'Who am I?... Where am I?'
'Why am I here?... How did I get here?' Then a flood of memories came rushing right back into his head with such immense pressure that if his head was a dam, the dam walls would've burst from the impact.
'Ahhhh!!' Internally screamed the man as he tried to clutch his head with his hands, but both upper limbs refused to co-operate as if they were no longer his.
'IT HURTS! IT FREAKING HURTS!' Then after what seemed like an endless amount of time of battling with the splitting headaches, the man finally came back to his senses.
A name which sounded so familiar yet so alien to him was the first thing that made sense from all the information that felt like was being forcefully chucked into his brain. 'Wang, Samuel Wang. Who is Samuel Wang?
'I have heard that name before...yes! I am Samuel Wang!'
That memory was the catalyst that caused a chain reaction which pieced together all the other scattered bits of information like a child matching his jigsaw puzzle pieces.
More pain.
'AHHH freaking make it stop!
Okay I don't need to know anything about myself anymore!'
But that did nothing to get him out of the torment he was in, if anything, the more he tried to resist was the more he felt like his head was being kneaded by some chef using his brain as the dough.
The way the pieces of information was getting strung together was akin to the way a masterful carpenter rearranges random pieces of wood crafting a beautiful unit... except that there was no beauty to be beheld, only pain to be felt.
Excruciating pain.
After a some time battling with the splitting headaches Samuel was finally given a rest, or what seemed like it.
'So dark'. The man had finally come back to his senses and yet he could still not make anything out of the situation he was in.
'Why can I not see anything...and why is it so dark, is this hell...or did I lose my vision and all I can see is this emptiness?'
The man was confused even further because he did not have even the slightest clue of what was going on around him.
He felt as if he had grown a pair of reddish- brown wings on his back and two antennae on his forehead, completely fulfilling the condition for the saying 'a confused cockroach' because his level of confusion was far beyond human capacity.
All the lost memories finally came back to him and the last one to land was of that tragic accident which created all this mess he was in. But strangely enough, his memories started overlapping with a different set of memories whom he did not know they belonged to. The other set was as if he was a different person altogether and he had died a different death, but the red thing was the common factor in both personalities.
'I-I...I died?'
More confusion.
' I died twice? And what's with that red object I keep seeing on both my times of death?' He was so lost like a traveller using a compass without a needle, nothing made any sense.
' I am C9? ...'Then who is this Wang?' He felt like his head was about to explode.
'Once I leave this place I'll get to the bottom of this situat... hang on, if I died how am I even seeing things at the first place?
'It's either both deaths are real and I am really a goner, or I survived, but...?' He had countless questions yet there was no-one to answer them, like an abandoned examination sheet without any examination candidate to answer it.
'That is because you're dead you dumb piece of work. Can't you even afford to relax for even a second? You are making this difficult for the both of us'. Resounded an irritated and tired voice that seemingly came from nowhere, which disappeared as it came.
"...".
Despite Sam's talkative nature, his vocal cords refused to release even a single sound as if they were on strike.
'Who was that!...where is he, is he the one who murdered me?...does he wanna kill me again? I have to run, I need to run.
'Say something, I have to say something!' Thought Sam as he panicked out of his mind.
"....." He still could not bring his vocal cords to produce even a cough, as if his voice was locked away.
'Oh for crying out loud, would you stop overthinking!. I have no reason to take your miserable little life...were you even listening to any word I was saying?'
'If you do not calm your mind I am disrupting that conscious node again, and let's see how you like the pain which is going to overload your conscious core. That will give you a proper reason to lose your mind' Replied the irritated voice again, this time sounding as if it had reached its breaking point.
'You can hear my thoughts?' Instead of calming down because there was someone he could talk to, Sam was actually terrified.
'Of course I can hear your thoughts you little pest, you are lucky that you're not a real pest or I would have already sprayed insecticide directly onto that chirpy little motormouth of yours'.
'Running your mouth like you are at the Olympics...do you even have any idea how much strain you are putting on this core? For the last time...shut.the.hell.up!'
Replied the voice with a hint of murderous intent underlining its words, a clear sign that it could not take Samuel's bickering anymore.
' Co-conscious core, conscious node.. Wh-what is all this? Why can't I talk? And ho-how can you read my mind? Why can I not read yours?' Thought Sam as he attempted to calm his mind but it all seemed futile, because the harder he tried was the quicker his mind spun as his questions kept splashing about, like they were being released through a tap under pressure with no container to hold them.
An unrecorded amount of time passed and there was no answer, not even a single word from the hateful voice to be heard again.
'He-hello?...You still there?' He was now more concerned than terrified because he could hear that fear inducing voice voice no more.
'You are now relaxed, good, stay like that. Now we can talk... What questions do you have? I will only answer seven of your questions, and if you ask any meaningless questions I am going back into hibernation'. Unwilling to talk as the voice seemed, it finally gave in and decided to answer the human pest's questions.
'Who are you?' Now that he was given a chance to bother the voice without a telling off, he jumped at the chance without hesitation.
'C9'. The reply was issued without any second thoughts or deliberation.
'What, that's all there is about you that you could tell me?'
'Yes, now that is two questions...five more to go and I am done'.
'That is daylight robbery!' Sam felt like he had been cheated.
'Is that another question?'
'No-no it's not!' Replied a frantic Sam, afraid that all his chances would be used up before he obtained any useful piece of information from the thieving voice.
'Why can I not use any of my five senses?' He fired another question.
'Oh well that is pretty obvious... what kind of question is that. It is my fault for entertaining a numbskull like you... in any case I'll just answer you.
'Did you ever take any elementary level science classes?'
'Yes' Simply answered Sam, unsure why the voice would ask him such a pointless question.
'Great, now that makes it easy for me. The reason why your senses are out of commission is because you have no sensory organs to begin with, now, next question'.
'What happened to my eyes, ears and all the other organs?' Sam was now totally scared...who would not be scared hearing that they have lost all their most important functional body parts?. Sam subconsciously scored another question without even realizing it.
'With how dense you are, that is going to be very difficult to explain... it's like trying to explain to a monkey how a supercomputer functions, but in any case I have to keep my promise. Now pay attention and let what I have to say soak into that monkey brain'. Sighed the voice with a helpless kind of irritation.