by William Hawk
This was his existence now. Trapped inside a sedated body that was no longer breathing on its own. Paused at breath number four hundred ninety-nine, unable to complete the snap. He wanted to scream and so did his host, but he couldn’t.
Then he thought about Hunter, and he grew even more angry.
They’d been sent to this snap by Proof. The goal was for them to learn to trust each other. The implied meaning, at least to William, was that Hunter had better take the opportunity to build a better relationship with William.
Instead, he took over Dr. Kamil so that the Indian doctor would do his bidding. It was a strange decision. William’s host’s wife had even been talking about how good her husband’s numbers had been, how he’d been improving. And then Dr. Kamil entered, changed the interpretation, gave a bogus diagnosis, and forced William’s host onto a ventilator.
But why? That was the million-dollar question. The only answer that William could come up with was cruelty. Hunter was not just avoiding building trust. He had been purposefully trying to hurt William by keeping him suspended inside his sick host. Being on a ventilator wasn’t risk free either, so poor Kenneth Daniels was also suffering from Hunter’s actions, in addition to having cancer.
William felt the rage gathering inside him. Not just for himself, but for this poor host who now had to endure even more.
He saw two nurses enter the room. “How’s Mr. Daniels doing this morning? Good!”
William grew frustrated. That nurse knew good and well that he couldn’t respond. Suddenly he felt a cough rack his body.
“Uh oh,” said the nurse. “That doesn’t sound good. You should know that your risk of pneumonia is going to go up as long as you’re on this thing, so let’s keep you healthy.”
She put on sterile gloves and grabbed some antiseptic wipes from the counter and approached his face. She studied it. “Well, your eyes are open, pupils are responsive. I’d say the sedative wore off. Now, I’m just going to clean the tube so those nasty little bacteria don’t get in your body.”
He felt the cold antiseptic wipe swabbing the plastic around his lips, even inside his mouth.
“There,” she said, stepping back. “Now, do you have to go to the bathroom? Lift one finger for yes.”
William felt his host lift one finger. It was true; his bladder was fairly full.
“All right, let’s see what we can do about that.”
Ten minutes later, the catheter had been inserted into his host’s male member, and the urine was being drained away. William felt even more incapacitated now. This was sheer torture.
“Would you like the television on?”
William felt his throat working itself, a useless exercise. Kenneth really wanted to speak, tube be damned.
“What was that?” asked the nurse.
He pointed to the ring finger on his left hand.
“Ah, your wife,” said the nurse. “She’ll be allowed in later. We want to keep the environment sterile for as long as possible, okay? Now, would you like the television on? Lift one finger for yes.”
William watched his finger go up.
The nurse switched on the flat-screen television and put on the news again. “I’m going to leave the remote here, next to your finger. I’ll check back in on you soon.”
She left the room, and William was alone, still strapped to the gurney, a plastic tube down his throat, a television playing silently, and a sense of incredible injustice growing within him.
Hunter had not only managed to avoid building trust, he’d flat-out lied to, manipulated and hurt William. If this tag-along ever managed to end, he swore to take his revenge on Hunter.
William lay there, stewing in his own anger, while the images flickered across the screen. Then his host fell unconscious once more.
Twelve hours later, his eyelids fluttered awake. Night had fallen, darkness outside the window. The television was turned off. Next to him, the ventilator machine hummed. The plastic was still in his mouth.
“Kenneth,” William said.
“Oh God, why are you still with me?”
“I’m supposed to leave, but I need you to take one more breath.”
“I swear I’m going crazy,” said his host. “They already think I’m crazy because of everything you made me say.”
“You’re not.”
“Who are you again? Some kind of angel?”
“My name is William, and it’s hard to explain.”
“Please God help me. Stop talking to me inside my head. Leave me alone,” said Kenneth.
“Take one more breath, and I will,” replied William.
“I’d have to remove the tube. I can’t do that.”
William knew that was the only solution. “Kenneth, you don’t need the ventilator. That doctor was trying to hurt me.”
“By punishing me?”
“It’s complicated. I’m sorry. But can you take out the tube, even just for one breath?”
“My hands are tied.”
William looked to the right. The IV stand had a long hook branching out from it. “Try to hook the tube on the IV stand.”
“All right.”
William felt his host lean over, snag the tube on the branch, then pull down hard with his neck. It didn’t budge.
“I think they taped it on my face.”
“Try again,” said William.
His host leaned over and pulled down even harder. This time, the IV stand came crashing down to the floor. The tube was still hooked on the stand, and it pulled his host’s body down with it.
Now William felt himself hanging part-way off the gurney, his hands still strapped to the rails, but his upper body being tugged down to the floor.
“Oh God, this hurts,” said Kenneth.
“I know. I feel it too.”
“Get out of me.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“What is it you want?”
“I was sent here to try to learn what it’s like to be someone else.”
“Now you know. Leave me.”
