chapter 8
Chapter 8 : Waking up into a Dream
Every morning I sit here, at this bar reminiscing with myself on how huge of a mess I’ve found myself wallowing in endlessly ever since I signed that contract with One Forever Industries. The contract that made promises, promises so enticing I just couldn’t resist, the contract which would end all of my problems, my family’s problems-Our problems. I just can’t see past that day, I can’t remember what went wrong, I can’t remember anything else besides being on that operating table that day, the numbing pain through my body, lying there paralyzed as they inserted those parts. These parts that move on their own, tell me what to do, enhance me, control me, take my body to limits I couldn’t take on my own. What was on that contract? Has One Forever wronged me? Stolen my freedom? I’ve been tied to a new purpose, a new disease, something beyond me. Beyond understanding. At least my own.
I had awakened on that table dazed, remembering only the suffering of the operation which was, on my end, poorly treated with pharmaceuticals to successfully keep my nerves numbed, unaware, and content. I felt shearing of the doctor’s tools on my skin, the blade splitting my abdomen, the precision where bio-mechanical hardware had been inserted and resides even now these aliens of my flesh. This doctor, skilled doctor, makes the proper precision around my skull, removing the skin, suctions for the blood and pus, I could feel my eyes flicker and roll back viciously, a clear sign that should of been clear- I wasn’t under anaesthesia.
Then the drilling began, a sharper, more rigid cutting tool I could feel gnawing at the back of my skull. He had to cut it open, a door to the commanding organ where it was the most delicate of operations, one wrong move and I’d become a vegetable. I could feel the doctor’s gloves dusting off the shavings of bone marrow and slowly lifting off the cut bone. He had to give it a little effort though, whatever it was that holds things together up there didn’t want to let go of the bone. Cartilage of some sort stretched and snapped, letting go of that rectangular bone from the crown of my skull. I don’t know how I went through that with out going into shock, without the doctor seeing any signs of my body not being doped enough with morphine, or without eventually dying.
It wasn’t until three days after the operation that I fell unconscious. And for all I know, there could of been more operations. These implants under my skin had been probably grown with my DNA and the manufactured RNA from the Aeon Project. It was all explained in a document that leaked to the public. No one knows if these ideas were of a private firm, possibly owned by One Forever Industries, or if they were particularly of the Governmental interest for the sake of American gain.
I had a lovely wife named Carol and a beautiful daughter named Isabella. Carol and I worked hard, we struggled, we weren’t of the most gifted. We loved what we had, though; just the three of us. But one cold February night, I came home from work, Carol had been waiting for me in the living room of our tiny apartment just outside the New York City Bio-dome with news about a possible fourth addition. We were still making payments on Isabella’s birth costs, and because of a high population problem here and throughout the rest of the world, a second child birth would cost three times as it did. I was thinking, damn it all to hell. Damn it all!
Carol was two months pregnant. She was eventually going to have to quit her job at the near by restaurant which barely did squat for us no matter hard she worked. I had to do something. I wanted so much for another child, a playmate for Isabella, some companionship to make up for all the hours I’ve missed with her working at that damned company day in and day out. And, so badly, I needed to find something financially awarding to help us. We were all ready in danger of an eviction. Rent was overdue by five months. I went to work the next day determined to ask for a higher paying position, I stayed up until three a.m. writing a resume the night before and plopped it on the desk of the super-attendant.
Eventually, I was denied the position. Disparity was at a high. And, then I thought about what was going on with the Aeon Project. They were recruiting people to become Aeons and be able to find great jobs. I didn’t quite understand the process of becoming an Aeon, or even what an Aeon was before I found myself asking the supper-attendant about who I can contact about getting myself involved.
