A Stitch in Time Saves Nine Ch. 01

You might be wondering how a dead man can tell a tale. If you actually were wondering this, you should know that you could be going crazy. Everyone knows 'Dead men tell no tales'. So does that mean I survived? Of course not; no human can possibly survive the destruction of an entire region. Did anyone survive where the bombs went off in Hiroshima or Nagasaki? No, right, so how could I have survived? Well, then, how am I on this crazy mission, reminiscing about old times, how this world came to be, how today came to be, how I came to be?

Honestly, there is an answer to these questions, and although my solution explains everything pretty clearly, its credibility is quite questionable. Although my experience seemed pretty real to me, who's to say if it did actually happen or whether it was just something happening inside my head. Whatever actually happened, it doesn't matter now, maybe it could have been both at the same time, because as I learned later it was real for me but until now I haven't learned anything that can tell with absolute surety what exactly transpired!

Perhaps it was a part of a chain reaction that changed a lot, but compared to everything it would lead to, it was of little significance in itself, to anyone but me.

For you to understand why I am alive today, I have to tell you what I experienced. That day when I lost my consciousness my astral presence got pulled into the astral plane. There was some sort of link that I could feel extending from my tailbone in my astral body, connected to my physical body, and somehow even on the astral plane I could still feel my physical body. Wow! I wasn't dead at least not yet. But I could feel life being drained from me rapidly. My soul-link to my physical body was also fading. I don't know how I know this but that's what that link connecting my astral presence to my physical body is called. The connection that I felt to my physical body through my soul- link was disappearing.

I was dreading the moment when my astral presence would get completely cut off from my physical body when suddenly there was a huge influx of energy from somewhere. My soul-link started to glow. It glowed so brightly that I had to shut my eyes. Shutting my eyes allowed me to take in the incredibly comforting warmth that was washing all over me. It was so intense that I lost consciousness again, not that I had regained it, at least my physical body hadn't. Wait! Is it possible for an astral presence to go unconscious? I suspect it isn't, and that what happened to me was that my senses all went numb at the same time because of the intensity of what I felt, and if that in itself wasn't enough, it finally hit me that I had crossed the threshold of life and death and managed to return, or might return soon. Since the senses of my astral presence had gone numb I do not know at what point I repossessed my physical body and since my physical body was unconscious already the time in which I succumbed to sleep was as close to an instant as it could have possibly been and with no usable way of sensing things around me I fell into a deep slumber.

'My senses had blacked out 'would be the precise form of the expression. It's hard to describe what actually happened; it was like my mind had been given so much data to process that it was literally overloaded. Now that my survival was all but ensured it diverted its attention towards processing the huge amounts of data that it was getting. It was a sensory overload for my mind, that's what I gather when I think on the after effects that I felt later. When a person experiences the best sex he ever could, he is unable to think anything post climax other than how entranced he is feeling by what he just experienced. My case was similar, only I hadn't experienced it because my senses were overloaded and yet I was still experiencing it. My mind divided itself, isolating the small part responsible for keeping my human mind conscious and in control, just to be able to cope with the flow of data. It's hard to measure time when we are in a room with no entrance, no exit, nothing. Being surrounded with absolute nothingness makes it impossible to perceive what's going on outside the nothingness, if there was anything outside the nothingness.

Nobody likes being imprisoned in their own brain but all of the logic and all of the commonsense and everything else had screamed to me that the only way to survive this ordeal was to give in to my base instincts and let my subconscious mind do what needed to be done. Why of course that filthy know it all knew it all. Giving up control to reflexes and letting go of conscious control is what makes a person feel as weak as he can, and nothing can stop the thought that a person is not strong enough to handle such situations consciously. But in the moment nothing matters more than survival. So what choice did I have but to be trapped in my own brain and live through the shit!

