Chapter 4 - The Aftermath

Newest chapter of my e-novel, or short story (not exactly sure exactly what the final form will be). Read, enjoy, comment/critique.

Chapter 4 – The Aftermath

“Ohhhh, fuck.” I said matter-of-factly.

“Holy shit,” said Jen, her jaw still open. “What happened?”

“Well, what do you think happened? I INJECTED MYSELF WITH THE DRUG!” I yelled at her.

I was so angry, but not a Jen. I was angry at myself. ‘How could I let this happen?’ was all I could think about. And then, it suddenly dawned on me ….

“The kiss,” I whispered.

“What? What do you mean 'the kiss,'” said Jen as she slowly walked towards me. Her face showed genuine concern, almost love.

“When we kissed before the final trial mouse, do you remember that?”

“Yeah,” said Jen, blushing.

“While we were kissing, you sighed.” And I pointed my fingers in a gun-shape at her face.

“No, I didn’t,” said Jen throwing her hands up, as if to protect herself from the imaginary bullets fired from my fingers.

“You did.”

“No. I didn’t.”

And then, realization dawned on her face.

“When we kissed, and I drew you close," she said, almost in a whisper, "the auto-injector must have gone off!”

“Yes!” I shouted. “The ‘sighs’ we both heard, must have been the pressurized auto-injector going off.”

All of a sudden, an intense stinging pain burst forth from my head, causing me to grab my head with my hands, as if to prevent my head from exploding.

The pain was excruciating, as if someone was drilling a hole into my head with a hand operated drill, while simultaneously beating me with a large wooden beam.

The feeling spread downwards from my head to my neck, shoulders, torso, groin and legs. I collapsed onto the floor in a screaming and writhing ball of pain.

Then, my eyes felt like someone was trying to take them out with an ice-cream scooper. The edges of my periphery vision began to fade to black, spreading into my vision like black ooze. The pain began to lessen as my vision became more and more obscured.

And then, my vision was consumed, by the black.

Nothing but black. And then, a pinpoint of light.

It began to slowly increase in size, but increasing in speed.

The black was completely overtaken by the white, except at the periphery.

Stationary shapes in the white came into view.

Jen. She was the shape directly in front of me.

She was wearing her lab coat, just like before the pain began.

She was looking at me with genuine concern, but it looked like she was trying to remember something. Finally, like when she tried to solve a complicated problem, her face showed elation as she came up with the oft eluded answer.

“When we kissed, and I drew you close … the auto-injector must have gone off!”

The black then began to slowly creep back into my field of vision.

The place seemed familiar, as did what she just said. Looking around, I saw someone standing directly across from her. It was … me?

How was this possible?

I looked unkempt. My hair was a mess, and I was staring at Jen in an accusatory way.

“Yes!” I heard the other me shout at Jen, while the black slowly began to slowly creep back into my vision.

“The ‘sighs’ we both heard, must have been the pressurized auto-injector going off,” the other me said.

I saw myself throw my hands upon my head, and begin to scream. It was a blood curdling scream, one that someone would make when their insides were being slowly cut by a million shards of glass.

The black then totally engulfed my visual field, until there was no light. There was nothing. Just the black.

Then, a sudden flash of white.

I opened my eyes and I felt my sweat-stained face upon the cold-hard linoleum of the laboratory floor. The whole body pain was gone, but my body felt weak. And my head ached like someone tried to open it with a sledgehammer. And, I was very hungry. Famished, in fact.

As I slowly got myself up, I saw Jen at the opposite wall, on the phone, talking in hushed tones. Seeing me struggle to get up, she quickly hung up and ran to my side.

“Roger! Are you ok? What happened?” she said, fighting back tears. She ran into me and threw her arms around me, holding me close. “I thought that the worse had happened. Just when we discovered our feeling for one another, it seemed like you were dead. You were … you were.”

And then, she succumbed to her tears and placed her head in the crook of my neck, soaking it with her tears.

“I was so worried about you, but I’m glad you’re here,” she said in between sobs.

“Me too,” I said, weakly.

Looking up, and wiping her eyes on her lab coat, she said, “But are you ok? What happened to you?”

“I … remember the pain, and then my vision went dark when I went to the ground. And then, there was nothing, until I saw you. You were talking to me about the accident. It was when we figured out what had happened.”

“You mean, what happened just a minute or so ago?” said Jen, with a questioning look on her face.

“Yeah, it was weird,” I said, shaking my head. “It was nothing, don’t worry about it. Just my brain re-booting after a shock to my system. Of course it would remember what just happened.”

“I’m sure that was it,” said Jen, hugging me surprisingly hard.

But I knew that wasn’t the truth. It was too vivid to be just a memory of what happened. It was extremely vivid. It was if I was living it again, but not quite. As if I was a simple observer of what had just transpired in my life.

And that, my dear readers, was the point in someone’s life, specifically my life, where it changes forever.

And, it was just beginning.