I read that contract and saw the money sign. I don’t remember much of anything else on that legal document that bound me into this mistake made by humanity except for the term irreversible operation. I didn’t think anything of it until now; about five years later and I’ve still piecing it all together like a collage of memories not exactly tying together.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I remember waking up in a dark room, dimly lit by light sifting in from a doorway on the opposite side of the room about one hundred feet down from the bed I lied in. A fairly large facility where it seemed like dozens of beds filled with patients of some kind slept or laid wake. I heard moaning, whimpering, and crying from the occupants of the beds. The room was probably one-hundred fifty feet by one hundred feet with a double door at one end, and two large windows at the other. I had been in some sort of sling, restricting all movement except for my neck, hands, and feet. I remembered the pain I had endured some time before awakening and tried screaming. Nothing came out, and it seemed as if my mouth wouldn’t open. I run my tongue against the insides of my lips and felt metals bars which have been pierced through the lips. What it’s purpose was a question I asked myself that frightened me. Just what are they doing to me? Are they doing something inhumane? Was all the pain on purpose?
I stayed awake, listening to the strange noises coming from fellow occupants of the beds in this dark room until that strange fateful day came. The lights went on, I could see the mangled faces of others beside me, across from me, all in this room. I kept arguing with myself on what exactly was happening.
They started calling names. Names of all of us occupants. One by one, they began getting up and walking out each time some man in a grey jump suit came and called upon them. There were fifteen minute intervals in between each summoning. The duration of each wait made me sweat more and more. What if they were about to call on me, and find out I couldn’t move, what then?
The guy next to me, who seemed half dead, was called on.
“Karber Zorathen.”
He got up and started walking, slowly, swaying side to side like his body wouldn’t cooperate. An awkward kind of skip in his right step, the left with a little drag, slowly making his way to the double doors leading to a mystery I would eventually solve when it was my turn. Glancing around the room a for more times, wondering what was becoming of me and everyone else in this room, and then I heard what made the lump in my throat jump and tie it’s self into a bigger knot.
“Adam Zearst,” the man echoed loudly amongst the low hum of whimpering and crying.
My legs started shifting, sliding to the edge of the bed without my command. I wondered where the strings where being pulled, where was the puppet master that was suddenly telling my limbs to follow the summoning of an unfamiliar voice, I felt nothing along the lines of ropes or wires secretly manipulating my flesh. The pushing or pulling of an invisible force seemed to come from within my person. Such a thing was preposterous and eventually I decided I was dreaming and had nothing of it a reality which I wasn’t controlling my own arms, my legs, and everything in between.
“This ones a little slow, now,” the man in the door way echoed to who was probably another mysterious person; a master of manipulation perhaps.
I reached the double doors and looked at the man. His face was round with a beard about four inches thick, blue eyes, and brownish blonde hair and a receding hairline. Perhaps, just a common worker who seemed to have an aura of a king had seemed like a familiar entity. The way he was standing there, inspecting me, urging me to keep walking with the gesture of his hands wisping to his left directing me to turn right even if I weren’t the one guiding my own legs.
“Keep walking, one foot right after another, come on,” He augmented my confusion even more so, fear and lack of understanding became intertwined. Did he know I wasn’t consciously making these decisions or not?
The man who was called on before me, Karber, was now walking the same direction as I, still had a troubling gallop in his step. It wasn’t until then that I noticed the arm bands, ankle braces, and the metallic ring around his head. His skin bare, as was mine, lacerations of his flesh barely healed down his spine.
For the length of that hallway, it caught my ability of realization a broken tool, I feel unconscious for a time and awakened momentarily through a slew of instances where someone was doing some examination of some sort of my health and or function. My ability to pass judgements and make sense of what was happening at that time ceased to exist. It’s absence now affects my recollection of not only who but what I am since the operations.
But, I’m not alone.
There have been thousands of us made and since the creation of more Aeons have been outlawed we are now wanted by various organizations. Some want to help us, some want to hurt us, and some want to be us. But what is the purpose of an Aeon? Why have we been made? Does Karber know who he is? Does he remember anything from those days? Are we the last of the production?
The last thing I remember as far as being in that building, was being awakened by a man who called himself Doctor Frederick Sans. Maybe the pain wasn’t intentional on his part, but what was done to me, I couldn’t hold back from getting some sort of retribution. He stood there, explaining to me what was happening. I couldn’t grasp any of it at the time. All I could do is stare at him angrily. The apex of the moment, I stood up and ripped all of these wires going into my skin and dropped them on the bed.
