Jacqueline Druga: Reset

“He’s out. How are you going…?”

“I’ll hold him up. Go on hurry.”

She did as requested, reaching into the shower stall, turning on the water and testing it.

Jason was struggling, Nora could see that, but he held tight to the man as he stepped into the shower. He placed his back flush on the wall as a means of support. “Aim the water on him, please.”

Nora did. She adjusted the flow to hit the man. “He’s not waking.”

“Give him a few seconds he will.”

She stepped back, then noticed the man’s fingers moved and his arm swayed some. She hurriedly grabbed a towel from the shelf and as she did she heard it.

Another voice.

“Anyone?” a male yelled. “Hello!”

It seemed that Jason didn’t hear, if he did, he didn’t acknowledge.

“Oh, shit,” Nora looked behind her.

“What is it?”

“Someone is calling out.”

“Go. Go. I got this.”

Nora nodded stepped back at the same time Number Twelve cocked his head. She spun from the bathroom and raced out of Room Twelve.

No sooner did she step in the hallway, she saw the man down the other end of the hall where the high number rooms were located. A thicker built man, completely nude, staggered, holding on to the wall and walked in the opposite direction. He stopped at a room and knocked on the door.

“Hello,” he called out. “Someone. Anyone.” He placed his hands flush against the door and lowered his head in defeat.

Nora moved as quickly as she could toward him. “Hey.”

He slowly lifted his head and turned, gasping out when he saw her. “Where am I?”

Nora reached for him, the substance still covered his body. “Did you get the message in your room?”

“What … what message? What’s going on? I…”

“Listen, you have to wash this stuff off of you. Look at your hands.”

He lifted one and his fingers trembled.

“Whatever this is. Whatever covered us has to be washed off. Come, I’ll help you back.” She grabbed hold of his arm and looked around. She spotted the open door of Room twenty. “This way.”

The man, no older than thirty had to have woken minutes after Number Twelve. With each short distance they moved, the man’s body trembled more and Nora feared he too, like Twelve would collapse.

But he didn’t. He made it into Room Twenty and into the bathroom with little assistance from her. She asked him if he needed any help and he declined. He sounded confused and lost, then again, Nora knew what he was feeling.

Her heart raced from the double awakening. There were so many rooms, and really she had only been in that hall, no further. There could be a whole facility around them.

Taking a breather she stepped from Room Twenty with the full intention of finding Jason and asking him about Number Twelve. He was already in the hallway, soaking wet.

“Is there another awake?” Jason asked.

“Yes. What about Twelve? Is he okay?”

“He’s in the shower. He’s better. I’m gonna grab dry clothes. How is…”

“Twenty,” She said. “Confused. But fine. Washing.”

“Just watch him and you may want to grab him a water.”

It was a good idea and while Twenty showered, Nora went to the supply room for water and crackers. She passed Room Twelve en route and thought about the man in there. He said he knew her, recognized her. In fact, she was the last person he recalled seeing.

How was that possible? Nora didn’t recall knowing him.

Another piece of the puzzle.

She returned to Room Twenty, the shower water was running. She could hear it. She glanced at the dark television monitor and wondered if it played a partial message and the man just missed it. She set down the water on the desk under the television then tapped on the bathroom door.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. I’ll be out in a moment.”

Nora glanced to the bed. Like with her, plastic bags were there, sealed clothing inside.

“There are clothes out here. They left clothes for us.”

“Whoever ‘they’ may be.”

She huffed a slight laugh of agreement and looked around the room. It was the same as hers, as Number Twelve. The encasement was the same. It too had a respirator tube. Seeing that again made Nora wonder if her unit had malfunctioned, Jason’s as well. Since they both were choking or rather drowning when they woke up.

It baffled her, maybe she physically woke up before the process ended. Clearly it was something to render them unconscious, maybe part of the process included a clear breathing awakening .

As with Number Twelve, the encasement unit had a name on top. This one ‘Lowe’ confirming to her that Number Twelve was Heming.

“Lowe,” she said out loud.

His voice startled her. “That’s my last name. My first name is Malcolm.”

She turned, he wore towel, and quickly to be polite, she turned away. “I’m Nora.”

“Whoever did this, had their eye on us at least long enough to label our liquid coffins,” he said.

She listened to the sound of rippling plastic as he opened the bags. “Or they labeled us after.”

“I take it you woke up in one of these?” he asked.

“I fell out. Was choking, that fluid was stuck in my throat.”

“You must have spit your air tube out. Or maybe you were in there too long. You can turn around, I’m dressed.”

Nora did. He was pulling the shirt over his head. “Why would you say that?” She reached and handed him the water. “Drink.”

“Say what? About being in there too long? I don’t know.” He shrugged, opened the bottle and took a long drink. “I just likened it to a womb. You know when a baby is overdue, there is a danger that they can start to breathe or try and they inhale the amniotic fluid. I don’t know, something like that.”

“Do you remember anything, Malcolm? Anything at all?”

“It’s foggy. Very foggy. Like my life… it’s bits and pieces.”

Nora closed her eyes. “I know that feeling. A part of me feels it will break through. But the last thing I remember is being lowered into the encasement.”

He whistled and took another drink. “I don’t remember that. The last thing I remember was the explosion.”

“An explosion?”

“Yeah, I don’t know where I was. But I do know I was being ushered somewhere and…” He closed his eyes. “Someone was saying, ‘This way. Go this way. The explosion took out that wing.’” He opened his eyes. “I remember the rumbling. The noise. But everything else…”

“A blur.”

“You got it.”

His memories didn’t help nor did they jar anything in Nora. Instead of being more enlightened as the minutes past, she grew more confused about what exactly was going on.

John Heming wondered what was wrong with the others, especially the man named Jason who helped him in the shower. He was calm, too calm. Did he know what happened and was pretending that he didn’t?

Why didn’t they feel frantic? John did. He felt confined and wanted nothing more than to get out, to find his family and get home to them. An urgency to leave, run, and escape, as if he had been a prisoner.

But a part of him knew he wasn’t a prisoner. If he was, where were the guards? There were no cameras in the room that he could see. What was holding him there? Once dressed he fled from the room and looked down the hall. His room was dead center.

It was the longest hallway he had ever seen. Eight feet wide, nearly a hundred feet long if not more. A white hall with overhead lights and at each end of the hall was a door.

The one door had no handle, it was flush and the square above it didn’t even have the word exit on it. The other wasn’t marked either but it had a silver push bar and John ran there.