William stopped talking. His presence seemed to be a torture for the man, and the relationship wasn’t going anywhere.
The minutes stretched into hours, day turned to night and back to day, and William’s host’s condition remained exactly the same. The man’s wife spent most of the time at his side, looking wrung out.
William listened to the sound, in and out, of the ventilator, trying to figure out how to remove the tube from his throat. He entertained fantasies of pain-inducing ways to get back at Hunter. He thought about Grace, Jeremy, Trina, hoping they were all okay. He wondered what was happening back in the pod tank.
“William,” said Kenneth.
That jolted him back to awareness. His host was communicating with him. That was unusual, and it meant that his host had already developed some spiritual powers.
“I’m here,” William replied.
“What’s after death?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you died?”
“I think so, but I don’t remember.”
“So it’s just empty space?”
“They showed me a large place called Menoram, and it has orange chambers. But I don’t remember what it’s like there. I’m not sure if we’re even conscious when we’re there.”
“I think I’m going to die in this hospital.”
“Your time hasn’t arrived yet.”
“It’s coming. I have a brain tumor.”
The door of the hospital room opened, interrupting the silent conversation. Dr. Kamil entered the room, looking brisk and professional. Kenneth’s wife sat up, a scowl coming to her face.
“How are you doing, Mr. Daniels? Better?”
Kenneth made a sound as though he were in pain.
Dr. Kamil listened as though the noise made sense. “I see. So, I just wanted to tell you that we’re reviewing your case this afternoon, and we may take you
off the ventilator if everything checks out. Okay?”
Next to the doctor, his host’s wife was steaming mad. “Why the hell did you decide to put him on it in the first place?”
“Well, we may have misread things.”
“We?” she said. “It was you. You disregarded everybody else’s opinion!”
Dr. Kamil held up a hand. “I do apologize if I made a small error in judgment, but in my defense, I wasn’t feeling like myself the other day.”
She made a huffing sound. “You weren’t feeling like yourself? What is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“We’re not paying you to not feel like yourself, Dr. Kamil.”
He held up his hands. “Please, just give me a bit longer to get the approval. I do need to explain things to my superior.”
“We’ll be here,” said Kenneth’s wife.
The doctor nodded curtly, then swiveled on a heel and left the room. William heard him exhale as he left, as though the experience was akin to making a confession.
William’s wife looked at him. “Baby, this has been ridiculous. You never should’ve been here.”
An hour later, the respiratory therapist arrived in the room. After some chitchat, William felt her hands on his host’s head, and a moment later the plastic tube was being withdrawn from his throat. He felt Kenneth Daniels take a big inhalation . . .
One.
The wife leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
Snapback.
CHAPTER 27
HE TOP OF THE POD OPENED, AND WILLIAM was up and out of it before Shana could even pull off his cuff.
It felt strange to be in his body again. He was surprised to see most of the team standing around his pod. His eyes scanned their faces. There was Grace, running up and flinging her arms around him. He barely felt it. Then there was Jeremy, throwing an arm across his shoulders. There was Trina, looking significantly better and quietly beaming. Behind them stood Proof. Shana slipped alongside William and quietly took off his cuff.
There was only one person missing.
Hunter.
“Where is he?” William suddenly yelled. “Where is Hunter?”
“You’re going to have to calm down, William,” said Proof.
“I don’t need to calm down, what I need is to get my hands on that piece of . . . ”
William felt Grace’s arms encircling him, Jeremy’s hands on his shoulders, Trina’s hands on his back. They were trying to bring him down with love, as expressed through physical touch.
Sure enough, William felt his rage subside, his vision clear. His jaw unclenched. The thick cords on his neck disappeared. He felt his heartbeat return to a rate that was close to normal.
“First, we want to make sure that you’re okay,” said Grace.
“How long was I gone?” asked William.
“Two days.”
Somebody handed him a plastic cup. It was filled with water. William realized that his mouth was dry.
“We couldn’t give you any fluids,” said Shana, “because we couldn’t open the pod while you were still in the tag-along.”
“We sat here waiting,” said Trina, “almost straight through it all.”
“Bro,” said Jeremy, “I got so sick of looking at the number four-nine-nine above your pod. Staring at that number for two days. I hate that number now.”
William turned. It now read five hundred.
Shana came around to his front and looked into his eyes. She reached forward and lifted his lip, as if she were inspecting a horse. “I think we’d better examine you in the medical bay nonetheless.”
“I just spent two straight days in a hospital,” said William. “Don’t make me spend more time in a medical bay.”
“So what happened?” asked Jeremy.
William looked at him, trying to process this. “So Hunter didn’t tell you.”
“He didn’t tell us anything.”
William looked at Proof. “You must’ve found out.”
Proof shook his head. “It’s a long story.”
William felt the story start to flow out of his mouth. “He put me on a ventilator. He was a doctor. I was a patient.”
“It was a scenario intended to build trust,” said Proof.
