Page 55 of Synodic

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My body jerked so hard and so abruptly it felt like whiplash.

I was in a fluorescent-bright room. The unfamiliar space was sterile, white, and quiet. Quiet except for the metronomic beeps and whirrings of machines.

A hospital. I was in a hospital?

I didn’t need to open my eyes to see and sense every square inch of this room, every dull tile and stained ceiling panel. I was covered in wires and tubes that snaked out of my body, coiling to screens that blipped, flashed, and surveyed my every move.

Something had gone horribly wrong if I was in a hospital. If time in Luneth ran along the same timeline as Earth, I’d been unconscious for almost two weeks. I went to rise, but my limbs were anchors, so heavy I couldn’t lift them from the stark white sheets of the hospital bed.

I tried not to panic at my inert body, but it was impossible, and my horror only grew as I realized I was completely frozen in place.

My worst nightmare.

I wanted to scream, thrash, and yank out the tubes that penetrated my skin. I wanted to run until nothing mattered anymore, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move a muscle. My mind, however, was hyper-aware of everything around me, almost preternatural.Body asleep, mind awake.

The realization helped calm and slow my heart rate, and I reined in my panic. I couldn’t outrun my problems. No one could, at least not forever.

I reached out the tendrils of my awareness to see how far I could go, hoping to glean any information about what happened to me. Maybe once I learned a bit more about my situation, I could wake myself up and return to my ordinary life. That sounded pretty appealing right about now.

I kept reaching and reaching until I hit the wall. I didn’t so much hit it as I stopped right before it. But maybe I could keep going. Perhaps there were doctors on the other side discussing my condition.

I pushed my astral self on and passed through the wall as if it were merely a shadow cast by a cloud in the sky. The room was nearly identical to the one I was in, with the same stark, sterile walls and rhythmic beeping of medical equipment. Except in this room, connected to all the tubes and wires, was a man lying still as stone. He was so lifeless, not even his eyes fluttered behind his paper-thin eyelids.

Despite his pallid complexion, he was still timelessly handsome. He looked to be carved from glass, so still, fragile, and serene. His black hair swooped back over his strong brow, and his full eyelashes rested against high, sharp cheekbones. He reminded me of a beautiful prince in a fairytale, only in need of a kiss to wake.

His medical chart lay open at the foot of his bed, and I stole a glance: Maddock Mosa, age thirty-four. Comatose for over three years. Nearly ten years older than me, but still much too young to have your life snatched away.

I further inspected his chart—motorcycle accident resulting in massive head trauma. His next of kin refused to take him off life support, hoping and praying he might someday open his eyes. I could only imagine the cost of keeping a lifeless body alive for so long. He must come from a very affluent family.

I extended my consciousness a little further to see if I could reach out to him, speak to him, communicate with someone in the same situation as me. I touched the smooth, waxy skin of his temple and pushed just beyond. But I immediately recoiled, horrified by what I felt.

Nothing.

There was nothing. Not even a hint of a human soul. A complete and utter shell of a body pumped with artificial breath; a heart mechanically forced to beat through an unnatural life.

That hopeful family would wait and wait for a miracle that would never come.

The empty well of a human turned my blood to ice; and if I didn’t figure out something soon, Maddock and I might share the same fate.

Footsteps echoed down the hall, and familiar voices pulled me back to my room. Moments later, my parents walked through the hospital door.

I wished I could jump up and hug them, kiss them and tell them how sorry I was for everything. Even though showing such emotion had never been part of our relationship, I was still relieved they were here. My mother with her long strawberry-blonde tresses and my dad with his dark brown hair, greying at the temples.

They stood by my bedside but didn’t touch me, not even a reassuring squeeze on the hand or a quick kiss on the cheek, just a cold, stoic presence. My father took my mother's elbow and led her to the small table in the corner of the room.

“Her results are still so puzzling. Even the doctors say they have never seen anything like it,” my father said, utterly perplexed. “Keira’s epinephrine levels are dangerously high, her heart rate is exceedingly fast, and her brain activity scans are off the charts. She’s never in a resting state, on complete overdrive every hour of the day. How can that be, Calliope?”

“It certainly is an anomaly, John,” my mother responded in her calculating tone.

“One that if we monitor closely could be groundbreaking work for our next case study.”

It hurt hearing the disrepair my body was in, but it cut even deeper hearing my parents discuss my condition like I was a glorified science project.

“Not like the man in the next room over; no brain activity whatsoever. Little more than a cadaver. It’s selfish really, for his family to keep him alive, especially after the doctors declared brain death.” My mother must mean the man lying comatose just beyond the wall, Maddock Mosa. “Although his case could make for an interesting juxtaposition to Keira’s. We could compare the two cases side by side.”

“Indeed,” my mother ruminated.

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