“Adam! Please! Let me help you!” Sans exclaimed, standing before me an over-stressed man. Losing his hair, blood-shot eyes, pale skin, and the darkest of circles haunting his eyes like shadows where the sun hadn’t been in a very long time.
“What have you done to me!?” I could feel my lungs fill up with air to it’s fullest capacity for the first time since I’ve been there. “Do you know how much pain you’ve put me through!?”
“Adam! You’re not ready to leave!” He exclaimed.
I tossed him to the side, the one man who could of answered my questions, and busted down the steel door, leaving the room and eventually finding myself freeing others from the same comatose I had just awaken from. I started a chain reaction; I would run into a room and see a man being held captive in one of these iron-cast beds and set him free. I left several of them free and then they would find someone else to help let loose.
Before I knew it, chaos had broken out amongst both doctors and patients. The facility’s guardsmen were ordered to shut the place down. But we fought our way out. Some of us were confused and dazed, like me, but there were a few that seemed to know what to do. One man, I followed him after I set him free. He guided me and a half a dozen of others out of the facility.
“Do you know what you’re going to do?” Karber asked me.
“I have to find my family... How about you?” I gave him a once over, saw an incision which had gone down his left arm and it healed before my eyes. He must have got various cuts and bruises from the guards as we fought them on our way out.
“Uh... I’m gonna try to find my dad... He’s with the TSA,” he replied.
“Right... Well, thanks for the help.” I gave a nod and turned around, began walking away from the perimeters of the One Forever facility.
“Likewise, Adam.”
I began to try and sort out what just happened. Any chance of making any sense out of it right now was just about impossible. The compound was surrendered by a thick forest with small rock formations with a maximum thousand foot drop at places unseen through the underbrush of the forest. I had been walking for about twenty minutes before I heard screams behind me. The sounds of gunfire and choppers all around. I took cover within the forest until I realized that there was something still going on at the compound. I had found myself dead center of the territory where another facility was just across the mini canyon like area. I had no clue where I was and didn’t know where to go other then just hide.
“Adam!” A voice echoed some two-hundred yards away within the thickness of the woods.
“Karber!?” It sounded like him.
“Help! Please!! I can’t move!!” I could hear the pain in his voice.
“Hang on!” I began running through the moist forest floor, jumping over vines and diving through patches of thorny branches. A nagging pain when the thorns tear my unprotected skin. All I was wearing was some type of medical briefs that were issued to us.
I had gotten within thirty yards of him and I could see him lying there, eyes shut, trying to get up with no victory with the effort. I had seen what he couldn’t, he was oblivious to what had been standing right in front of him.
“Karber!! Watch out!!” I couldn’t seem to be able to scream loud enough to project the warning. One of the guards of the facility had gotten to him. Impaled him with this long probe, shocking him thoroughly. I stood there in disbelief while I watched one of the guys who helped me get outside just get brutally murdered.
But was he really dead? Obviously, our paths cross again. But, how?
So much has happened since then. Hundred of questions I’ve asked myself since that day. How I was able to run away. I blacked out a lot of things that happened after that. Perhaps out of fear, I began running on instincts. Or maybe my body isn’t the only thing these people have messed with.
I watched the guard check and make sure he was immobile. All I could think about was a way to help him. I couldn’t. So I left in search of answers to all of these questions and a way to help the others who suffered the same pain as I.
I walked for miles and miles before I saw a road. Probably a day and a half went by and I felt no need for food or rest. I didn’t understand. Suddenly I felt unstoppable. Something inside of me made me stronger, faster, smarter, and powerful. I began running and never stopped until I found a small town. It was about noon and people were staring at my half-naked body as I walked down the main street. My skin had been dis-colored by dried blood from scratches, dirt, and even filamentous green stains from various plants brushing against my skin. I was a mess and an indecent sight to the public eye.
The worst part was that it didn’t even cross my mind until some little kid stood in my path and stopped me. He, what looked like a young nine year old boy, just out right yelled at me for running outside in my under garments. I’m not sure how long I was in that facility, but any bit of humanity I had left, came back little by little. But normal, is something I’d never be again.