So that is what I did. I patiently waited for my mind to finish whatever it was that it was doing. And after what felt like the passage of a millennium I was finally able to feel something. I was starting to come to. I somehow managed to stay calm and slowly adjust to what I was feeling. The first thing that I felt was pain: my head was stinging like hell, my whole body was aching, and I felt as if I might die because of the overwhelming pain. Maybe I wanted to die. No, I'd gone through too much to keep from dying.

I did not know what to do and tried to move my fingers. A mistake. I realized that my arms and legs were tied - how that had happened I had no idea so I stopped trying to wriggle around, but it was too late, that slight movement had already increased the pain. I could now feel the rope sting across my legs despite feeling an awfully soft cloth just beneath the rope, as if whoever had tied me knew it would hurt me so much! I slowly realized that it was not cloth but a bale of cool and wet cotton, which explained why it was so soft.

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One of the nurses attending to the patient silently signaled to the doctor that something was happening.

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I was feeling such overwhelming sensations throughout his body that I felt as if his mind would explode trying to process it all: his nose could smell too many smells all at once, his ears could hear the periodic beeping (but why was it so loud that it could be called a sonic boom?) and his skin was so hypersensitive that the pain was amplifying with every millimeter I moved; thankfully his eyes were shut tight reflexively and suddenly I felt. It was too much for me and the feelings weren't stopping or slowing down, only increasing and that at an accelerating rate. At this rate I was sure my head was literally going to explode from it all.

######

"He's going into shock! What should we do?" asked a nurse.

"Sedate him immediately! He is probably regaining consciousness and it's too soon for him," replied the doctor.

Surprised by the quantity of the drug prescribed by the doctor, the nurse argued, "But that's way too much, it would kill him, doctor."

"Not anymore, Kristine. Just do as I say. You know the unique circumstances surrounding the patient. Trust me, ordinary remedies won't work."

The nurse acknowledged him with a nod and did as she was asked. The patient calmed down again once he was sedated and fell fully unconscious again.

"That was a close call! Keep him sedated until I tell you otherwise. I'll be personally checking his charts henceforth. I forbid anyone to enter this room except to perform your periodic duties as allotted. Take the readings and after you are done feeding them into the system you are free to take the rest of the day off. I'll keep an eye on him until the next shift arrives. The orders are same for each shift. That's all for now." The doctor completed his instructions to the staff monitoring the patient and left the room.

The patient had gone into a coma well before he was brought to the facility. He was displaying symptoms that had never been seen before in medical science. It was a miracle that he was alive. It seemed like the doctors monitoring him knew what was happening to him, but they'd never talk about the patient except when giving instructions to the staff. There were so many peculiarities about this case that a staff briefing had been scheduled after the selection of the people responsible for monitoring the patient's condition and overseeing the treatment. The doctors in charge had warned the staff about overstepping their boundaries, especially for this case, where nothing was exactly as it seemed. The staff was supposed to follow orders to the letter without questions; even so, people raised questions many a time but the questions were quickly dismissed by the doctors. They may not have known the answers, but all they had to do was to raise "unique circumstances" and the staff would know better than to question any further. Nobody crossed that line, knowing that because of the unique circumstances surrounding the patient, there was only so much the doctors would tolerate.

No one dared disobey the doctors. The original briefing had clearly conveyed the message that any disobedience would be punished severely, including even immediate termination of their contracts. Getting fired from this facility meant the end of careers. No one wanted to end up on a medical blacklist, especially after making the grade to the best facility they could work at.

The fact that the patient had been brought immediately to this facility combined with the strict briefing the staff had received was enough to prevent any hiccups in the patient's treatment. The treatment went as smoothly as it could have under the 'unique circumstances' surrounding the patient. And now that the staff had been relieved of certain orders they received when he was admitted, they started to realize the heavy performance stress they had been under. Knowing the ways this facility worked, they sensed a short vacation coming soon.

The unscheduled arrival of the 'Big Man' at a time like this made it obvious that very few people would be working in the facility when the patient finally came to. For everyone else it was either take the holiday off or don't ever come back to this facility. That was not really a choice for all those who had made the grade to work there in the first place.

