WnW 2.1 – Remember Clearly

I gazed up at the ceiling of my room, covered in spaceship and asteroid stickers, the kind that glowed in the dark. Not that they were glowing now, sunlight streamed through the window and I was restless. I tossed off my covers, dropping to the floor, which was a fair ways down due to how short I was. There was a video game I was itching to play. I couldn’t remember its name.

The door to my room opened and Dad came in. He had his white coat on that smelled weird. “Hey, Nick,” he said, crouching down to meet my eyes.

What is happening?

My voice came out, high and energetic, “Are we going to your work, Dad?”

“We sure are,” he replied. Something flickered in his eye, an emotion I couldn’t recognize at that age.

Don’t do this. I don’t want to see this.

Dad reached out his hand and I held it, feeling its comforting warmth. He led me to the door and as he opened it, I heard an engine start up and seatbelts being pulled into place. Outside of my room was a large corridor. The walls, ceiling, and floors were all a sterile white. Fluorescent lights hummed above our heads, sweeping by as we went down the hallway, like dotted lines on a highway. 

We stopped and I looked forward. There was a metal barrier in front of me that I could barely see over if I stood on my tiptoes, using Dad’s arm to balance. A man wearing a uniform stood in the only gap in the barricade. Behind the man was a large black machine. Looking at the inside, it kind of looked like a small elevator and I could see lots of little lights lining the walls.

“Taking your son to work?” The guard asked, sounding concerned.

“Couldn’t get daycare today,” Dad replied. “Isn’t this allowed?”

“It was, but… with how things are right now?” He looked uncomfortable, putting on a strained smile that I knew was fake even at that age. “Kenneth, are you sure?”

“I won’t be in the office for long, just need to check on a few things.”

The guard nodded and motioned Dad forward. He checked all of Dad’s pockets, patted him down and looked inside of his mouth. Then Dad stepped inside of the machine and the door slid shut. After a moment of whirring sounds, Dad appeared on the other side of the barrier. He lifted me up and over, placing me on the other side.

We passed through a series of winding hallways, then exited out into a massive room, as wide and tall as my school’s gym. There were people in white coats moving around, stopping in front of large windows on one end of the room. They would observe something inside and scribble things onto notepads. Complicated machines sat whirring. There was a distinct smell that hung heavy in the air, pungent and penetrating. I thought it smelled a little like when you rub coins together, but ten times as strong.

I can’t deal with this. Not right now.

Dad led me to a small room, with shelves that were lined with small bottles and containers. Dad lifted me onto the metal table that sat in the middle, then moved to a small metal safe in the back. He typed in a combination and pulled the safe open. When he turned back to me he was holding a small plastic bottle. It had lots of words on it that I didn’t know. He unscrewed the cap and took out a vivid purple pill. It looked kind of like a grape-flavored jelly bean. Dad came very close, his eyes serious.

“Nick, I…” he trailed off and looked past me to the door. There was an expression I didn’t understand.

For the longest time, I thought it was guilt.

He took a breath and started again, “Listen closely, this is very important. I need you to put this pill in your mouth. And be very careful not to swallow, okay?”

“Why, Dad?” I asked.

“There are people that need our help.” Dad’s green eyes were wide. He was so close to me, it felt like I was falling into them. His expression contorted into a smile. “It’s important that we do our best to help people. This is something only you can do. I hope you know that I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I thought there was a different way.”

I nodded obediently and opened my mouth. Dad pressed the pill onto my tongue. It didn’t taste like grape. It was bitter and dry, like sand. I screwed up my face, but I didn’t spit it out. I wanted Dad to be proud of me.

He held out his hand for me to take and when I placed my hand into it, his fingers clutched me tightly. His hand was cold and wet. I tried to pull free but couldn’t. Trembling, I looked up. Dad looked down at me. His eyes were haunting behind his glasses.

The shelves began to shake, the bottles rattling on the shelves like their contents desired to be free. The walls bulged inwards, as if something pressed on them, wanting to get inside. A rumbling sound grew louder, getting closer. Dust fell from the ceiling. I couldn’t look away from Dad as his eyes seemed to grow distant and larger at the same time, until two pale planets hung above my head as everything else melted into darkness.

—

My eyes snapped open. It was a strange sort of relief when I saw that the ceiling wasn’t covered in my childhood decorations. Then I remembered Chase’s knife, flashing in the dark. My hand shot to my throat. All I felt was unbroken skin and rough facial hair. There wasn’t even a scar. It was impossible to make sense of. I could remember feeling the heat of my blood leaving my body. What had happened after? All I could remember was the terrible nightmare I’d just awoken from.

“You spilled,” a young voice said.

I looked down to the floor, where a girl lay on her stomach, looking up at me. She wore overalls and was around eight or nine years old. She was drawing a picture with coloured pencils, but she had stopped to point.

“What?” I asked quietly. My throat felt very dry, but my body was damp with sweat. A glass rocked gently back and forth in a puddle of water on the hardwood floor. My hand was wet with cold water. “Oh.”

The girl was still watching me. One of her front teeth was still growing in. “What’s your gift?” she asked abruptly.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Gail.” She said simply and returned to her drawing. It was a building of some sort, with flowers growing out of it. “Papa said you were like us. You were given a gift.”

The room looked to be a guest room, without any personal effects that would give me a clue to where I was. “Uh. I’m not sure what you mean. What kind of gift?”

