Pain greeted me as I woke from my slumber and with each breath unbearable pain began spreading across my whole body. Every inch felt as hot as lava. I tried opening up my eyes but my eyelids were welded together making it impossible. I could still sense the dense smoke around me. I knew I was still in the house, laying right in front of my family. "What a fitting end", I thought. To die here with my family, to experience what they had together, and to truly understand how my family went brought a weird sense of peace. I hope to see them all again in the afterlife.
Coming out of these thoughts, I still felt the tingling sensation of heat on my skin. I realized my skin was cooking and an unbearable scream escaped my dry mouth. I screamed long and hard. Even after I lost my voice, I kept trying to scream and it felt like hours passed before the heat finally settled down and I could feel someone poking and prodding me, pulling me over. I could barely hear their faint whispers as the terrible pain kept me awake this whole time.
"He is as good as dead, let's relocate him and have Rowan Sylvara make him a test subject."
"That is his only hope." The male said.
"But sir we do not know of these powers and Rowan is unstable." whispered the female back at him.
"Do not make me repeat myself, a tear has appeared in the premise. He is already involved."
"What about the man's family? They are nowhere to be found." she pleaded.
"They must be on the other side. There is no time to waste, you need to get going, he is still awake."
Then without hesitation, I felt a needle poke my thigh. The female had injected me with a saving grace and sleep quickly took over my body.
As I woke up, I felt a dull ache throughout my body. There was a nagging discomfort but to my surprise, it was bearable. The first thing to move was my eyes. Despite this weird feeling, they jutted open on instinct. Bright lights were everywhere and nearly blinded me. I just laid there, letting my body adjust. I realized my brain was fully alert however my thoughts were distressed. I may not be dead but my trauma is deep. I have no reason to still fight for greatness in this world. Everything I cared for was destroyed in that fire. Besides I am hideous now, all my muscles and physique are squandered. Everything gone, all in one bad day.
I took notice as the doctor walked in, yet I carefully ignored him. I knew my eyes would be a dead give away that I was already empty, so I shut him out. I needed time to think things through. All I desired was the solitude of shutting my eyes. Plus, I knew it wasn't possible to end this torture of a life, I knew I had to wait my time. Acting crazy now would only land me in a psych ward, popping pills repeatedly until I uttered my last breath.
"That will not be me", "It will not be me", "It will not be me", I repeated in my mind. Patience is key. I can not end up in that situation, I need to think about how to avoid it.
Honestly it was quite a simple solution, it was the execution that was the hard part. So in an effort to avoid this tremendous loom, I sat there as he spoke, not hearing a word of it. At some point in time he turned on the tv and then left. Drifting in and out of sleep days passed like this; it was alleviating in a way. The nurses were annoying at first, but after receiving no response from me they stopped nagging. As time passed, it became easier to open my eyes. The pain plaguing me slowly started to go away and for a moment, movement seemed entirely possible. Everything seemed to be getting better which confused me. What about the fumes I inhaled or the organ failure that is accompanied by such extreme exposure to heat? According to past research, I should still be at a very high chance of death.
None of it made much sense and the only thing helping me pass the time, was getting lost in my thoughts.
Each day revolved around the same routine. Wake up, take medication, nap, wake up, take medication, nap, wake up, take medication. Somewhere in the midst of being conscious, I noticed that when this one nurse walked into the room, people gathered at the hedge of my door. I didn't pay much attention at first but the more it occurred the more I thought that maybe it wasn't accidental.
One morning, I had the strength to finally sit up and fully open my eyelids. "Only a week has passed", I thought to myself. This should not be possible, my body should not be so healed. My thoughts were quickly diminished when I noticed the particular nurse come in.
He was slender, with blond hair reaching a height of around 180cm. He seemed new, that was why I had never really given him much attention before. He was slouched over and looked scared, he didn't seem to know his job very well. He looked like he was in a new environment having never been in a hospital before landing this job. I realized he was the one to inject me with a sedative the past few days. Today I thought I wanted to watch, but I didn't want to fall asleep so I spoke up.
