I realize the quality of writing isn't top notch, but I'm still trying to improve, so any help is appreciated. Thank-you! Also, if you review, I will be sure to return the favor by reviewing a piece of your work to the best of my abilities. All my life, I had wondered what it was like to die. People often said it was a simple passing over to the netherworld. Some also said it was slow, painful process to a black abyss of nothing. Others would say you'd be greeted by an angel, or demon, and taken to either heaven or hell. Though I often thought of death, at a mere age of fourteen, I never considered my own departure.
Smoke. It was everywhere. I couldn't see, couldn't breathe. I tried screaming, but I was only racked by another coughing fit. Tears streamed from my eyes. Mom! Dad! Help me! Something ahead of me crashed to the ground. Another wave of heat and flames knocked me off my feet. I thrashed as embers scorched my flesh and debris dug into me. Another crack and something burning fell atop my legs. Pain consumed me and I screamed despite my raw, smoke-filled lungs and throat. Lurching forward, I tried to push the burning beam off myself only to scorch my hands. I screamed more.
This is it. This is the end. A simple house fire is how I die. I didn't want it to end like this! I don't want to die! My hands groped at the ground around me. My left hand grasped onto something cold and soothing. The pain eased and everything began to fade out, almost peacefully. The crackling of fire and crashing of beams disappeared. Darkness consumed my already severely blurred vision. I focused on what was in my hand. It was so cold it almost felt like it was freezing my skin. I let it fill me. With one final gasp, everything went blank. The last thing I remember was someone screaming my name. "Jackie!"
***
It was all consuming. My memories poured into me like a swollen river. The raw emotion from each one was overwhelming. Control was out of my grasp. Voices, sounds, feelings, smells, tastes. Everything piled into my brain at once. Though I tried not to, I knew I was screaming and writhing though it wasn't painful. It was an information overload.
The flow of memories began to slow. Already weak and on the verge of passing out came the most powerful memory, death. The fire. I'd run back into my burning house to find my mom who hadn't made it out only to be caught in the flames myself. I could smell the smoke, feel the fire burning my flesh, could taste the bitter grime in my mouth, hear the hissing of fire. I was surrounding in crackling, biting flames. Terror tore though my body. I screamed, tried to escape before it vanished and I was left in darkness. I could remember everything, from the moment I was born, to the moment I died. I was dead.
My eyes flew open. Whiteness. It was so bright and blinding that tears began to leak down my cheeks. Forcing my eyes to remain open, they darted around, trying to focus on something. I took deep gulps of breath and clawed at the cold surface beneath me. My body jerked and twitched. Sweat slid down my face and I blinked it out of my eyes. I tried to sit up, but my muscles wouldn't listen to me. They felt foreign and unfamiliar, as well as stiff and painful to move. I was so weak and disoriented that thinking hurt. A surge of desperation and wrongness racked me. My whole body burned and ached. Something was wrong; terribly wrong. I had just died. I was dead, although that was impossible.
Pain rocketing down my spine and breaths coming in heaving gasps, I tilted my head down towards my body. I was naked and lain out on a metal table inside of a tiny white room. Numerous tubes protruded from my body, particularly around my chest above my heart. I panicked. My body started twitching and jerking more violently than before. A couple of tubes snapped off and cluttered to the metal table and then to the floor. Where am I? What's happening to me? I tried screaming, only managing to partially open my mouth and utter a thin, croaking noise. Confused, I attempted to speak, but my tongue was so heavy it felt like lead and my mouth was so dry it hurt.
Tears of frustration, fear and confusion flowed from my eyes. I opened and closed my mouth, croaking random noises. Sobs racked my chest. This wasn’t suppose to happen! I need to get out of here! Why me?!
Beep. Beep. Beep. The low, rhythmic beeps of a machine next to me that I assumed to be monitoring my heartbeat helped to calm me down and allow me to collect my thoughts. I stopped crying. I had died. I was dead. This was the afterlife. I should have assumed from the word “afterlife”, that instead of it meaning literally, the time after life, that there was life beyond death.
I took deep breaths and continued to try and move my body, which was becoming more and more responsive. Soon my hands and feet were responding to me.
Suddenly there was a screech of metal against metal. The noise made me cringe as it echoed in my already ringing ears. Pain shot through my body as all the tubes unattached themselves and clattered to the floor. My muscles all seized up and then relaxed instantly. I lurched upwards, but I was so dizzy that I collapsed back onto the table, naked and shivering as the metal seared my skin.
“F58 has awoken,” said a low monotone voice beside me. Chills danced down my spine. Adrenaline pumped into my veins. I wasn’t alone. Using all of my strength, I turned my head in the direction of the voice. My throat closed up in terror, not allowing me to scream.
There seemed to be some sort of mutant human beside me. It had roughly the same form as a human, with elongated limbs that were bone thin and knees that were bent the wrong way, like a birds. Its back was horribly hunched over, spine jutting out like spikes. The creatures skin was near translucent, blue veins clear underneath as if drawn on paper. Its ribcage seemed to be torn open, though there was still a mound of flesh inside, pulsing as blood pumped through it.
Its head was was terrified me the most. It had a human skull, well, resembled a human skull, though it extended backwards like a newborn babies. It had no hair, no ears and near flat nose with tiny slits for nostrils. Its eyes were wide disks of glowing white, no colour what so ever. Its mouth was only a slit across its face, no lips, with thick, black, cord like wire sewing it shut.