Every morning I sit here, at this bar reminiscing with myself on how huge of a mess I’ve found myself wallowing in endlessly ever since I signed that contract with One Forever Industries. The contract that made promises, promises so enticing I just couldn’t resist, the contract which would end all of my problems, my family’s problems-Our problems. I just can’t see past that day, I can’t remember what went wrong, I can’t remember anything else besides being on that operating table that day, the numbing pain through my body, lying there paralyzed as they inserted those parts. These parts that move on their own, tell me what to do, enhance me, control me, take my body to limits I couldn’t take on my own. What was on that contract? Has One Forever wronged me? Stolen my freedom? I’ve been tied to a new purpose, a new disease, something beyond me. Beyond understanding. At least my own.
I had awakened on that table dazed, remembering only the suffering of the operation which was, on my end, poorly treated with pharmaceuticals to successfully keep my nerves numbed, unaware, and content. I felt shearing of the doctor’s tools on my skin, the blade splitting my abdomen, the precision where bio-mechanical hardware had been inserted and resides even now these aliens of my flesh. This doctor, skilled doctor, makes the proper precision around my skull, removing the skin, suctions for the blood and pus, I could feel my eyes flicker and roll back viciously, a clear sign that should of been clear- I wasn’t under anaesthesia.
Then the drilling began, a sharper, more rigid cutting tool I could feel gnawing at the back of my skull. He had to cut it open, a door to the commanding organ where it was the most delicate of operations, one wrong move and I’d become a vegetable. I could feel the doctor’s gloves dusting off the shavings of bone marrow and slowly lifting off the cut bone. He had to give it a little effort though, whatever it was that holds things together up there didn’t want to let go of the bone. Cartilage of some sort stretched and snapped, letting go of that rectangular bone from the crown of my skull. I don’t know how I went through that with out going into shock, without the doctor seeing any signs of my body not being doped enough with morphine, or without eventually dying.
It wasn’t until three days after the operation that I fell unconscious. And for all I know, there could of been more operations. These implants under my skin had been probably grown with my DNA and the manufactured RNA from the Aeon Project. It was all explained in a document that leaked to the public. No one knows if these ideas were of a private firm, possibly owned by One Forever Industries, or if they were particularly of the Governmental interest for the sake of American gain.
I had a lovely wife named Carol and a beautiful daughter named Isabella. Carol and I worked hard, we struggled, we weren’t of the most gifted. We loved what we had, though; just the three of us. But one cold February night, I came home from work, Carol had been waiting for me in the living room of our tiny apartment just outside the New York City Bio-dome with news about a possible fourth addition. We were still making payments on Isabella’s birth costs, and because of a high population problem here and throughout the rest of the world, a second child birth would cost three times as it did. I was thinking, damn it all to hell. Damn it all!
Carol was two months pregnant. She was eventually going to have to quit her job at the near by restaurant which barely did squat for us no matter hard she worked. I had to do something. I wanted so much for another child, a playmate for Isabella, some companionship to make up for all the hours I’ve missed with her working at that damned company day in and day out. And, so badly, I needed to find something financially awarding to help us. We were all ready in danger of an eviction. Rent was overdue by five months. I went to work the next day determined to ask for a higher paying position, I stayed up until three a.m. writing a resume the night before and plopped it on the desk of the super-attendant.
Eventually, I was denied the position. Disparity was at a high. And, then I thought about what was going on with the Aeon Project. They were recruiting people to become Aeons and be able to find great jobs. I didn’t quite understand the process of becoming an Aeon, or even what an Aeon was before I found myself asking the supper-attendant about who I can contact about getting myself involved.
