The car was a mangled wreck. Everyone was told that there weren’t any survivors. The family was informed that there would be on body for them to grieve over. They did their best to move on. Everyone did their best to move on. It was a tragedy, after all. Nobody wanted to dwell on those things.
Nick awoke under the bright lights. He was in a hospital room of some kind. He kept having this reoccurring dream of a car heading right at him and then nothing. His arm and leg were in a cast and every inch of him felt like it was on fire. He was immobilized in such a way that he couldn’t move very well.
“Help!” He called out. “Someone help me!” There was a sound of movement as someone entered the room he was in. It was a brunette woman, her face hidden behind a mask but her eyes seemed cold and distant. She checked his information on the screen by his bed.
“You shouldn’t be awake, we’ll have to have the doctor come fix that right up,” she said, her voice carrying not a trace of compassion or concern.
“Please, tell me…what happened?”
“The doctor will be right in with you,” she said, turning and walking briskly from the room. He craned his neck around as far as he could but he couldn’t tell if there were other patients in the rooms on either side of him. The glass walls of his room were frosted and there was no signs of movement within his limited field of vision.
A pale man with graying, thin hair entered the room. He consulted the same screen the nurse had and then using a thumb-print scanner, opened a drawer of medical supplies and prepared a syringe of some sort. Nick tried to talk to him but the man just kept humming to himself.
“Sir, doctor, please tell me what happened.”
“Not to worry, you being awake was an oversight on my part. It won’t happen again, I promise you.”
“What? I have a family, they have to know there has been some sort of accident or something.”
“Oh, they know,” the doctor said, injecting something into his IV line. He felt the medication run through his broken arm, it was cold and made it tingle and go numb.
“Are they coming to see me? I don’t want to stay here…I don’t like hospitals.”
“I’m sorry, it is not our preference that you would find out this way, but you are technically alive. However, legally you are not. You had donated your body to a special organization, remember? This is just that organization collecting on what is due.”
“You…” Nick paused, his head was swimming. “What are you going to do with me?”
“I’m afraid that won’t be up to me,” the doctor said. “Sleep now, we will find out what your future holds, very soon.”
Nick’s vision went dark and he thought he could hear the doctor humming as he fell into unconsciousness again.