The girl grinned and opened her mouth to reply when the door opened and a man walked in. His hair was gray and he had deep set wrinkles on his face, but he stood straight, not stooping as older people tended to and his arms were toned, making me wonder how old he actually was. He regarded me with steely eyes. “You’re up.”

I looked down, acutely aware that I was in a stranger’s house. “Y-yes. Thank you.”

He gestured to the end of the bed, where there lay a stack of neatly folded clothes. “Get dressed and then we’ll talk outside. C’mon Gail.”

Gail got up obediently and left the room with the man, who shut the door behind them. I stood up, gingerly testing my body’s limits. I was surprised to find that I felt fine. I stretched my hands above my head. More than fine, I felt good. My body felt light and my mind well rested. 

A brief terror passed through me as I realized I may have been in a coma. That would explain my lack of wounds, but unless someone had been shaving my facial hair I had only about a day’s worth of hair growth.

I put the clothes on. They weren’t mine. The fabric felt rough against my skin, but I wasn’t going to complain. I searched the room hoping to find my phone but it wasn’t there.

Exiting the room, I walked down a hallway with polished wood floor. I passed an open doorway and saw a carpeted living room on the other side, with a large fireplace that looked real, not gas powered or electronic. Then, through a doorway on the left I saw a kitchen with cabinets painted sky blue. The countertops gleamed, spotless. The window was open and a warm breeze blew past me, bringing the smell of animal manure, fresh hay, and engine oil, confirming what I’d guessed from the clothing choices of the strangers. I was on a farm.

Going to the end of the hallway, there were stairs leading up to a second floor right next to the entrance way where shoes were neatly stacked to one side. I found my dress shoes, intact except for a few scratches. Not the most comfortable footwear but I put them on. Pushing the front door open, I stepped outside, squinting to let my eyes adjust to the bright midday sun.

I was standing on a porch and across a yard of dirt and flattened grass was a huge red barn. I’d only ever seen one from the highway. The barn doors were propped open and I could hear cows and pigs in the stalls inside. Turning to the left, there was an iron gate, behind it a dirt road seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance. To the right was a field of wheat. The tops of the golden plant rippled with the wind.

There was a woman in the rocking chair at that end of the porch. She held a sleeping baby. I nodded to her, hoping she hadn’t thought I was staring at her. She smiled at me and nodded towards the barn.

I went down the porch steps and walked towards the open doors. Craning my neck, I had the strange sensation of feeling like the cloudless blue sky was pressing down on the earth, becoming bigger, taking up more room.

Next to the barn was a metal building that was shaped like a half cylinder. There was a tractor parked outside of it.

“Garage,” a gruff voice said. The bearded man came walking out of the barn with a scowl on his face. “For the trucks and tractors.”

“O-oh,” I said, unnerved by his perpetual frown.

He turned back around, gesturing for me to come with him. I followed him into the barn, where he led me past the stalls. Black and brown cows watched us go by with their large black eyes. The sounds of the animals seemed to grow quiet in the man’s presence.

“Hey, I’m… really grateful that you took care of me, Mr…? I trailed off, hoping for any sort of information.

The man turned back around. “Aaron Cathrow.” He thrust out a hand. I took it and shook. He had a tight grip and I felt the calluses on his hands, formed by hard labour. “Welcome to the Cathrow Farmstead.”

“Thank you, Aaron. My name is Nick. Did you find me after that car wreck?” I asked.

He nodded, reaching out to stroke a cow that poked its head out of the stall.

“Did… did you see another person there?”

Aaron studied me for a moment before responding, “Was he your friend?”

I glanced away. “Not exactly.”

“S’pose it don’t matter anyhow,” Aaron said. He gestured towards a gun mounted on some hooks on the back wall of the barn. “I shot ‘im.”

I stared at him. His expression didn’t budge after his proclamation.

“You… killed him?” I asked, dumbfounded.

There was a flash of coldness in Aaron’s eyes. “Would you have preferred it if I let ‘im keep cuttin’ you? You’d been butchered. Clean strokes. Like I do to my pigs.”

I examined my arms. No evidence of cuts there either. Aaron turned and walked out the back of the barn.

Frustration stirred in my chest. This man was not giving me anything if I didn’t ask for it. I followed him outside as I asked another question, “How am I alive? You saw what he did.”

Aaron shrugged while placing a log onto a flat tree stump. He hefted an axe onto his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be explaining that to me?” he asked, before raising the axe up and bringing it down, splitting the wood.

I flinched as splinters flew my way. “I don’t know,” I said, anger flaring. “You said you saw my wounds, what happened to them?”

Aaron put a fresh log on the stump and then handed me the axe. “Go on. Make yourself useful.”

I took it, staring down at the stump.

“Some answers can only be believed when you hear ‘em from your own lips.”

Heat spread across my face and I raised the axe and slammed it into the log. The wood split with a resounding crack and the axe embedded itself into the stump with a low thud.

“That’s not a proper answer,” I muttered.

“You’ll learn,” Aaron replied. “I’ll just say this. It wasn’t chance that brought me to you last night. And it ain’t chance that you lived. God’s plan is in motion and you’ll play your part.”

Okay, creepy, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. Whatever Aaron knew, he was refusing to give me a straight answer. But all I really wanted to do at the moment was find a way home. So I needed to stay in his good books, if he even had those.

A bell-like sound rang out from the house. The woman with the baby was standing on the porch, hitting a metal triangle with a stick. Aaron started to walk towards the house. 

“Time to eat,” he said.