Ten Zero

I was lucid, but I wasn't awake.

I could tell that much. I think most people have had a time in their lives where their dreams and wakefulness blend together into a collage of partially formed snapshots; your mind doing it's best to commit to memory the various firing of your neurons with the same level of importance as any other experience. Sometimes it would happen during a period of severe exhaustion; a student, perhaps, that had stayed up too late doing their best to cram only a few more minutes of frantic study before an important final. Sometimes, it would strike during the middle of the night; a mom waking up at three in the morning to take care of a baby, her mind blending the care of the child with the whimsy of the dream. And sometimes, it would be because of a sickness; the body doing it's best to going through it's regular daily motions of wakefulness, but shackled by the exhaustion brought on by the disease coursing through the sufferer's body. It was definitely the second one, in my case.

Due to my headspace, it was hard to tell if what I was seeing and experiencing was real or just the product of a fevered mind. I was somewhat confident that the woman who was approaching me in the forest was real, since I could have been wrong in the belief that my kidnappers were going to let me die. However, she could have just been there to take a blood sample, or to dispose of my dead body as I passed away. Optimistically though, it may also be a rescue. One of the many things that didn't make sense though was the outfit that I think she was wearing. It truly looked like bandaged clipped together with loose cloth hung haphazardly around, as though someone was going to an AU Grecian costume party. The snapshots of being upside down were probably not me getting waterboarded by the CIA, and were more likely my brain failing to understand that I was being carried somewhere, while it raining, and likely in some sort of fireman's carry.

What I was less confident on, however, was where I was brought to. It seemed like a village that you'd see in a history book, but with random innovations from a 100 different cultures. A hut with patterned plastic, or possibly metal walls, that looked vaguely like a bronze age British roundhouse, but smaller and taller. A road, or more likely a footpath, that looked sort of like the Roman Appian Way, with eastern Asian styled lanterns strung up across it. It was as though my brain was just creating a place out of elements from every Wikipedia deep dive I had ever done. On top of all that, it also couldn't decide whether it wanted the village? town? to be in the future, or the past, so it was just using modern materials along with old building practices. For example, the lanterns were clearly solar and/or battery powered since they seemed to be fully encased, and they were glowing a bright neon blue color, likely with LEDs I couldn't see. Beyond just the walls, there was a ton of clearly machined metal contraptions dotted about the place, enacting functions I couldn't immediately tell the purpose of.

But the most confusing thing of all were the people. There was just... too many. At least for my current running theory of having been kidnapped. These couldn't be them, and it seemed unlikely that they were all also victims. Not that it would be impossible for that many people to have been kidnapped, but for them to all survive and build a community just outside the forest's edge? How would you hide something like that on satellite footage? So, assuming that they weren't the kidnappers or kidnapped, that left this being a genuine settlement of people just... living out here. Again, not totally impossible, but it did poke holes in my kidnap theory. These people would know if someone was just airdropping civilians into the forest. They'd also be able to get in touch with... Homeland Security? Something or someone like that, and shut down the operation. I could probably force the theory to work, like a round peg in a square hole, but the whole point of that theory was that it was the most physically likely scenario with the least amount of assumptions.

Also, who the hell were these people? Beyond the obvious confusion of people being... wherever we were, they were all sub 5 and a half feet, although I wouldn't be sure how short until I was back on my feet. As well, they were all skinny and muscly, like a bunch of malnourished Olympic swimmers or something. My mind was struggling to latch on to any of their faces as well, but there were too many unrelated racial features that didn't sense. If I had only seen a few faces, I would've assumed they were all related, but there was too many people for that explanation to make a lot of sense. It was obvious my brain was running a find and replace on the various people I had seen, because otherwise I had somehow been sent to another country that I had never heard of, nor had met anyone from.

There was yelling now, with at least two voices. I strained to turn my head to look at where the sound was coming from, but every part of my body rejected the movement. I couldn't understand the words, but they sounded somewhat familiar. Almost like listening to Prisencolinensinainciusol, that one song by the Italian guy. I wasn't sure if it was an entirely foreign language that I knew a few words from, or if it was just English that my brain was refusing to comprehend as having meaning. I feel a shift from the person carrying me, immediately followed by a more feminine voice. Then I hear another voice, deeper and masculine, likely in their 50s or 60s, respond to the first voice. My rescuer arguing with someone in charge? I can't tell if it's going well or going poorly, and I'm in no position to try and state my piece.