I scrambled wildly on the metal table, my back slamming against the wall. My stomach convulsed over and over again as I dry-retched. Air seemed hard to get and I dug my finer nails into my palms. This is all a dream. All a dream. This isn’t real.
The creature cocked its head to one side, no expression on its deformed face. “F58’s memories are intact.” It’s mouth did not move, though I heard its voice clearly. It seemed to be talking inside of my head, which scared me more.
“W-w-what are y-you?” I asked, my voice cracking. Blood began to drip from my hands were my nails dug in. The wrong feeling I had felt when I had first awoken was nothing to what I felt then.
“G76 is human,” it said.
“Th-there is n-no way your human,” I stuttered. “Where a-am I? What’s going on? Is this the af-afterlife?”
“F58 is not dead. F58 has been rescued from the Dream and is now within the Mec Laboratory, Ward F.”
“T-the Dream?”
“Information concerning the Dream is not to be given out to test subjects.”
“I’m not a test subject. Now tell me what is going on. I’m dead! How am I alive right now? This is all impossible, this isn’t real-”
“F58, this is all real. G76 understands F58’s panic, but this is hardly a situation that requires that emotion. From your reaction, G76 has concluded that F58’s memories are intact. What is F58’s name?”
Rage overcame my fear. “This is a situation to panic all right! I’m freaking dead! And stop calling me F58, that’s not my name! Tell me where I am! Tell me what’s happening-”
“What is F58’s name?” Something clenched inside of me and I doubled over in pain, gasping for breath. The pain faded, but my body wouldn’t stop shaking from the shock. “What is F58’s name?” repeated the creature.
“J-Jacqueline Birstmor,” I answered, voice horribly hitched and uneven. If I didn’t answer the questions, the creature would probably hurt me like it just had again.
“Where does F58 come from?”
“Canada.” I tried to stop trembling.
“What year was F58 born in?”
“1995.”
“What is F58’s current age?”
“15.”
“How did F58 wake up?”
Blood dripped from my clenched fists. “W-wake up?”
The creature bobbed its head. “G76 has phrased the question incorrectly. F58 is a new Dreamer. How did F58 die?”
I swear my heart stopped when the word “die” was uttered from the creatures deformed mouth. My head started to spin, my stomach churn and my heart throb. The one thing that I had told myself was impossible, and feared the most, was true. I was dead. I didn’t want to accept it, I wanted it to be a lie. My mind rejected the words instantly. Though I wasn’t a religious person, I had always thought there would be some sort of heaven or hell waiting for you after death, not this.
“Does F58 have no memories of death?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. More blood flowed from my hands. “N-no. I remember it,” I took a deep breath to try and calm myself. “I d-di-died in a f-fire.”
I noticed a white, sliding door behind the creature that could easily be mistaken for a wall. I can escape if I’m fast enough! I thought with hope. I just have to get around the creature! My expression must have betrayed me since the creature seemed to notice and said,” Escape is futile. There is no where to go.”
I realized defeat. I was terribly weak meaning I probably wouldn’t be able to get up, never-mind running or jumping, and even if I were able to get away from the creature, where would I go? What would happen to me?
I swallowed hard and rubbed my bloodied hands on my pale thighs that I had pulled up to my chest. My body seemed different than I remembered. The scars on my arms, hands and legs were gone. My skin was so pale, almost paper white. Aside from on my head, I had hair nowhere.
Being to transfixed with my body, I hadn’t seen the creature awkwardly crouch down and place a set of clothes on the table. It indicated for me to put them on with a finger twice as long as a normal human finger that had no nail.
I extended a shaking hand and snatched the clothes. I held them up. They were pure white, just like everything else I had seen so far, except for my blood. I earned for colour. I grabbed my hair and held it up in front of my eyes. Brown. I smiled emptily.
“Put the clothes on,” said the creature. I flinched as I glanced up at it and quickly yanked on the undergarments that fit perfectly, a tight t-shirt and baggy pants. The material wasn’t uncomfortable or rough and it felt like I was still wearing nothing, though I was warmer and more comfortable.
My attention returned to the shock that was ripping my mind apart. “Am I really dead? I mean, if I’m not dead, how am I here? You just asked me how I died, but before you said that I wasn’t really dead. It doesn’t make sense,” I gasped, clutching my hands in front of my face and examining them closely. Despite the lack of pigmentation, they were the same hands I remembered having.
“F58 is not dead. F58 experienced death because of the Dream of which F58 has now been released from,” explained the creature, its disk-like eyes tracing my every movement.
“What’s the Dream?”
“G76 is not permitted to state information concerning the Dream to new Dreamers.”
I held back a scowl. “What’s a Dreamer? And why do you call me F58?”
“A human soul who has been released from the Dream and returned to their body. F58 is a body number. Examine the underside of wrist,” replied the creature.
Biting my lip, I flipped my hand over and looked at my wrist. F58 was tattooed in tiny black print. Quickly, I raised my other wrist. F58 was tattooed there as well.
“A body number,” I murmured.
Suddenly from from some sort of intercom system, another voice blasted into the room, making me wince. “Put her in room 64.” The new voice had the exact same tone as the creature before me though it sounded severely annoyed.
Without taking its eyes off of me, the creature replied monotonously,” N02 is being transported to room 64.”
“N02 is in no position to pose a threat.”
The creatures eyes met my own and something inside of my head clicked. Everything went black.
Well done on keeping me hooked the whole way through. While I do agree that the beginning sounds "Matrix-esque", I do believe that you're taking this on a very different path, and I honestly want to find out what happens next.
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