“It didn’t work. He forced the doctor to put me, er, my host on a ventilator, even when he didn’t need it. I was left with one more breath for two days, until the doctor realized his mistake and gave the order to take me off the ventilator.”
“Seriously?” said Jeremy.
Trina looked frightened. Grace was listening, but something in her face told William that she wasn’t surprised.
“So that’s why I want to know where that bastard is,” said William. The anger suddenly returned, and he brushed everyone’s hands off him. “Where is Hunter?”
Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Grace finally drew a deep breath.
“He’s gone,” said Grace.
William was taken aback. “What do you mean?”
Proof stepped forward, his basso profundo voice reassuring in a moment of crisis. “What she means is, Hunter has left the team.”
CHAPTER 28
N HOUR LATER, WILLIAM FOUND HIMSELF reclining in the medical bay. He’d bathed for a few minutes, with Shana right outside the door, periodically knocking to see if he was all right. Then he’d changed his clothes. Finally, Shana insisted that he rest in the bay tonight, just in case. He felt healthy, but he decided to humor her anyway.
Now he had nothing to do but wait for someone to tell him what happened while he was gone.
To Hunter.
William lay on the mattress, propped up, the sconces on the walls casting soft indirect light. He watched the light slowly move through the entire chromatic spectrum every minute, from red through yellow, green through violet, and back to red again. It was soothing here, not at all like the horrific experience he’d just escaped from.
The door to the medical bay slid open. He turned his head and saw Proof enter, wearing a curious expression on his face.
“I was hoping it would be you,” said William.
Proof pulled up a seat alongside the bed and looked deep into William’s eyes. “No one’s ever gone that long in a snap.”
William was partly surprised that he was using the word snap. That was the team members’ slang. Proof usually used the more formal tag-along.
“It felt like a never-ending torture,” William said. “A huge plastic tube down my throat, the whole thing taped to my face. My hands were tied to the gurney. Even with sedatives, it’s nothing anybody should have to endure.”
“Did you notice anything different about this experience? I’m hoping for some insight.” Proof was very attentive, his entire body facing William, his ear cocked to the side, as if to hear him better.
William thought about it. “One strange thing was that after I communicated with the host, he started communicating with me.”
“Unbidden?”
“Yeah.”
He looked mildly surprised. “That means either he has certain abilities, or . . . ”
Proof let the thought lapse, but William picked it up. “Or what?”
“Or the longer you stay in a snap, the more you meld with the host.”
“Maybe.”
They fell silent for a short while, and Proof appeared to be physically uncomfortable.
“So,” Proof said. “Don’t you want to ask me anything?”
William’s eyes flashed with impatience. He had been managing to hold it in. “I was waiting for you to tell me.”
“I was waiting for you to ask.”
William took the bait. “Okay, okay. Where is Hunter?”
“This is an unbelievable story. I don’t know if you’re ready for it.”
“Try me.”
Proof sat back in his chair and crossed his hands on his chest. “Well, first, he comes back from the snap acting like nothing happened.”
William felt th
e anger rising. “Really?”
Proof continued: “After a few minutes, and you don’t return, we ask him why you are stuck at four hundred ninety-nine. He says that he doesn’t know why. I ask him again if he’d seen you in the snap, since you guys can see each other’s nimbus now. He says he never saw you. So then I say, ‘Hunter, the purpose of this snap was for the two of you to trust one another. It was designed for you to come in contact with one another. Doctor and patient.’”
“What did he say?”
“He says that the hospital changed the schedules around and that his host didn’t meet your host.”
“What a lying bastard.”
Proof carried on: “So there you are, stuck at four ninety-nine breaths, and nobody knows what’s going on.”
“Wait,” interrupted William, “I have a question. Can’t you personally see what’s happening in the snaps?”
“I could, but I choose not to.”
William’s eyebrows went up. “We always thought you were watching us.”
Proof rolled his shoulders. “I’d really prefer to let all of you make your own mistakes. Free will, and all that. So where was I?”
“Nobody knows what’s going on,” said William.
“Okay, so Hunter disappears into his room. The other team members are flipping out. I’m wondering if I should enter the snap myself to see what’s going on with you. I’ve done that before. And then it happens.”
Proof holds his arms out dramatically.
“What?” asked William.
“All the lights went out.”
“Where?”
“Here.” He made a circle in the air with his finger. “In the corridors, in the rooms, even the power to the pods. It was a total blackout.”
William realized that every muscle in his body had tensed up.
“So then a ghostly blue light arrives. It just appears in the middle of the corridor, and it moves down the hall.”
“What was it?”
Proof grew animated. “Something ancient! Some unknown entity. But nobody has seen anything like it before.”
“Not even you?”
Proof paused and then cocked his head, smiling to himself. “Sometimes I choose to sacrifice some of my abilities. Anyway, we’re all gathered in the galley in the dark, watching this thing, this luminous spirit just drifting along. We were totally entranced. Then, it stops in front of Hunter’s room.”