My eyes slowly opened as light began to flood into my eyes. At first, everything looked too bright. It began to stabilize as I began regaining awareness.
I was lying down on a bed with my head elevated up on a pillow. I looked down to see my clothes replaced with a hospital gown. Attached to my finger was a pulse oximeter.
I heard the beeping of the heart rate monitor become more rapid indicating that I was waking up. I groaned out as my eyes fully opened.
The room I was in didn't look like a hospital but more like a fancy bedroom. I was on a bed with pillars at the ends. A blue cloth drooped from the top.
'Where the fuck am I?' I thought as I took in my surroundings. At first, I thought that I was hallucinating from the drugs. In my mind, there wasn't really any other way to go from a torture room to this.
Yet my thoughts felt rational. If I was drugged up, I don't think I would even consider the possibility of being high. I brought my finger up and wiggled it while moving my eyes to watch it. Sure enough, I was able to follow it without any difficulty.
So now I was left with the difficult question of figuring out where I was. My mind flashed back to the horrific scene that I had just experienced.
I gulped and began to sweat thinking about the pain again. The never-ending, excruciating pain. I still felt it lingering. I still felt the phantom pain of a knife entering my back. I still felt the electricity that coursed through my entire body.
I was snapped back to reality when the heart rate monitor began to beep like crazy. I turned and saw my heart rate spike to 120. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself.
I went back into my brain trying to distract myself from the torture. I thought back to happier times in my life, my time with Jordan, the small number of praises my parents gave, and my time with Alex and Andres. The pictures of many of these events entered my mind.
It starkly contrasted the pain. In comparison, everything seemed perfect. It brought a tear to my eye.
I looked back at the monitor and saw that it returned to a normal amount. I breathed a sigh of relief. I stared at the monitor for what seemed like an eternity. I watched the number slightly move up and down and listened to the constant beeping. I felt out of it.
But not just that. I felt rage. Rage for the cruel treatment that I had received. Who wouldn't?
I made two promises to myself. First, I promised myself that I would not let that happen again. Second, I was going to get revenge on my torturers.
I wasn't upset at the second guy. He gave me relief and was ... well he was slightly reasonable. The first guy, however, was the source of my rage. His figure was etched into my brain.
I shook my head to collect myself. Enough of that. I need to focus on the problem at hand.
I was still staring at the heart rate monitor when I noticed one peculiar thing. The letters. They were English letters!
I mean, I didn't know what to expect. However, it was still good to know that I was in Atlantis.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps approach the door.
Instantly, my body began to tense up. My fingers twitched as I instinctively reached for a sword that wasn't there. I tried to stand up, but I felt an odd feeling in my groin region. Looking down, I saw that I had a catheter.
"What the fuck?" I asked out in surprise. I couldn't get up without feeling the pain of it exiting my ... you know what.
The footsteps got louder. As it began to approach the door, I heard a voice speak up. It was smooth and melodic as the words entered my ears.
"Past lives, couldn't ever hold me down
Lost love is sweeter when it's finally found
I've got the strangest feeling
This isn't our first time around" The voice sang out in a British accent.
The song was familiar. Not only that, but the voice that sang it out was familiar too. I racked my brain trying to figure out who it was, but I was drawing a blank.
It wasn't until the door opened and the figure walked through that I knew who it was.
"Michael," I declared, naming the figure that walked through. He looked at me with a longing face and a small smile.
"Zack," He said back as he slowly approached me. "Fancy seeing you here, eh?"
My body relaxed after seeing that the person wasn't a threat. I shifted my body into a more comfortable position as I took the time to recover.
"I know how much you hate hospitals so hopefully you felt better here," He said as he looked around the room.
"I knew it was you in that meeting," I chuckled lightly, feeling the pain in my chest.
"Before we talk further, I must apologize for your treatment," He said apologetically. "The treatment you received was inexcusable and not a reflection of our country."
"Always so diplomatic," I told him before sighing and closing my eyes. "I know you would never have ordered that so I don't hold it against you."
"As the king, I prioritize our relationship with other nations," He said as he let out a long and heavy breath. "So I must thank you as a friend and leader."
I opened my eyes and looked at him. "I thought Nacio was king."
"Officially to the rest of the world, he is," Michael answered. "But inside Atlantis, he's gotten too old. He's given up his crown to me."
"But you're around my age, right? So 13, 14?" I asked.
"I'm a year older than you, so 14," Michael said as he sat down at my bedside.
"Nacio is your grandfather, so where's your father?"
"He's dead," Michael said bluntly. An eerie silence followed. If the mood or situation was less grim or depressing, I would've probably cracked a joke. Something like 'At least you are six feet taller than him now.' However, I wasn't in the mood. It was also neither the time nor place for it.
"I'm sorry for your loss," I said with sympathy.
"I never thought you would comfort me." He gave me a small smile. "I must say it is refreshing to hear the American accent again. It's much more charismatic and confident like your national pride got captured in your accent."
I chuckled. "I think that's the first and most descriptive time someone's complimented my accent."
A more playful silence passed as our small talk concluded. Neither of us spoke, just feeling elated to be in each other's presence.
"So, how did this happen to you?" I asked.
Michael took a deep breath and stayed silent for a while before beginning to speak. "It was a few years after you died. Five years to be precise."
I nodded, giving him silent permission to continue his story.
"Thanks to you, my father's company was thriving in India. We were working on expanding to more remote places when it happened. The government didn't have money to improve the infrastructure of the railroad and."
"And the train derailed?" I asked. All he did was nod.
"When I died, I was brought to a void," He began. "A voice gave me the option to reincarnate or pass on, and that's what led us here."
I nodded my head as he finished his story. "What about you?"
I sighed as I recalled my experience. "Well, you know how I died. After getting rammed, I was brought to a void as well. An old man who told me he was God started to talk to me."
"He challenged me to chess, which I lost, then gave me two options," I paused, wondering if I should tell him the whole story.
He could tell that I was keeping something but didn't know what. "To reincarnate or pass on?"
I thought that it would bite me in the ass later if I didn't tell him. However, I didn't know what would happen if I told him.
Oh choices, choices, choices.
"He told me to reincarnate so I could make Jordan stronger or pass on," I told him. My answer seemed to satisfy him as he nodded.
"Jordan is here too?" Michael asked.
"Yup," I answered, popping the p. "I've spent a lot of time trying to find him, but I can't," I told him. "My plan is to put cameras everywhere and have facial recognition try to pick him up."
"Cameras? How are you making cameras?" Michael asked. "Atlantis just made them a few decades ago. The rest of the world is lightyears behind."
I chuckled. "Yeah, so God might've given me two choices. Infinite knowledge or magic. Guess which one I chose."
"I think you made a stupid decision," Michael told me. "Infinite magic would've been so much better."
"But I didn't get a choice in which magic I got. It could've been black magic, death magic, take my life-force away bullshit, or something useless," I explained.
"So that's how you made your plane," He said, putting the pieces together. "The core technology is out of this century."
"And that's me with limited resources. Imagine what I could do when I get more fields established," I said with a gleam in my eye, relishing in the possibilities.
"In this case, you're lucky that you didn't pick magic," Michael said as he lifted up the collection bag. Inside was my pee, but there were purple particles floating about. Mana.
"I pissed out mana," I said in a disbelieving tone.
Michael nodded his head. He continued to sit there, bobbing his head as another round of silence set in.
This time he broke the silence.
"I need your help," He told me. His face was serious, showing no signs that he was joking.
"With what?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.
"Tell me, how good do you think you are at warfare?"