Your eyes flutter open. Everything is blurry. Vague shapes move around you. You breathe in and out, inhale, exhale, but air does not enter or exit your lungs. It's a fluid, thick and viscous, but you aren't choking or suffocating.
As your vision becomes more focused, you realize you're floating. The fluid surrounds you, clear and occasionally bubbling, but dense enough that you hardly move. You don't have a left arm, or either of your legs. Various tubes, wires, and IV injections are inserted into you at various places. You feel something in the back of your head, and your eyes slowly shift upwards to see a thick cord running across the ceiling, connected to a computer on the far side of the room. The moving shapes are people, wearing lab coats, holding clipboards, checking screens, and flipping switches.
"Pat, you need to pay attention."
You don't move. You can't move, other than the automatic response of your breathing, and the arduously slow shifting of your eyes. A face comes close to the glass. A man's face. Although your vision is still blurry (not helped by the liquid, nor the refraction of the tank's glass walls), you can see some features. Rosy, pock-marked cheeks. Dark eyes. Hair beginning to go grey. Deep lines on his face, not from age but from stress. Stubble. Wire-frame glasses on his nose.
"I know it's very stressful, Pat. I'm sorry. But you need to be strong and pay attention, okay?" His voice is a little gravelly, and he smiles faintly. "You'll be alright. You can rest later."
A large screen connected to the computer clicks on, displaying a bullet. The thing in the back of your head feels slightly warm, and you see it, clear as day. Not with your eyes, but your brain. The images. Fed directly into the vision and memory centers of your head.
"Alright Val, continue." The man leans away from the glass, and your view of him becomes vague once again. "I'll check the sedation, there might have been a hiccup in the supply if she's become aware of her surroundings like this."
A familiar voice. But... why? Why is it familiar? This feels like a memory, but it feels like the present as well. Is this real? Are you alive right now?
"Call her Pat," the gruff voice calls out. "She deserves it."
The image on the screen clicks. The same bullet, but a cutaway diagram view.
As the computer speaks, you can hear it, not with your ears but ... you just do. Every few seconds, the image on the screen clicks to a new one, and you then see it perfectly in your head. Different views, different angles. Photographs, still images, of the bullet being chambered, fired, shells ejecting. You see it, you see it all. But again, not with your eyes. It's in your head. But isn't that also what seeing is? You remember now, much earlier, when the computer taught you about anatomy, about eyes and vision and seeing, and how the nerves connect to your brain. If eyes collect outside data and send it to your brain as an image, how is that any different from a wire plugged into the back of your skull? It's the same image, the same thought, the same experience... right?
Your lips barely move, you don't even say words, but in your head you say "... Yes. I can hear you." It's just a thought. But the computer knows.
Lips shifting ever so slightly, a slight twitch in your chest as your vocal cords attempt to speak the words you think in your mind.
"Hunt down the target using all known information, then find a hidden vantage point. Aim at the target, taking into account wind speed, bullet drop, temperature, and humidity, so that the bullet will strike center mass. Exhale completely, so your breath does not shake the rifle. Brace the rifle against your shoulder. Squeeze the trigger, do not pull. Kill the target with one bullet. Repeat any and all previous steps if the target is not eliminated."
"Hunt. Aim. Exhale. Brace. Squeeze. Kill. Repeat."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
The man walks back up to the glass. "I'm glad to hear that, Val. That should be when we have the prosthetics ready." He offers another slight smile, with tired eyes. "Alright, I'm going to return the sedative to previous levels. Continue the training, Val."
You feel warmth from the various tubes stuck into your body. It spreads outwards, slowly. Your vision becomes unfocused, your eyelids heavy. The only thing that does not become less clear is the voice and the images. They are still as sharp as ever in your head. Another image clicks into view. A different bullet. Bigger. Deadlier.
More images. Click. Click. Every few seconds. Now even the images fade out. Click. Click. And then the voice. Click. Click.
And then the clicks.
And then it is dark.
And then two voices. One is the computer's. One is the man's. They speak in unison.
They echo, again and again, until they fade out.
You are alone. It is dark.
And then...?
i think im safe but im not sure
...Visions.
They're not the images from before, no. They're not rigid, still. Click, click, one after another. No, these are... fluid. They move. Voices speak but you can't understand them. Blurry faces. Indistinct features.
You feel your surroundings. They keep shifting. These aren't images. These aren't memories. They're not the present either. Is it... the future? That can't be right. You can't see the future. It's impossible.
But you can't shake that feeling. They feel real, like you're going to be there. Or, were there. Are there?
You focus, trying to see your surroundings. A city, the hot sun beating down. The smell, after a storm. A dampness, drying. Blood, washing away.
Then, it changes.
A grassy field. Something looms in the distance. Darkness. It makes you uncomfortable. But the sky is blue, and you think you see clouds. The grass tickles your hand as you brush your fingers along the top. Loamy dirt squishes underfoot. The air smells fresh.
You are pulled violently towards the darkness. A wall of darkness. It stretches to either side, infinitely. The grass dies away as you come closer and closer, moving what feels like hundreds of miles in a matter of seconds. You are pulled through the wall, flailing, pushing, kicking. You attempt to scream, but blood fills your mouth. Bodies surround you. You are pulled through them. The smell is wretch-worthy. You close your eyes and cover your face.
The pulling stops. The disgusting warmth goes away. The blood is gone from your mouth. Carefully, slowly, you open your eyes.
Something pleasant. Wonderful.
Neon lights, blurring into one another. The sounds of life. A hand reaches out, grabbing yours. It's comforting. Their fingers intertwine with yours as they hoist you out from the bodies, away from the wall of darkness. They tug you up, and you fall to your hands and knees, coughing. A cold, hard ground. They place a hand on your back, consoling you. The feeling of this touch is ... alien to you. But it feels wonderful. You begin to cry.
And as you cry, the tears become floating prisms. The neon lights are split into a rainbow. More faces, still vague, but... you can tell they're smiling. At you. They say words, unintelligible, but you can tell they're for you. To make you happy. To comfort you. To make you feel safe.
The wall comes back into view. This time, you are not as scared. These faces, these comforting presences... they stand beside you.
You can do it.
You can do it.
But your work isn't done yet. Not yet, at least, not in the present. The vision fades. The smell of wet stone and metal, the buzzing sound of electric lights, the reflection of neon signs upon rain-slick roads. The fingers are no longer intertwined with yours, but you still feel the presence of being ... wanted. Liked. Loved, even.
Through the wall, you see a light. A tunnel of corpses through the wall. But that light... it's where you need to be.
Fists clenched, teeth gritted, you stride up to the wall, and dive in. You swim through, eyes locked firmly at the end. Grit and determination swell through your heart. The light gets closer and closer.
You arrive.
Lightning flashes. You blink.
The sniper is on top of you, pressing the rifle against your throat. Rain is ferried in through the open window, upon a howling wind. It splatters upon your face, mixing with the sweat dripping off the sniper's brow. You look him in the eyes. You see anger, but then he returns your gaze. The anger turns... to fear. He hesitates. His grip lessens ever so slightly. You can breathe, and you immediately take in a deep gasp of air.
You look him in the eyes. Adrenaline and willpower rush through your veins.
And your first exhale is not one of struggling and grunting, but words.
"I've got more important things to do than die, you son of a bitch."