let loose a small sigh of relief when I saw the passenger cop laughing while the wide-smiling driver went on and on about something apparently hilarious. Then their conversion stopped abruptly and their jovial faces turned stoic as they stared intensely toward the center of the car’s dash, likely at their radio.

  Fear rushed over me with even more force. Sweat broke out over my whole body as I watched both cops slowly peer up from their radio. They were looking dead at me, and it took everything I had not to make eye contact with them while still trying to catch their next move. Then the ache of my hands became apparent from the death grip I had on the steering wheel, but I didn’t let up even a little. Puffing hard on my menthol, I was ready to hit the gas at a moment’s notice.

  The light turned green and the cops turned on their siren. Then time stood still, and the all-too-familiar feeling that my legs were paralyzed washed over me. As much as I wanted to jam on the gas, something deep inside said not to. Slowly rolling through the intersection, I finally peered back to the mirror, then exhaled hard. They were gone! They had pulled a U-turn, and the siren was getting quieter as they sped off the other way.

  “Phew!”

  I anxiously puffed the last bit of the cigarette as I came to the next stoplight. Again, my fear transformed into anger as I realized that I had too many damn questions and couldn’t, for the life of me, remember any answers. Who the hell was I? Who was after me? Why did they set me up? Where did the original blood on my coat come from? Why was getting away more important than the life of a machinist? Dammit all if he wasn’t just an innocent bystander. I wondered if he would survive the blow, and to my disgust, that might have been the only question to which I knew the answer.

  The light turned green, and I gingerly put my foot on the gas just as something caught my attention in the rearview. Holy shit!

  Crash!

  A car rear-ended me into the intersection, and I veered left to avoid hitting a dump truck. Speeding up as fast as the giant, now-damaged car would allow, I cranked the wheel to take the first right turn I saw, and flashed a glance back at the mirror. The car that hit me looked just like mine, and was coming after me. Its front end was damaged, but it was not having any trouble keeping up. I didn’t recognize either of the men in the driver or passenger seats, but it didn’t matter. I needed to get away.

  “Dammit!”

  The cherry from my menthol had fallen off because of the crash and burned a whole into my pant leg. Madly patting it out, I was also trying to keep an eye on the road and the rearview when they slammed into me again.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Swerving into the next lane, I was able to put twenty or so feet between me and the other car, but they remained close in pursuit. I needed to turn off the main road to lose them, so I hit the gas and barreled through the next couple of greens. Squealing the tires, I swung the car to make a quick right turn, the rear of the car fishtailing around the corner and barely missing a parked car. I headed down a small side road narrowed by all the cars parked on each side. Shortly after, I made a left turn down a one-way road and zoomed down to another main street. Another lucky green, and I was turning right onto another busy road. Finally, eyeing the mirror again, it seemed like I had lost them. As the excitement of getting away filled me, I turned completely around to be sure they were gone. Exhaling hard, a smirk stretched across my face as I thought I might actually get away until I turned back to watch the road in front and reality set in.

  Shit! A parked car!

  I slammed on the brakes, but too late.

  Crash!

  Waking up on a stretcher, I realized I must have blacked out. My head and neck hurt, but I otherwise felt okay. Paramedics were wheeling me along the side of the road, and when I tried to sit up, I discovered that my hands and feet were handcuffed to the stretcher’s rails. But I had no desire to fight them, so I just laid back and accepted my fate.

  As I was being lifted into the ambulance, I caught my first good glimpse of the parked car. It was totaled so bad that it was difficult to tell whether it was green or gray. A cold feeling washed over me as I peered down to the pool of blood coming from the wreckage.

  “Who was in the car? Are they okay? What happened?!”

  Before a paramedic could respond, another paramedic near the car I had smashed began screaming. I could only make out pieces of what he was saying as the doors to my ambulance closed, but it was enough to force a mortifying thought into my head.

  “What the hell have I done?”

  Chapter 4:

  Laws Were Meant to Be Broken

  What the hell have I done?

  Damn! A night terror was bad enough, but waking up to pure blackness made it that much worse. My head was pounding, and while that had become normal, the agony was especially bad at that moment. I was still unable open my eyes or talk, but fortunately, my spatial recognition and hearing had kicked in. Even better, I had recently discovered my arms and was able to move them slightly.

  That kind of progress meant I could actually communicate with the recovery staff. They would ask me yes/no questions, and if I understood them, I cou
ld respond. My left arm provided positive responses and my right arm negative. While they hadn’t told me exactly how long it had been since the procedure, I was starting to get into the routine of the nursing aides tending to me on a regular basis—the occasional sponge bath, stretching, changing the bedpan, and checking on my IVs. Each day, I could feel more aspects of the things happening around me. But progress was not without its cost as the nausea I had felt for the last few days soon evolved into awful hunger pangs from not eating solids. Still, I remembered from the prep classes that this meant my digestive tract was up and running. More importantly, it meant my brain was functioning properly.

  “Good morning!” a jubilant voice shouted as someone walked through the doorway to my left.

  It was familiar, but it wasn’t the orderly’s. It must have been a nurse or doctor.

  “Hi, Ryan. It’s Dr. Little. Are you feeling better today?”

  I made my left arm twitch.

  “Do you still have a headache?”

  Left arm twitched.

  “Has the nausea subsided?”

  Left arm twitched.

  “You’re hungry, right?”

  Left arm twitched.

  “Are you able to open your eyes yet?”

  I shook my right arm.

  “Let me have a look.” Snapping on what had to be latex gloves, the doctor opened one of my eyes and clicked on what had to be a flashlight, then did the same to the other eye.

  To my dismay, I still couldn’t see any of it.

  “Good. Your pupils are responding just fine. Combine that with the fact that your numbers are trending upward and all of the tests are coming back normal, and this is all good news, Ryan.”

  Her words really comforted me through the pain and uncertainty.

  “Next up, Ryan, we will begin running a new series of tests that will let us know how you’re taking to your host’s eyes as well as provide you with some exercises to shorten your vision’s recovery time. Now, I know you have a lot of questions, and you will want to be able to communicate in an open-ended fashion, but let me reassure you that your speech and typing skills will come in due time. We mostly want to focus on getting your eyesight back. After that, we will look to get you talking and, shortly thereafter, on your feet!”