My eyes open, but I'm staring at a ceiling. It looks like it's made out of a dark wood of some variety, giving (at least the ceiling) a vague 70s impression. "How long have I been laying down?" I wonder, as I try to place a timeline on the events I had just experienced. "Or did I?", I think to myself. It's unclear if anything - the people, the place, the forest - was real. I go to close my eyes, to try to straighten out my thoughts, but I just open my eyes again to see myself laying in a hospital bed. My mom is sitting next to my bed, but she's not looking at me, and my wife is at the foot, staring at a phone in her hand. "So she got T-boned, it's not a big deal. People die. Stop being so dramatic about it," said my wife, looking utterly bored with the situation. "That's... my wife wouldn't say that?", I think, but I'm unable to voice the words. My mouth is covered by some sort of gauze, and my hands are chained to the bed I'm lying in. "At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it," my mom says, reading from the book in her lap. "That does sound like my mom though," I think, exasperated at her diving into scripture while I was a captive audience. "And the one who sat there had the appearance of marble and gold. A rainbow of blue and white light encircled the throne. In the center, around the throne, were four creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. Day and night they never stop saying: KU NOMA ELU RA KAH, MARA LOHK?" "Wait, what the fuck? What chapter is she reading?", I think, as I can feel my heart begin to pump heavily. Something was clearly very wrong.

The monitor next to my bed starts beeping incessantly, and my wife looks up from her phone, her face wet with tears of blood. She sighs, and gets up from the plastic lawn chair she was sat on, and walks over to the monitor, unplugging it. "Don't! Don't do that!", my mind yells, but they can't hear me. I do my best to speak, but all that comes out is a muffled grunt, easily mistaken for the normal sounds of distressed sleep. My wife sits back down, and our boyfriend enters the room, his face exuberant. "It went through!" He says, looking at my wife. "The life insurance cleared! That's money in the bank!", he nearly yells, doing an awkward little dance. His cheeks are also wet with dried tears of blood. "Finally!", says my wife, standing up from the plastic chair, "so we can just leave her here then? The doctor will take care of the rest of this?" She's already making her way towards the door. Our boyfriend follows quickly after, giving noises of affirmation. "That driver was the best thing that's every happened to us, no doubt," he says, exiting the room, leaving me with only my mom. She continues to read passages from the book, but I can't understand a word from her mouth.

The doctor walks in, and she looks identical to me, and she places her hand on the IV bag next to me, fiddling with the dials. "We don't need another dreamer," she says in my voice. "I'm going to need you to stop lazing around." Her voice sounds like mine, but it's off in subtle ways, as though an AI recreation of my voice.

"Wake up."

My eyes flutter open, and for the first time in what feels like forever, I've got full, genuine control of my faculties. I'm exhausted and sore, and my head is spinning and my mouth is dry, but I can tell from the all the little signals that my nerve endings are sending me that I'm completely and utterly present. I go to speak, to call out, but my throat is dust, and instead all I do is cough. I briefly flinch in anticipation of the pain that would no doubt shoot through my side, but while it does ache, it's not nearly the sharp, anxiety inducing pain it was prior. My hand moves down to my side, and under the blankets I... wait, what? I stop focusing on the sensation of my body, and instead start really 'looking' at the place I was currently in. It was a room of some design; possibly a bedroom, or guest room, by the looks of it. The walls were dark brown, similar to the color of the brownwood trees, and the floor and ceiling were much the same. There was a rough yellow fabric covering over what I assumed was the window, and a door to my right that was currently shut. The bed I was on was soft, but slightly lumpy. I couldn't be sure, but it felt sort of like it was stuffed with down? The bed frame was made out of a softer, greener wood, and had an astringent oak smell to it. Lastly, the covers were soft, but on closer examination, appeared to be of a similar makeup to the curtain. My guess was that it was just a different technique applied to the same material.

"This is maybe the weirdest thing that's happened since I got dropped in the forest. What... the fuck is going on?" I think, unable to even begin formulating a theory. "Did I get rescued by a commune or something?" I make an attempt to get out of the bed, but my arms aren't able to hold my weight like expected. I do a half shimmy, half pull up using the headboard, and make my way to a seated position, and from there, I swing my legs out of the bed. I'm breathing heavily, much more than would be expected for the minimal amount of exertion I participated in. "Yikes, how long was I out? I feel like a baby faun," I think, as I scan the room for convenient hand hold locations so as to avoid a sudden and violent meeting with the floor. I don't find anything conveniently placed, so I decide to just use the wall, and I do my best to make my way to my feet. It's an odd experience; I'm clearly lighter than I was before, lending credence to the idea that I may have been unconscious for more than just a few days. On the other hand, my muscles have atrophied enough that they don't hold up the weight with the same level of efficiency, and so I also sort of feel heavier. I go to shake out my legs; first my left, then my right, all the while one hand planted on the wall. Feeling somewhat confident, I take another look around the room from this new perspective.

