Chapter 4: Chapter 4 Putting the pieces together

Nathan woke up in an unfamiliar bed, his back itchy against the lumpy mattress. He shifted, and the heavy blanket twisted with him. Much heavier than his blanket. What was going on? He opened his eyes and looked around the room, waking up slowly. He had a bit of a headache and it felt like he’d had a particularly intense dream that he couldn’t quite grasp. The last thing he remembered was dropping his backpack on his carpet in his apartment.

And what was up with this room? Seamless stone on all six faces, it looked like it had been carved out of raw rock and then smoothed to a soft gleam. All of the corners were slightly rounded. There was a light in the middle of the ceiling, and it looked like a… glowing rock. A table with two chairs sat in the center of the room, and it looked like there was a bowl of fruit on the table. On the other side of the room was a water trough underneath a… toilet seat? Gross. And a bad idea.

Nathan got up and looked around the room. Nothing was manufactured, it all looked made by hand. This seemed like way too much effort for a prank, and who would put in this much effort to prank him? Unless he was on a weird reality TV show. But those required waivers and things unless they wanted to get sued out of existence. He recognized none of the fruit. Where was he? Something drifted up from his barely-remembered dream, a feeling of certainty.

A different world.

That must have been some dream he’d had. It was still bouncing around in his head, but nothing about it was clear, just an overwhelming sense of fear. But here he was, somewhere he couldn’t explain. Maybe he should give the dream more credit. Nathan realized he was parched, and looked in vain for another source of water than the toilet. But there was nothing other than a handy cup near the toilet trough. Dammit.

He scooped up a cup of water and sat on the toilet seat to drink it, studying the wall from close-up. It was nice rock, well-polished, with a moderate grain to it. The sort of rock people paid a lot for in houses. The water was clean, and about as cold as you’d get from a tap. Right there, the rock was scratched, with a two-ring chemical structure Nathan recognized. Caffeine? What the hell? And a single tick mark next to it. For some reason that drawing filled him with anxiety, causing a yawning pit to open up in his gut. Nathan stared at the symbol of wakefulness and was afraid of what it meant.

Wake up

Nathan staggered back to the bed, sitting on the soft surface and breathing quickly, pinching himself. It felt like his chest was being crushed, like it was impossible to take a breath. He put his head in his hands, a foggy brain and tight chest threatening to make him pass out.

No. Sit up straight, deep breaths. This is why you learned to meditate. You don’t have the app, but you can still clear your mind. Start by focusing on the breath. In through the nose, down the throat, into the lungs. Feel your lungs expand all the way out, the ribcage opening up. Then breathe out. Slowly. Again. Now focus on your body. It’s a cloud of sensations and your consciousness fills all of it. You're not asleep because you can feel your body so clearly.

Minutes passed, and as Nathan’s mind emptied, his breath came deep and even. After a time, he broadened his thoughts beyond physical sensations.

What now? I have clues. I’m somewhere weird, with all sorts of inexplicable things. A glowing rock, handmade furniture, weird fruit. And a weird toilet. I have a fragment of a dream in my head about being in a different world. And there’s a chemical structure I know well carved into the rock in my cell. That is the sort of message I would leave myself. Did I forget something? Was I made to forget something?

Everything pointed back to the dream. He needed to try to remember what it was about before his sense of it faded entirely. Nathan shifted his entire focus to the hazy memory in the back of his head and he tried to call it up, to relive the dream. But it was slippery, passing through his fingers of concentration like a wispy cloud. No, like there was a wisp of something blocking him from it. He captured the sensation in his mind’s eye, it was like an angled piece of glass bouncing light to the side. Nathan pictured dispersing it like he did unwanted thoughts. There was a distinctly physical sensation like a skintight net around his head falling apart, and he remembered.

Everything that had happened yesterday. Exposure to vacuum, Taeol’s summoning room, the messages from Davrar(!), the subsequent conversation with Taeol, and the mind wipe.

Taeol is a rampaging asshole.

He opened his eyes and saw three blue boxes waiting for him.

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