章節 32: CHAPTER 32: FALLOUT (1)

David had been sitting in the darkness of his dreamworld for sometime now. As usual, he was all alone in the darkness but he liked the darkness...it helped him grieve. At first, he tried to focus to find dreamers but nothing appeared. Why would there be anyone? He was dying at the edge of an empty field. Actually, he wasn't even sure if he was alive or already dead.....and honestly....he wasn't for sure if he even wanted to be alive.

His family was dead. As far as he knew, David was the only remaining member of his Knox family. David had never had any aunts or uncles or cousins. His dad's parents had passed away when David was just a baby. His mom's dad had died around the same time. His grandmother was sweet and wonderful and David really enjoyed visiting her house in the town limits of Benson....but his grandmother had passed away when he was 10. His sister had died in an accident while trying to come home to take care of him. Now, his parents had died in what appeared to be an attack trying to kill David. He was all alone.

David felt the utmost misery as he sat by himself in his dark dream world. He felt responsible.

"Maybe I will die too", David thought to himself, "...that might be for the best."

He was so lonely sitting in his dark world. But as he continued to sit alone in the dark, he started to feel comforted by the loneliness. He had a long time to think over everything that had happened in the past. He also had time to think about what he was trying to achieve in life.

When he was a kid, David always wanted to do great things. He often dreamed of winning a Nobel Prize or making some big scientific break though. Then, he started to drift towards the artistic nature of architecture and enjoyed seeing how everything was constructed. He wanted to build buildings that lasted forever and would be looked at thousands of years in the future. He had very high expectations of himself.....but now he was alone and having trouble deciding what he wanted to accomplish with his life.

He kept repeating to himself, "What am I working for? What am I going to do now?"

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After what felt like eternity, David began to notice a few dream orbs begin to form around him. Seeing the orbs, he knew that someone had probably saved his life. He knew that his body had been picked up by someone and brought somewhere for medical treatment. If they didn't, he would have probably been trapped in his dark world forever...alone. Now that he was seeing dream orbs, David knew that he was around other people.

However, David didn't visit any of the dream orbs that floated about in his dark world. David even started to dislike some of the dream orbs floating with him in the darkness. He didn't want to visit the happy dreams of those around him or the sad dreams or the nightmares.....he just wanted the quiet darkness to himself. He continued to float in the darkness alone....mourning his loss of his parents...trying to figure out his direction in life.

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After sitting in the dark world for a while....and unable to come up with some direction to take in his life, David decided to visit some of the dream orbs. A cancer patient resting after a day of treatment. A college student with a busted appendix. A doctor in between shifts. A dying man on the table in an emergency room. David spent his time watching these people's dream....watching their nightmares.... hoping that he could find his direction.

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David also started to pay attention to the tides of dream orbs in his dark world. The orbs would run in cycles. They would start to disappear in what David felt was morning time. They would start to reappear in heavy numbers when it was night and people would sleep. He estimated that he had only been in his dream world for about a week based on the number of these cycles.

On one afternoon, David began to feel that his body was starting to wake. He left his dream world and awoke in what appeared to be a hospital room.

"How many times have I woke up in a hospital room now?", David though as he stared up at the white ceiling and smelled the scent of a medical facility.

Looking around to take stock of his surrounding, David was for sure that he had been though this before.....it was definitely a hospital room. Looking around, David located a call button to call a nurse. He hit the button and a light began to flash at his bedside.

In a brief moment, a nurse came into the hospital room, "Mr. Knox, you're awake!" the nurse exclaimed when she entered the room.

At this point in time, David had already shifted the bed's position and was sitting up staring at the nurse when she entered.

"Where am I at?" David said in a gravely voice. It seemed like he hadn't spoken in a while.

"Mr. Knox, you are at the guard's medical facility in the Carmine Corporation's wing at Three Rivers Hospital," the nurse said as she came over to begin checking David's condition.

"I notified the doctor as soon as your alarm went off," she continued as she continued checking David's condition, "he should be here shortly."

After about 5 minutes, a short fat man who appeared to be a doctor showed up in David's room.

"Hello Mr. Knox, I am Doctor Tull. Glad to see you awake. How are you feeling?" the doctor asked in a slow manner as if he thought David would have trouble understanding.

"I don't feel that great... Did my parents survive?", David couldn't help ask. Some part of him still held onto a hope that they had managed to make it safely out of the explosion.

"No," the doctor said bluntly, "I am sorry for your loss, Mr. Knox. I do not have the exact details on what occurred, but I know you are the only survivor. I have contacted the Carmine Family and they will be sending someone over in a few moments to explain."

David's remaining hope was shattered and he went silent. He just felt empty. The doctor asked David a few questions but David didn't respond.

After a few moments of collecting his thoughts, David finally asked the doctor, "How long was I asleep?"

"16 days," the Doctor replied. "You were only out for 16 days. I understand you had a past incident when you were in a coma for several months. We were worried that the same would happen this time, but thankfully you woke up much sooner."

"How is my condition?" David bluntly asked the doctor before reclining back in the hospital bed. Did he really even care about his condition anymore?

The doctor proceed to tell David of his injuries. The doctor was fully aware of The Other and his staff specialized in treating injuries to those that cultivated. David's main injuries were some bleeding ruptures to his internal organs that most likely happened during the initial explosion. Those internal injuries were repaired with emergency surgery and heavenly energy healing. David had damaged his kidneys, spleen, liver, heart...just about every internal organ he has.

Besides the internal internal organ injuries, David had another injury that had been life threatening. Based on what the doctor said, David had a large trauma to the side of his head that actually cracked his skull and made his brain start to swell. He would have to undergo some evaluations because of such a large head trauma.

Per the doctor, most of the other damage to David's body was just superficial cuts and scrapes but he did have a few lacerations that required a small amount of stitching. He also had a few burns on the side of his body from the explosion. The healers were able to resolve most of those smaller injuries with only minimal scaring. He also had a large knife wound in the back of his shoulder that required re-connection of a muscle. David should be able to use his arm normally after a little training.

Doctor Tull had actually told David that he was lucky to be alive.

David had actually laughed when the doctor had told him he was lucky. He didn't feel that way right now. Doctor Tull had gotten concerned for David by this gesture and recommended that David speak to the hospital's mental health provider.

After about 30 minutes of talking to the doctor about his condition, the room door sounded with a knock. The doctor got up and opened the door to reveal Mr. Lester standing in the doorway.

Walking in, the old man proceeded to sit down in the chair besides the bed with a sign. He had trouble looking directly at David.

"Doctor, can you leave David and I alone for a few moments?" Mr. Lester asked the doctor.

After the doctor left the room, Mr. Lester looked straight up at David and asked, "What do you remember?"

"I remember being blown out of my room by an explosion. I remember fighting two men...and killing both of them. I remember my parents....." David trailed off in his recollection and stopped speaking.

Seeing David struggling with the story, Mr. Lester took over for him.

"From what we could tell during the investigation, the attackers had placed a few small explosives around the house. We can only assume that they did it with the intention to kill everyone in the house because one of the explosives was placed on the propane tank at the side of the house. The explosion was ten times greater because of the propane tank. I was very surprised seeing the damage.... You shouldn't be alive if you were inside."

David interrupted in a monotone voice, "I was in the process of climbing out of the bedroom window....I wanted to go for a walk in the woods at night...I like to walk in the woods at night."

Realizing that David was following along in the story, