by A O Storm
Monetarily, Kano was more destitute than ever, with his student loans piling up. He felt a twinge of guilt as his parents were on the hook too for cosigning on all of them. Sure, for now, they had the house and Kano believed they had invested wisely. The troubling, haunted looks his father gave him caused Kano to re-evaluate that belief. It did not strike Kano as odd that he had these insights. They came so naturally he didn't question anything.
Deep inside, Kano knew that his familial insights weren't this savvy. On top of that he noticed the physical chores he did around the house while updating his resume and searching for a job were far, far easier than they had been only a few years ago. When he considered this, Kano paused. Kano had typed out a resume from memory faster than he thought he could type, and hadn’t felt a single pain or bit of fatigue from any of the work he did around the house.
Kano went to his bedroom, looking in the mirror. "I can't believe this," he muttered, turning one side, then the other. He was larger. His shoulders were thicker and even his father’s hand-me-downs were starting to feel tight.
"Why am I getting bigger?" Kano flexed a bicep and felt along his abdomen where muscles were suddenly defined. His body fat seemed nonexistent and no matter what he ate or what his routine was, Kano’s muscles were growing like a bodybuilder on roids. Even with extra bulk, Kano had become more limber and flexible. Kicking randomly in the air, he laughed to himself.
He had a thought about his favorite superhero movies and the transformation the hero experienced. “Nah,” he chuckled to himself. “I’m sure there are other recovery stories like mine, however odd this is.”
His legs felt bulkier too, and Kano bent his knees a few times getting a feel of his increased weight. It felt like he weighed nothing. Confident, Kano jumped and did a complete flip, landing on his feet with knees bent, arms up.
"Wow."
Furrowing his brow, Kano stepped next to the height tape he'd plastered to the wall in his teens. It was still there, with his last mark pegged at five feet nine inches, shorter than most of his male relatives. The number was the same as the one on his driver’s license. Now, though, Kano looked at the tape and realized he was staring at the old mark at eye level. The tape ended at six feet even, and judging his height by placing a hand on his head, Kano thought he was now there, the same height as Charlie.
Thinking about his former roommate made him wonder how well Charlie’s new living situation was working out for him.
"Dinner's ready!" Kano heard his mom call out, interrupting his thoughts, and he went to put on a shirt. "What's happening to me?" For a minute, he struggled to adjust the polo shirt to his much larger frame and newly engorged muscles before tearing the shirt seams as he pulled it down to his waist. "I should call that doctor again, it’s weird I’m growing out of my clothes, and so fast."
That was when the bomb exploded.
His bedroom was on the second floor of the single-family home, in the middle of an ordinary suburb. The flooring beneath his feet disintegrated a moment after Kano heard the sudden roaring sound. Ears popping, confused, Kano felt as if time seemed to slow.
He had enough time to at register the explosion before getting knocked over. Despite his newly enhanced reflexes, he didn’t have enough time to do anything. Kano was blown backwards by the blast, his house on fire as the walls exploded. He got his hands and arms in front of his face as the concussive force knocked him out through the window. The glass shattered with his exit, jagged edges raking his body, leaving long, bloody rents in his skin.
For a brief moment, Kano watched as his home violently contorted and flames burst from nearly every window. His family and their home were destroyed while Kano sailed backwards, powerless to do anything but watch. When he impacted hard against the rough asphalt on the other side of the street, Kano lost consciousness.
Minutes passed before he was coherent enough to understand what had happened. “No!” He shouted and started running across the street toward the remains of his family home. Everything was on fire. The house was his childhood, full of precious memories, burning.
His family was inside and he knew, like the house, they were gone.
“How?” Kano stopped short of the flames, the smoke stinging in his eyes and his skin baking from heat. Tears of grief and pain dried on his cheeks as they streamed from his eyes. As grief enveloped him, Kano was forced to stumble away from the inferno, his ripped clothing starting to smolder from the heat.