I read that contract and saw the money sign. I don’t remember much of anything else on that legal document that bound me into this mistake made by humanity except for the term irreversible operation. I didn’t think anything of it until now; about five years later and I’ve still piecing it all together like a collage of memories not exactly tying together.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I remember waking up in a dark room, dimly lit by light sifting in from a doorway on the opposite side of the room about one hundred feet down from the bed I lied in. A fairly large facility where it seemed like dozens of beds filled with patients of some kind slept or laid wake. I heard moaning, whimpering, and crying from the occupants of the beds. The room was probably one-hundred fifty feet by one hundred feet with a double door at one end, and two large windows at the other. I had been in some sort of sling, restricting all movement except for my neck, hands, and feet. I remembered the pain I had endured some time before awakening and tried screaming. Nothing came out, and it seemed as if my mouth wouldn’t open. I run my tongue against the insides of my lips and felt metals bars which have been pierced through the lips. What it’s purpose was a question I asked myself that frightened me. Just what are they doing to me? Are they doing something inhumane? Was all the pain on purpose?
I stayed awake, listening to the strange noises coming from fellow occupants of the beds in this dark room until that strange fateful day came. The lights went on, I could see the mangled faces of others beside me, across from me, all in this room. I kept arguing with myself on what exactly was happening.
They started calling names. Names of all of us occupants. One by one, they began getting up and walking out each time some man in a grey jump suit came and called upon them. There were fifteen minute intervals in between each summoning. The duration of each wait made me sweat more and more. What if they were about to call on me, and find out I couldn’t move, what then?
The guy next to me, who seemed half dead, was called on.
“Karber Zorathen.”
He got up and started walking, slowly, swaying side to side like his body wouldn’t cooperate. An awkward kind of skip in his right step, the left with a little drag, slowly making his way to the double doors leading to a mystery I would eventually solve when it was my turn. Glancing around the room a for more times, wondering what was becoming of me and everyone else in this room, and then I heard what made the lump in my throat jump and tie it’s self into a bigger knot.
“Adam Zearst,” the man echoed loudly amongst the low hum of whimpering and crying.
My legs started shifting, sliding to the edge of the bed without my command. I wondered where the strings where being pulled, where was the puppet master that was suddenly telling my limbs to follow the summoning of an unfamiliar voice, I felt nothing along the lines of ropes or wires secretly manipulating my flesh. The pushing or pulling of an invisible force seemed to come from within my person. Such a thing was preposterous and eventually I decided I was dreaming and had nothing of it a reality which I wasn’t controlling my own arms, my legs, and everything in between.
“This ones a little slow, now,” the man in the door way echoed to who was probably another mysterious person; a master of manipulation perhaps.
I reached the double doors and looked at the man. His face was round with a beard about four inches thick, blue eyes, and brownish blonde hair and a receding hairline. Perhaps, just a common worker who seemed to have an aura of a king had seemed like a familiar entity. The way he was standing there, inspecting me, urging me to keep walking with the gesture of his hands wisping to his left directing me to turn right even if I weren’t the one guiding my own legs.
“Keep walking, one foot right after another, come on,” He augmented my confusion even more so, fear and lack of understanding became intertwined. Did he know I wasn’t consciously making these decisions or not?
The man who was called on before me, Karber, was now walking the same direction as I, still had a troubling gallop in his step. It wasn’t until then that I noticed the arm bands, ankle braces, and the metallic ring around his head. His skin bare, as was mine, lacerations of his flesh barely healed down his spine.
For the length of that hallway, it caught my ability of realization a broken tool, I feel unconscious for a time and awakened momentarily through a slew of instances where someone was doing some examination of some sort of my health and or function. My ability to pass judgements and make sense of what was happening at that time ceased to exist. It’s absence now affects my recollection of not only who but what I am since the operations.
But, I’m not alone.
There have been thousands of us made and since the creation of more Aeons have been outlawed we are now wanted by various organizations. Some want to help us, some want to hurt us, and some want to be us. But what is the purpose of an Aeon? Why have we been made? Does Karber know who he is? Does he remember anything from those days? Are we the last of the production?
The last thing I remember as far as being in that building, was being awakened by a man who called himself Doctor Frederick Sans. Maybe the pain wasn’t intentional on his part, but what was done to me, I couldn’t hold back from getting some sort of retribution. He stood there, explaining to me what was happening. I couldn’t grasp any of it at the time. All I could do is stare at him angrily. The apex of the moment, I stood up and ripped all of these wires going into my skin and dropped them on the bed.
