Chapitre 17: 16. Bad Day.
I woke up in a strange place. I remembered the ship and the men. I didn't see any men, so I hoped they had escaped. I was weak and cold. I was so damn tired, but somehow I just hung on. I opened my eyes and realized I was in a large room. It reminded me of the X-ray rooms in a hospital, and I guess that's what I remembered as I was tied to some kind of metal table, almost naked. It was like a giant X-ray machine.
I tried to wrench my arms free, to get them out of the tight restraints, the ropes, but no, they were too efficiently tied around my wrists and my arms so that I didn't have so much room to move to get my hands free.
Dr. Morrisey came into the room. Fucking chubby. Somehow, just seeing this guy made my rage flare up.
"Ah, you're awake. And apparently, you're not in a good mood, but you can't get out of it; just keep your rage out; you'll need it. Good, then you'll get to experience your radiotherapy."
Then he left. The machine started up, and I felt nothing at first, but after probably several minutes, I felt a burning, tingling sensation all over my body. The machine stopped for a moment. Then it started up again. And it was on for quite a long time, so the burning tingling started to be painful all over. It felt like my skin was covered in burns. The machine must have beamed at me about twenty times.
It moved through my whole body, starting with my toes and ending up in my head, and then I got a terrible and very nasty headache. Then, finally, as the stretcher came to the table and I was lifted onto it, I was already in pain and tired. I was carried down a long white corridor to another room where my veins were cannulated, and IV tubes were attached to both my arms.
These were, again, nurses who had no feelings other than mere obedience, and they treated me like a piece of meat.
My hands were tied to the bed now with metal restraints. The drip stands had counters, so the drip rate was adjusted. The nurses adjusted the drips, and the drips were of different colors. I suspected it was chemotherapy, and for some reason, my immune defenses were being destroyed as best they could.
There were four bags in each of the racks. So I had eight bags dripping at the same time. I was completely restrained, and whatever poisons they were dropping on me, I couldn't do anything about it. One bag was a sedative because my head was pretty fucked up, and I had no sense of time at all. But I couldn't see the men and knew they had escaped.
I don't know how long this went on. If I wasn't attached to the table at the time of the drip, I was always almost in the radiation. My strength diminished, I was sampled, and time and time again, the protective gear over the nurses increased, telling me that my immune system was weakening, and eventually, I was sealed in a plastic bubble. So, I was obviously without immune defense. The chemotherapy caused nausea and muscle and nerve pain, which was exacerbated by the radiotherapy. I had a vague, disgusting feeling of powerlessness; I hated this feeling. I hated the drips; I hated the injections, and I let my rage come out, and that helped me hate even a little bit more all the medical procedures that were done to me.
I lay in bed, powerless, unable to move, and occasionally vomited helplessly into a container on the floor. I was dizzy, light-headed, aching all over, and in pain. The bed felt hard. I was skinny as hell, and no posture was good, but I was too powerless to do anything about it.
Oh, how I hated that feeling of powerlessness and helplessness, and I swore to myself that when I get better, I won't be so fucking powerless and helpless all the time; I will be stronger and more resilient, and even if I try to escape from here, by myself. Time didn't matter.
I was drugged and weak in aches and pains. I smelled things, and my vision went from blurry to almost normal. After an eternity, two men in spacesuits entered the bubble. It wasn't anything new. They'd been wearing spacesuits for a while now when they'd been taking samples from me in the bubble.
I kept fucking wondering if I was going to live in the bubble for the rest of my life without any immune defense. My skin was open in places, and I had bedsores and other injuries as my skin was paper thin and broke easily.
They hung an infusion bag containing a green liquid above my bed and attached it to a cannula. They bound my arms and legs and drilled a hole in my shinbones to insert the cannula, as well as my thighs, humerus, ulna, and radius... More drip stands were brought into the bubble, and a small drip bag, looking like a blood bag, was placed in each cannula.
I guessed it was bone marrow. They dripped bone marrow directly into my bones and this fucking green gunk into my veins. I was tied up, helpless, and weak, and yet I felt my rage in the back of my mind; it was like an electrical charge.
Then all hell broke loose. It started with a headache that spread behind my eyes and felt like my head was splitting from the pressure. It felt like just opening my eyes hurt, but I couldn't keep them closed all the time. My jaw and teeth were aching. It was a headache and not just in my brain.
The nausea doubled, but the men had put a nasogastric tube up my nose, and I couldn't get anything up even though I was vomiting helplessly. I was so cold that I was shivering wildly. The pain was unbelievable. I couldn't move; I felt like my body wasn't working, and my vision was almost completely gone at one point.
I could smell strange things: my own body, the vomit, the medicine, the metallic smell of the drip trays, and the bitter, thick stench that came from the medicine and seemed to coat my palate.