“How?” Kano could hear sirens in the distance but couldn’t move. He sat down, staring at the flames from the sidewalk as the house began to crumble, the roof caving in as the walls fell.
The next hours were a blur for Kano as he answered questions from firefighters, EMT and police. "Yes," he said. "No," he said, both in near equal amounts. The sight, the smell and sounds of emergency vehicles was just too much. Kano could picture the smiles of his mother and father earlier that day, etched in his mind’s eye, as he exited the ring of emergency services personnel. The uniforms were so crisp, straight and clean. Somehow, it made him feel even worse. Kano could barely keep from crying as he considered his own smoke-stained and ripped clothing.
He had nothing left. Everything Kano had was in that home.
Suddenly, it all felt like a weird dream for Kano. He kept watching, expecting his dad, his mom, somebody to escape the smoldering ruin as the firemen kept their hose trained on the building, gradually putting out the larger flames.
No one else came out, but Kano stood there, hoping, wishing somebody else survived.
Kano was standing next to a few emergency services workers, more than an hour after his last interview, watching as his childhood home finally stopped smoking. The EMTs watched with him as the fireman crew started to pack up their hose and other equipment. "Are you going to help?" His words startled the two professionals next to him, one male and one female.
"Wait, what?" The male spluttered, confused.
The woman, at least, understood, even if she could find no words to help. "What else do you think we can do, Kano?"
Kano almost laughed then, thinking about his family, and then took a deep breath. He wanted to scream "Save my family!" However, Kano knew after the time they had spent asking questions, treating him for minor burns and scrapes, there were no family members left to save. For a few moments, he stood, bowed his head, and begged a final time, heartbroken.
"Please," Kano said, "tell me, did anyone else survive?" The stark expressions on the ambulance workers' faces as he looked up when they said nothing told him all he needed to know. His family was truly gone.
At that cold, hard realization, tears started to flow once more, falling down his cheeks and sprinkling the cement sidewalk. His mom. His dad. The family cat. When Kano had returned home, it felt like the start of something new. Something good. Standing there on the concrete corner, watching the damp ruin, Kano knew he had hit rock bottom. No job and now, no family. Sniffling for a moment, Kano shuddered, trying to calm his mind enough to think about his next steps.
Kano started to stare off into the distance, unfocused, losing sight of everything through the cascade of salty tears streaking down his cheeks. He wiped surreptitiously at his face, blowing his nose on the remains of the polo shirt.
"Hey!" A feminine voice jolted him out of his depression and made him blink. The piercing, high pitch voice sounded too close for comfort.
Four - Introductions are in Order
"What?" Kano replied to the voice, moving his head back and forth, trying to see which of the EMTs had snuck up on him. He stepped to the side to ensure the unknown voice didn't yell in his ear again. Looking around, Kano felt the pangs of loss echo in his chest, distracting him from truly caring about who had yelled in his ear. He was still too unhappy to indulge in curiosity due to what just happened to his family.
"Step back, you idiot." Her voice finally penetrated the fog that was his brain and he stepped back to the concrete curb, looking around once more for the so
urce of the feminine voice.
"I’m not in the mood for this," Kano said, "I have funerals to arrange." He felt numb and could not grasp how to fix the situation, nor, for that matter, how to arrange a service for his parents. Just thinking about it brought fresh tears to his eyes and he rubbed them while he turned, still unable to find the woman.
Or anything else.
Weird, he thought, the neighborhood just all...disappeared. What's going on?
"Listen, you have two options." The woman appeared in midair and boggled Kano's mind.
"Where did you come from?"
She floated three feet off the ground, or at least seemed to relative to where Kano was standing. The neighborhood, EMT, fire trucks and police vehicles had all disappeared. Thankfully, the smell had gone too and all Kano could do was breathe, slowly. The black haired woman, clad in a flowing, dark robe rippling in an unseen breeze, cocked her head to the side and her large, dark eyes squinted at Kano in curiosity. Surrounding her was a dark aura that seemed to be devouring the light.