“Adam! Please! Let me help you!” Sans exclaimed, standing before me an over-stressed man. Losing his hair, blood-shot eyes, pale skin, and the darkest of circles haunting his eyes like shadows where the sun hadn’t been in a very long time.
“What have you done to me!?” I could feel my lungs fill up with air to it’s fullest capacity for the first time since I’ve been there. “Do you know how much pain you’ve put me through!?”
“Adam! You’re not ready to leave!” He exclaimed.
I tossed him to the side, the one man who could of answered my questions, and busted down the steel door, leaving the room and eventually finding myself freeing others from the same comatose I had just awaken from. I started a chain reaction; I would run into a room and see a man being held captive in one of these iron-cast beds and set him free. I left several of them free and then they would find someone else to help let loose.
Before I knew it, chaos had broken out amongst both doctors and patients. The facility’s guardsmen were ordered to shut the place down. But we fought our way out. Some of us were confused and dazed, like me, but there were a few that seemed to know what to do. One man, I followed him after I set him free. He guided me and a half a dozen of others out of the facility.
“Do you know what you’re going to do?” Karber asked me.
“I have to find my family... How about you?” I gave him a once over, saw an incision which had gone down his left arm and it healed before my eyes. He must have got various cuts and bruises from the guards as we fought them on our way out.
“Uh... I’m gonna try to find my dad... He’s with the TSA,” he replied.
“Right... Well, thanks for the help.” I gave a nod and turned around, began walking away from the perimeters of the One Forever facility.
“Likewise, Adam.”
I began to try and sort out what just happened. Any chance of making any sense out of it right now was just about impossible. The compound was surrendered by a thick forest with small rock formations with a maximum thousand foot drop at places unseen through the underbrush of the forest. I had been walking for about twenty minutes before I heard screams behind me. The sounds of gunfire and choppers all around. I took cover within the forest until I realized that there was something still going on at the compound. I had found myself dead center of the territory where another facility was just across the mini canyon like area. I had no clue where I was and didn’t know where to go other then just hide.
“Adam!” A voice echoed some two-hundred yards away within the thickness of the woods.
“Karber!?” It sounded like him.
“Help! Please!! I can’t move!!” I could hear the pain in his voice.
“Hang on!” I began running through the moist forest floor, jumping over vines and diving through patches of thorny branches. A nagging pain when the thorns tear my unprotected skin. All I was wearing was some type of medical briefs that were issued to us.
I had gotten within thirty yards of him and I could see him lying there, eyes shut, trying to get up with no victory with the effort. I had seen what he couldn’t, he was oblivious to what had been standing right in front of him.
“Karber!! Watch out!!” I couldn’t seem to be able to scream loud enough to project the warning. One of the guards of the facility had gotten to him. Impaled him with this long probe, shocking him thoroughly. I stood there in disbelief while I watched one of the guys who helped me get outside just get brutally murdered.
But was he really dead? Obviously, our paths cross again. But, how?
So much has happened since then. Hundred of questions I’ve asked myself since that day. How I was able to run away. I blacked out a lot of things that happened after that. Perhaps out of fear, I began running on instincts. Or maybe my body isn’t the only thing these people have messed with.
I watched the guard check and make sure he was immobile. All I could think about was a way to help him. I couldn’t. So I left in search of answers to all of these questions and a way to help the others who suffered the same pain as I.
I walked for miles and miles before I saw a road. Probably a day and a half went by and I felt no need for food or rest. I didn’t understand. Suddenly I felt unstoppable. Something inside of me made me stronger, faster, smarter, and powerful. I began running and never stopped until I found a small town. It was about noon and people were staring at my half-naked body as I walked down the main street. My skin had been dis-colored by dried blood from scratches, dirt, and even filamentous green stains from various plants brushing against my skin. I was a mess and an indecent sight to the public eye.
The worst part was that it didn’t even cross my mind until some little kid stood in my path and stopped me. He, what looked like a young nine year old boy, just out right yelled at me for running outside in my under garments. I’m not sure how long I was in that facility, but any bit of humanity I had left, came back little by little. But normal, is something I’d never be again.