To my surprise, speaking did not hurt at all. My voice was hoarse and deep but nonetheless, it was effortless.
"Can .."
I asked calmly but couldn't help but cough from all the mucus stuck somewhere in my throat.
"Can I watch?"
This time I was able to finish the sentence and found my voice sounding weirdly normal. When I first woke up days ago I knew my voice was gone but a few days later everything was fine?
"Yes, I will skip the sedative this session, I have better control anyway."
Huh? I tried my best to make an inquisitive face, but quickly realized how unlikely it was that someone could read my facial expression. With how burnt my limbs looked, I knew I had a scarred face as well. Maybe he just talks a little differently, control over a healing session is always good, so I inquired for more information.
"What will we be doing today? I'm not the biggest fan of physical therapy, I hope you understand."
"No need to worry Marcel, I understand what you have been through the past few weeks. Perhaps I can explain it to you while I heal you, what do you say?"
He moved closer and touched my hand as a calming warmth spread through me. I also noticed a subtle glow manifest under his palm. I flinched away or at least tried but his grip was firm.
"What in the world is that? How is your hand glowing!" I yelled. My yell diminished instantly and quickly turned into a softer tone. This was weird I thought because internally I felt as though I was still yelling.
Nothing was adding up, where was I? I'm still burned but my surroundings seem different. Everything feels a little bit off. It feels eerie, as if I was lied to my whole life just to find out the world worked differently. I guess I can't really recognize myself right now so maybe this was a new world? Thoughts bounced into my head racing back and forth as I tried to rationalize what was happening before me.
Then I recalled the short conversation I heard in my house before passing out. I am a test subject but what is with these powers they mentioned?
"It's fine I will tell you more, just calm down. In all fairness, you got lucky with me being here. The news might not affect you as much now. I am what they call a healer. I have passed the trial and woke up with the "Reality of healing"."
"What in the world is he talking about?" I was lost but I stayed quiet and waited for more information. I noticed his hand glow again and felt myself spiral into a further state of calm, what a scary power I thought.
"You were actually the first to encounter them, but as I am sure you already know the fire at your house was not natural; it was the doing of what we call the "Anathema of Reality". Gods have now laid claim to our planets. We do not know the details but around 1/10 of the earth's population just disappeared."
Boiling rage threatened to spill from me yet once again his hand glowed and my emotions ceased.
"My family.."
"Your family disappeared long before they burned alive. What you experienced was a hallucination. The robots were inside your house long before you were and detected no life signals. Your personal AI house was in an emergency shutdown mode before you entered the house. You were not the first to experience this; there were cases of this type of delusion all over the world."
One more subtle glow of his hand and then he let go and backed up and kept speaking.
"I experienced it, so I understand your confusion on the matter. Believe me when I say you only see the people close to you suffer, those who didn't have a close place in your heart simply disappear. I am sure you didn't even notice Alice your maid should have stayed by your family's side instead of your wife who should have been at work during that time."
He was right, thinking back I cannot recall why I was coming home to surprise my family. My wife should have still been at work. Maybe I was there early to surprise her when she got home? The more I thought about it, the more things were not adding up. Rowan spoke again.
"Seeing you made it through the fire, you now have to decide if you want to take the trial or not. 'The trial's death rate is fairly high, however the outcome can provide substantial benefits. Such as healing your skin"
"What is a trial? I asked. This time he seemed dismissive of the question.
"Well let's discuss that another time. Right now, get up and focus on trying to digest all the new information. Just remember your family didn't suffer, it's the "Anathema of reality" playing with you."
Before he left I couldn't help but notice how much he was sweating, did using his power take such a heavy toll?
Laying my head onto the pillow, I replayed the last words in my head "The anathema of reality". Such a peculiar name. When I thought deeper about its abilities and what it had done, a burning rage consumed me. My ears filled with echoed noises of my family's screams and my mind flashed with vivid scenes of their decaying corpses.