He'd heard the commanding tone in her voice, but Kano was fixated on her robes that weren’t touching the ground. "How are you flying?"
"Easy, this isn't real."
"Excuse me?" Kano patted himself down, still wearing the ripped and torn hand-me-downs from before his flight through the window. Rubbing the skin on his left forearm, Kano pinched himself. "I sure feel real to me."
"Listen," she commanded him as if her words were literal life and death. "Do you want to start, or are you still grieving? Or do you have more silly questions?" She asked and this time, her voice was melodious and bright.
The change in tone made Kano look her up and down. True, she was floating. Kano knew that wasn't normal. His next thought was, how is any of this even possible? Did I pass out? Am I dreaming? The floating woman's dress shimmered in an unseen, ambient light. Stranger still, the dress glowed, making the fabric hard to see and understand where the material ended and the halo around the woman began. The effect was interesting and distracting.
His mind caught up with the words she said. "Wait, what do you mean, get started?" Kano could think of nothing else to say, the question being so random. He concluded the obvious. I must be dreaming.
"Finally," the woman said, floating down to stand next to him. She was a few inches shorter. "I was worried we'd never get to this part. Before you respawn, I'm sure you may have questions. If you don't, we can skip those and I'll explain a few things."
Kano chuckled, "Respawn? That’s gamer talk, does that mean something different to an EMT?" Logically, he knew she was not one of the EMT Kano had spoken too previously, however, he could not fully process the idea she was something else. She looked to be an adult woman, perhaps just old enough to have finished college, a few years his junior. Long black hair draped down to her waist and in his mind, she was very attractive, if creepy with the dark aura. He glanced down at his tattered clothing and had an urge to groom himself up, even if it looked like a lost cause.
“I’m not an EMT,” she said, her dark eyes boring into his own. She shifted on her feet, her stance suddenly martial. "If you stay, then you will die. However, you can choose to respawn, Kano." She paused, her voice intense, "If you choose this option, however, it might not be what you expect."
"So I'm supposed to just die, then? Or wake up from whatever sick dream this is?" he interjected. "That hardly makes sense! If I can't wake up and this isn't a dream, of course I want to respawn!" Kano turned his head to the side, breathed deep, noticing again the lack of smell. The landscape was gray, featureless. All that existed was the conversation with the strange woman; everything else had faded to nothingness.
Until I wake up from this weird dream, I might as well play along, right?
"Why even ask me if I want to respawn, I mean, there doesn't seem to be anything to do here." He gave a smile for the first time to the woman, who gave him a smile in turn, her eyes narrowed as she scrutinized him.
She asked flatly, "Do you remember being in the hospital?"
"Sure, of course."
"Well, a few things happened you should be aware of..." She trailed off but cocked her head as if weighing something before telling him. Kano grew curious, impatient when she did not continue.
"Like what?" At this point, he was certain this was a dream. Kano tried to recall the last time he was certain he was awake. The hospital, he concluded, was real enough. However, that brief time after settling into his old room, having physical skills greatly enhanced from before the accident...that, he quickly decided, was when this dream started. So I must still be in the hospital, he concluded. All that time at home was a dream?
"Kano!" Her tone was more strident, serious, interrupting his errant thoughts. She snapped her fingers in the air and brought his mind back to the present, focused on her. "You're only here because it's the easiest way to share with you what happened."
"Excuse me?" His confusion was clear. What's going on here?
"Ten years ago, you were the only survivor when a faulty gas line exploded, destroying your parent's house, your family cat and-"
"What?" Kano interrupted. "I just saw that happen a minute ago!" He could not believe what he was hearing, despite seeing in front of him a literal void. To think otherwise threatened to bring up despair again. "Oreo, too?" He asked in a whisper, eyes welling up when he thought of the cute, yet lazy, black and white cat.