My jaw was shaking, and I knew I had a fever and a lot of fever. My head felt heavy, and my muscles burned. I felt like my muscles were falling apart, almost turning to liquid, and no, yes, they still were, and the ache, the pain, the agony just got worse, with all the other symptoms you can have.
I was out of my mind. I just saw that green gunk dripping mercilessly into my veins, and I knew that's what hurt and made me suffer. My skin was susceptible, and it felt like the slightest movement made the pain shoot through my body.
But I didn't lose consciousness, at least not for very long. It hurt everywhere, and my bones ached. It felt like every internal organ was in knots. All I could do was lie there helplessly and watch as bag after bag of that green poison poured into me.
"Tip tip tip tip tip tip tip... If I had once hated drips and cannulas, now the hatred turned to disgust, rage, something I couldn't stand. I struggled, pulling my hands away, trying to let go to get the damn needle out. My rage helped me to cope, obviously, and the anger turned to disgust and seemed to sink so deep into me I knew I hated all the medical procedures so much. And this fucking powerlessness and helplessness.
In the end, it felt like years. Then they stopped dripping the damn green stuff on me, and I was discharged and transferred to a different bed, some kind of air mattress that varied the pressure, a kind of pressurized ulcer mattress. I could hear the hum and always feel some part of the mattress filling up. It helped a little, maybe. But I was feeling so awful that even that little bit of relief quickly disappeared as another symptom took over...
I curled up into a ball and tried to wrap the blanket around me. I just tried just to be. I felt absolutely awful. I was furious, anxious, sick, ill, desperate, trying to rest, trying to fall asleep, hoping to die. The fever wouldn't go away, and it made me feel really restless, but I didn't even have the strength to move my arm, so I just suffered.
Slowly, I felt better. My fever broke, and as a result, I was sweaty and weak. The aches and pains receded, my sight and sense of smell come back, I could at least move around a bit, and then I was exhausted enough to sleep and sleep a lot. Men in spacesuits had come daily to take my blood; this time, the men were no longer wearing suits. They took their blood tests and left.
I assumed it was a matter of days, but I wasn't inclined to know any more about it or even ask any questions. I was hardly ever awake when they were taking their samples, and then I fell asleep and slept off this huge exhaustion. I felt like my body was working at a terrible pace, and I just didn't have the strength to stay awake. Even my heartbeat felt strong but fast; my vision was perfect, and I could smell everything really well, too well.
I was weak, but I was hungry. I was hungrier than ever, and I felt like all my senses were working too efficiently. I could see clearly and far away, and sudden movement, particularly, caught my attention for some reason. I was still lying in bed, powerless to move but flinching, and found myself analyzing smells much more efficiently. And I was smelling them so much more.
The nurses weighed me, and I was amazed at how alive I could be when I weighed 26 kilos. But I was alive. And hungry, irritable, twitchy. I wasn't quite so sleepy anymore. Now, I wanted to get in better shape and fast.
I could hear very well. Footsteps and murmurs, even though the door to the room was quite thick. I couldn't move yet, so the nurses walked around my room without caring. I wasn't a threat.
I didn't know how long it had been. I'd snapped a cannula from my neck to my fucking neck when I had woken up, not caring what it would drop on me, but now I couldn't stand anything at all.
I looked closely at the back wall of the room as the nurses brought the trolley into my room, not paying attention to it as the fly on the wall 12 meters away took all my attention, oh how I wanted to attack it.
The nurses brought me a big tray of food, and I started gobbling the food fast.. it was mostly meat and some pasta but no vegetables or fruit. The beef tasted fucking great, and I ate it all and I felt like I could have eaten more.
I was fed several times a day, and I was always hungry; I gained weight as the nurses washed me every morning and weighed me as well. I was getting better and getting fit, and that was the biggest motivation for me.
After a couple of days, I tried to stand up. My legs could barely support me. I resembled a skeleton with skin pulled over it. Every bone was protruding, and my muscles were non-existent, but at least I could stand for a while.
Every day I did more and more; I could stand, take steps, eat, and drink. I still resembled an anorexic, except when I ate, and then I was like some starving child from a developing country with a pot belly.
I also started to get my rage back under control and wanted to get away and run away. I started to get fed up with this institution, with these people. I didn't want to see the fucking chubby one more time. I couldn't stand to be a pleasant patient and let others take care of me when they treated me like a piece of meat, calling me an Omega or a Target when I fucking had a name.
My frustration and my powerless rage started to take a bit of a life of its own, and once again, I felt my rage strengthening me. As my physical fitness increased, my rage increased, my determination increased, and I felt ready to do something soon. I felt ready to change.
I felt my rage grow again into a white glowing ball, and at the same time, I felt something inside me awaken. Its power, its essence, was foreign. It wasn't part of me, but we were connected. Something entirely new had arisen in my mind, and somehow, I knew it wasn't just in my mind.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone