Brent’s body snapped up into a sitting position, a gust of air following him up. As he opened his eyes he was momentarily blinded by the bright fluorescent lights piercing his retinas. He blinked away spots as he looked around finding a well-lit hospital room. Brent was sitting in a bed with an IV drip in his arm, and judging by the feeling in his stomach he had been here for a while.
Brent was only sat there for all of five minutes before a nurse came to check on him. Something was weird when she opened the door though, first, she seemed to jump in surprise her mouth opening but not making noise what was strange didn’t hit him until a couple of seconds later when the sound of the door hit him, it was delayed for some reason. The nurse's surprised gasp hit him next, followed swiftly by a small crackle-like static.
The gap between the sound and sight was gone suddenly. The switch was jarring but he shook it off easily enough. The somewhat elderly nurse rushed to his side.
“Mr. Smith you're awake, how are you feeling?”
“I’m doing fine ma’am no need to worry.” he quickly attempted to ease her worries but that response just made her eyebrow pop up in surprise. The nurse began to hurry around and check the heart monitor and IV drip. Finding nothing wrong she turned back to him.
“Before we proceed I’m going to have you answer a couple of questions to ensure that there isn’t any memory loss.” Brent just nodded along as she continued. “Can you tell me your, Full Name, eye color, current address, and what the last thing you can remember was.”
Brent rattled off the various information, this time both of the nurse's eyebrows popped up. She tsked lightly before continuing. “Just a couple more, questions sir, these will seem odd. Could you please, name me a book… a TV show… and repeat the number sequence 2361 back to me.” He answered the questions immediately which only seemed to raise her eyebrows high and higher.
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“Sir what I'm about to say is odd, but those questions you answered… I hadn’t asked them yet when you gave me the answers dearie. This… This is something I need to report to the doctors.”
Brent Smith sat in shock as the nurse practically ran out of the room, what could she possibly have meant she hadn’t asked the question yet? She had to have him to answer said questions. The bed creaked as he moved further into a sitting position, it was then that he realized what was happening. He remembered the door just now, and earlier on back in the house fire, when he knew the house was going to blow before even the firefighters on scene had the idea to check.
Brent was having visions of the future, and for some reason, his vision was stuck a couple of seconds early. His brain practically blue-screened at the realization. What the hell was going on? He didn’t want this, Brent didn’t want to be stuck seconds in the future compared to his body, he didn’t want to be a freak of nature!
With a sensation like a rubber band snapping into place, his vision and hearing seemed to glitch, overwhelming his brain with sensations, and prompting Brent to black out for the second time in one week.
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Nurse Cathy stared at the extensive stack of papers in front of her, most of them NDAs. She looked up at the men in front of her, they looked like they were straight out of a “men in black” movie, glasses and all.
“I get 75k just for signing these? No actually, if what I think is happening is, this probably the bare minimum, but the best I'm going to get?”
“Just sign the papers Miss Bartholomew, we are paying you specifically not to think.”
Cathy was not a young woman, she had experience in how the world worked, she could read between the lines ‘Don’t think about what you found, don’t think about it, don’t look into it, and for the love of god if you speak about it your life will be ruined.’
That’s what the government was saying to her with these documents, and Cathy the smart woman that she was knew when to listen, she would keep her mouth shut. Cathay also had experiences with storms, she had lived in this city her entire life, and she knew to whether a storm you had shelter.
She grimaced as she set upon the stack of papers
The only noise in the room was the scratch of a pen on paper.
She would take what she knew and whether the coming storm, be it fire or rain, at least she had a heads up this time.