She nodded.
"This was determined to be the best way to break the news to you," she paused, tilting her head and furrowing her brow. She looked sad, as if she knew the pain Kano was going through in processing all the news. "Also, to make you more comfortable, please, feel free to call me Morrigan.”
"While you didn't die in the explosion, you did suffer tremendous injuries." Morrigan paused, giving him a sympathetic smile. Her dark eyes were glowing brighter, commanding his attention, as if they had an inner light. Kano almost forgot about the weird creepy halo that surrounded her as she spoke in a soothing tone. "Given the extent of the injuries, you were placed into a medically induced coma." Morrigan floated up again, playfully flying around him in a full circle before landing on the same spot as she had stood a moment before.
"This sounds familiar," he said, shaking his head at the woman. "Wasn't I in a coma after my accident?" Kano felt shame again remembering how he'd failed spectacularly at landing the jump. Not going to happen again, he told himself.
"Yes, that's right." Morrigan gave him a winning smile and then coughed delicately into one hand. "When you had the accident, you were accidentally injected with a new drug that had some very interesting biological side effects." Kano nodded, not sure where she was going.
Then it hit him. "The strength, the speed I felt, that was real?" Morrigan nodded. "And the height increase?" Again, she nodded. Damn, if I'd been able to use that for even a month after it happened, I'm sure it would have changed a few things, his thoughts trailed off, wistfully considering how his snowboarding skills could have improved. That jump Kano failed, a three sixty and backflip combination, he just knew he could land, anytime, with all the changes.
"Yes, it was real." Morrigan paused, her glow dimming, "the drug Omega R13 ended up enabling our systems to recover you."
"What do you mean, recover me?" Kano scrunched up his face and then asked, "and what is Omega R13?"
"Omega R13 is an almost mythical drug from ten years ago designed to reverse key aspects of aging, among other things. Only one human viable dose was produced and Harry, the CEO of Platnam, Inc., planned on using it in an unauthorized medical experiment." She frowned, "After the test failed, Harry believed the drug was worthless, due to the mix up. While in the hospital, instead of him getting the infusion, it was you, Kano. He died shortly thereafter, then the government acquired the patents and technology from Platnam, as their new CEO believed, like Harry, the drug failed." Morrigan tilted her head again and saw Kano's frown. "Are you following?"
"Yes," Kano said, no
dding. This is some next level science fiction!
"Technology has improved a lot since we recovered you, Kano. We can give you back your life, to a degree." Morrigan paused and folded her arms together as she watched for his reaction.
"To a degree?" Kano frowned and she nodded. "What do you mean, to a degree?"
"Well, there's a gaming company that has been buying DNA maps to enable their systems to have more interesting and interactive non-player characters." Kano did not really believe what he was hearing, so he just nodded. "That drug which you were injected with ended up providing the hospital with a newly modified DNA map of you, Kano. Years after the accident, the medical coma was unsuccessful at full restoration. They ended up trying an experimental procedure where they revived you in a digital environment, to finally revive your brain. It worked."
"Wait, I'm not me? What the hell?" Kano started breathing faster, his palms sweaty. Worst of all was the butt-itch he developed and the chafing from his semi-burnt and torn up clothes. This can't be real, he thought frantically, and there's no way I'm scratching my rear end in front of this woman.
"You are you, Kano. Just a digital version of you. The process resulted in a full restoration, due to the drug in your system." Morrigan paused, gesturing around and Kano saw the street, the ruined house, and everything else suddenly reappear. “This was the last thing your mind processed, Kano,” she said, snapping her fingers and making it all disappear, the gray void returning.
"It’s why we started you here, rather than, say, in the hospital where you slowly withered away. If not for the experimental drug, we could not have recovered anything. Your mind would be gone, just as your body would have succumbed to illness already." She paused and waited for him to nod before continuing her explanation.