I don't know how long I slept. I opened my eyes to a small stingy pain I felt in my hand. Someone was injecting a needle into my vein. I looked around. There were a lot of beds and on them were the men in coats with their masks removed. I was shocked at this unbelievable sight. It was the first time I saw their faces. They were deformed so much making it hard for me to recognize whether they were human beings or not. That is when I understood why they were wearing masks.
Next to my bed, someone was sleeping on a chair facing the opposite direction. Since my body felt alright, I got out of my bed and walked closer to him. He looked very weak and exhausted. A tube carrying air was inserted into his nose. It seemed like since there were not enough beds, he had to sleep on a chair. I couldn't see his face clearly as it was covered by the pillow, but his face looked perfect. It had no deformities.
He cuddled himself more onto the chair like a small child. So I took the quilt from my bed and covered him gently so that I won't wake him up. But he was a light sleeper I guess. He opened his eyes at the very second and his sparkly brown eyes told me who he was.
He slowly stood up and removed his air tube. I showed him my bed trying to tell him that he can use my bed since I was okay. He gave me a gentle smile and returned my quilt. Anyone could see that he was the one who needed rest the most. But this man ignored his pain and walked toward everyone checking whether they were alright.
All of a sudden, someone came running into the room where we were. He said something into Chithak's ear which made him panic. "Busao?" he shouted. He quickly wore his mask back and walked out of the room. He looked so worried. So I followed him out of the room, but he nodded his head asking me not to come.
I pushed myself back into my bed. From Chithak's look, I could say that whatever had happened, cannot be something simple. I was so curious to know exactly what happened. But all I could do was look at the ceiling and make weird guesses about what might have happened. I turned my head from this side to that and even changed my pillow position, but nothing could make me fall back to sleep.
Finally, when my eyes felt a little bit drowsy, I started feeling a strong pain in my tummy.
"OH GOD! I need to go to a toilet as fast as I can".
I jumped out of my bed and started running out of the room. There was no one outside the room for me to get some help to find where the toilet was. All I could do was open every door until I find the door of a toilet. After running for a long time opening about twenty doors, I finally found the door.
I took a deep breath as I came out of the toilet. Thank god I could bear it for a moment. If not it would have been the most embarrassing moment in my life. After looking around for a few seconds I realize that I have lost my way back. There was not a single soul in that corridor. I thought "maybe this is better" because I could look around to understand the situation or to find a way to escape.
After walking for some time, I was at the dead end of the corridor. At the end of the corridor, there was another large door that was made out of a unique material that I had never seen before in my life. It felt so cold when I touched it. When I walked closer to the door I heard some noises from the other side. I tried to open it, but I couldn't find the lock to open the door.
And again all the lights around me went red. An alarm started to go off. "Oh no! Not again" I wailed.
There was no way that anyone would find me after walking for so long. So I tried to open the door somehow because I heard some noises on the other side of it. Finally, with a small sound, a little hole appeared in the middle of the door. When I touched it, the door opened.
Inside that room were some clothes which looked exactly like the space suits I had seen before. They were made out of a very hard material and every suit was connected to a cylinder and a long wire. There was a large window and through it, I could see the beautiful scenery of twinkly stars. I walked towards the window and observed the view. But I couldn't find my earth through that window. I was in a place far away from my home.
I spotted something moving towards us at an unimaginable speed. But all of a sudden it exploded after hitting on something that was connected to the spaceship. Small pieces from the explosion splattered onto space ship causing the spaceship to experience huge turbulence. All of a sudden a scream came out of the room behind me.
When I looked back I saw that there was another room behind me which was separated only by a transparent material. There were many men in coats all trying to open the door that led into this room. They were surprised to see me inside and I felt relieved to see some life around me.
But something was not right. All of them looked terrified. They kept hitting on the door with everything they could find to break it open. What made me terrified was the sight of a mask lying on the ground and the empty slot in the space suit cupboard. That was the same mask Chithak was wearing. "Does that mean… the thing that got hit before was Chithak?!"