Everyone was curious about what was happening to the patient, of course, but disobeying a direct order from the Big Man himself would be a military grade crime. That was more than enough to kill the curiosity of any mind that worked at the facility.

After all, the position he held at the Terran Government was enough to make people shit their pants out of fear of unknowingly angering the Big Man when he spoke to them directly.

#######

I started to wake up again, but this time it felt different; it felt as if there was a switch for each of those sensations that wracked me, and as if I could will the hypersensitivity on or off as I needed. I felt certain warmth, hard to describe, but it was comforting, as if my body had calmed down. I didn't know for certain what had happened but surely a hell of a lot of time had passed since the episode.

I tried to feel for my arms and legs. They were no longer tied, but I still felt the wet cotton and it felt amazingly good; the cooling sensation that wet cotton gave was awesomely relaxing. Thankfully the nurses hadn't bothered to remove the cotton bandage when removing the bindings or maybe they knew how relaxing it'd feel and deliberately let it stay. They covered the rest of my legs along with my wrists and elbows. Seemed like they had added some kind of capillary tube mechanism to keep the bandages wet, which made the covered areas feel wonderfully amazing. It seemed that my senses had adjusted, too, as if some sort of filters had been added to them absorbing only the information that was needed currently.

"What the fuck! Have I been fucking surgically operated on? No, no area of my body feels as if it has been numbed by local anesthesia! But there could also be scars!" But there were no scars. It's hard to describe what happened just then but I felt the absence of any recent scars or incisions. As a matter of fact I could also sense the absence of a couple of old scars I had before the accident. How I was able to do it, I did not know just then. But I knew I was right. The possibility of surgery could be ruled out.

"Maybe it is something subconscious that was keeping a hell of a lot of extra information at bay," I sighed to myself.

The panic that set in had fast tracked the process of waking up and now that I was reasonably awake I realized that the pain hadn't gone away yet, but it had tapered off. My whole body was still aching but at least it could be described as the pain resulting from the weariness felt by a construction worker after a hard, tiring and relentless day of manual labor instead of the pain resulting from 206 broken bones, which was the way I felt during the episode.

My head still felt heavy but the distress was nowhere near as severe as before; it could be tolerated. I opened my eyes slowly and as my blurry vision slowly cleared I saw a man by my bed slowly typing something on his phone. I thought to wait until he was done.

"Oh! So you are finally awake," he said to me. "Don't worry. I know you have tons of questions, and I'll answer them all. Just give me a second to finish this up, yeah, and done"

I sat up straight with some difficulty. He stuffed his phone in his pocket and turned to face me. "So how are you feeling?"

"Normal," I answered.

"Normal?! And how exactly is this normal?"

"Aches spread out all over my body, especially my head which feels like it has been pounded. That's normal when you wake up in a hospital not knowing how you ended up there. "

"But surely you should be able to recall driving before the accident took place?"

"The funny thing is, I remember everything clearly, as it took place, at least until I blacked out, but the way I remember things, there's no way I could have survived, so how the fuck does it happen that I'm alive?"

"Hmm, this is unexpected. You say you are able to recall the accident as it happened and that memory is crystal clear, right?"

"Yes!"

"Hmm... Let me see...." It looked for a moment as if the man had zoned out.

"Probably pondering over something," I thought to myself

"Is there anything in particular that you felt was really strange apart from just surviving?"

"Well, yes, there was this one thing, when I came to previously; I mean I felt a hell of a lot of pain amongst many other things. It was too fucking much! I think something happened to me and then I blacked out once again. That was probably a sedative though, wasn't it?"

"Yes it was, but you look like you are fine now. I mean if this overload was so strong, then it looks like it has passed now."

"Not exactly, no. it is still there, only it feels like there is an insanely strong wall keeping all that information at bay, allowing only what is needed to trickle into my brain whenever it's needed, but if I try to focus on that wall, my focus is disrupted almost instantaneously. I mean, I can still feel that ever-growing cloud of information even if it's not overwhelming me just now."

"A wall, huh! I am really sorry I can't tell you anymore right away, not until we run some tests. I know it must be tough not being able to make any sense of anything, but please bear with us a little longer. Now why don't you get some rest? Then you'll be better equipped to handle whatever answers I am able to provide to all the questions you have."

And he left the room.

#####

Sleep did not come to me, but trance did, as I tried to use a meditation technique to stay calm. I usually grew restless when I had nothing to do, unless of course I was dead tired, but I had slept more than enough and while the pain was still there, although reducing steadily, the pain in itself wasn't enough to make me sleepy, it just wasn't that severe.

I felt the door open and close so I started to slowly and steadily break my trance. I saw that the man had returned.

"So are you going to introduce yourself this time or are we going to dive headfirst into the discussion that awaits us?" I joked lightly, hoping to clear the tension that filled the room.

"Aww come on, suspense helps in creating a good first impression. I mean, a mysterious aura would force you to think about me, which you otherwise wouldn't," he chuckled, seemingly understanding my intention.

"Well said," I replied with a smirk. "So, I see that despite the banter we just engaged in you haven't bothered to introduce yourself."

"Do you seriously not know who I am?"

"Am I supposed to?"

"You should know it all, though you aren't really required to know, I suppose. Anyways, I am Andrew Haydron of Haydron Quantum Mechanics."

"The pioneer of Space travel, as they call you. The most likely person to bring about the age of travelling at quantum speeds, thereby completing only the third Technological Boom in the history of humanity. Isn't that what TIME magazine refers to you as?"

"So you did know me?"

"Yes, of course I recognized you!"

"So why the act?"

"Well, I figured I must be extremely important to the person who should be currently figuring out the designs of the first quantum engine made by humans, since he is at the bedside of a patient waiting for his arousal from unconsciousness. And since I am so important to you I must be more important than you currently, technically speaking. And it wouldn't suit a person to recognize someone of lesser importance than himself now, would it?"

"That sounds really arrogant. I didn't perceive you to be so arrogant."

"I meant it to sound that way."

"You know, you got me there for a second."

"So you figured it out, huh?"

"Well it wasn't really tough for me. But I am surprised by your perceptiveness. It's one thing to sense the tension that I brought into this room, but for someone in your condition to engage in banter just to clear the air is remarkable. How did you know I would figure out what you were trying to do and just go along with it?"

"I really didn't recognize you when you were here previously, but then I was able to recall you and figured someone who could manipulate the opinions of the press and the public the way you did on a regular basis would be perceptive enough to recognize my attempt at clearing the air."

"Impressive, really impressive. Anyways, shall we begin?"

I took a deep breath, "Judgment time," I thought to myself.

"Yes," I replied

"You said you remember the accident as it happened, so could you tell me, what exactly happened as you saw it?"

"I was driving along the road when suddenly a small boulder showed up in front of me. I swerved towards my right to dodge it and saw the landslide coming crashing down. A rock ripped through my seatbelt as my car crashed into the landslide, and the momentum of the crash combined with the ripped seatbelt pushed me out through the broken windshield. The airbag didn't go off. Maybe the rocks broke the mechanism. Meanwhile a truck had been coming the opposite way and on seeing the rocks he swerved towards his right in a last ditch effort to dodge the landslide. His doomed attempt to dodge coincided with the moment I was lifted off my seat, so I was able to grab the truck's exhaust pipe. I don't know why I did it but in doing so I stopped my outwards and upwards momentum abruptly which resulted in me striking my head against the pipe which in turn knocked me out. Now that I recall those events I seem to remember how hot the pipe was, and although the rain probably cooled it down some, it was still crazy hot and should have left some sort of mark on my hands. Have I been here long enough for the burns to have healed? If my burns weren't severe enough to leave a mark, which I don't believe, being unconscious for a long time is the only explanation for my hands to be unburned. So, is that what happened?"