From my new height, I can actually see that there is a small table in the corner of the room that was obscured by the foot of the bed. On the table, there appears to be something between a cup and a bowl made out of ceramic, that has what was likely water within it. I very confidentially begin to make my way over to the table, but half way across the room, I can feel my legs begin to give out beneath me. "Shit," I think, as the fabled meeting between face and floor gets the express pass to the top of my schedule. I try to move quicker, so that I can use the wall to steady myself and prevent the fall, but my leg doesn't lift as high as I want, and I start to tip over. I reach forward, trying to use the table as an improvised crutch, but all that happens is the table gets roped into the floor/face zoom meeting. The bowl/cup that was sitting on the table, unhappy to be left out, decides to soak my head, then clatters loudly on the floor in protest. I'm unable to respond to it's childish behavior however, because my face is smooshed up against the fine grain wood of the floor.

The three stooges reenactment doesn't take more than a moment, but I just lay there, feeling stupid and embarrassed for having tried to take a jaunt around the room after having just established how odd I felt on my feet. I can hear footsteps below me, and muffled voices echo through the walls, so I awkwardly roll over as to at least not be face down on the ground, so that when whoever it was that was that was currently rushing up the stairs burst into the room, I'd at least be able to face them. I listen to the sound as it traces throughout the house, but instead of a frantic burst like expected, I hear a quick knock. One-two, one-two, it goes, and I wonder why it is that they're knocking on a door in their own house, before realizing my shirt is gone. "...!" I try to make a sound, but my voice is still dry, and all I manage to do is vibrate some air in my lungs. Of course, that immediately makes me start coughing, and in between my breaths, I try to let out a 'sorry, not decent, give me a moment!', but I can't seem to catch my breath. And as my lung tries to make an expedient exit from my body, I can't help but notice I don't even know where my shirt is, and the bandages have been changed as well, so it's probably not even a big deal because whoever changed them had already seen me without a shirt on, and it's at this moment the door begins to creak open.

By this point I was no longer face down, but I was still very much on my back, so with a strength that I didn't know I had, likely fueled entirely by how embarrassing it would be to be found on the ground sopping wet, I manage to scramble my way to a seated position against the wall, facing the door. The door finishes it's slow open, and I come face to face (or rather, face to knee) with a very pretty girl. "Yea, that's par for the course," I think to myself, as I feel my face slowly get red. I do my utmost best to play it cool though, as I get a look at someone who either took care of me or rescued me. Or maybe both. She was roughly my age, maybe a bit younger, around 25 or 26. She had short dark purple hair, clearly dyed as I could seem the brown roots underneath. Her eyes were a sharp, striking green, with long dark lashes that would make a mascara company furious. There was a scar on the right side of her nose that almost stretched across the bridge, and a spattering of dark freckles on her upper cheeks. Her face was... not quite sallow, but underfed, possibly? There was very little body fat, and while she didn't look like she was starving, she also didn't look like she had been getting the best nutrition her whole life.

She looks like she could be third generation Asian American, but with a more pale skin tone of someone of European descent. It didn't clarify where we were located, but did lend credence to the idea that we were still somewhere in the states; it was very 'melting pot'. She was also whipcord strong; she looked like someone who was used to manual labor, and it lent credence to the idea that she might've been the one to have carried me from the forest. I smile, and I reach out a hand for support, which she readily accepts. I go to carefully make my way to my feet, but she nearly pulls my arm out of my socket as I shoot straight up. There's a smirk on her face that says that she knows what happened, as well as a dash of red on her cheeks. Feeling a smidge self conscious, I let go of her hand to cross my arms in front of my chest, and go to introduce myself. It takes a few moments for my vocal chords to begrudgingly cooperate, but I finally manage to stutter out a "Haha, hey, yea... sorry about the table. I'm Antimony."

She just looks at me, her smile shrinking, and for a moment I'm worried that I've horribly misread the situation or something, until finally, she speaks.

"Korhum to dap sei?"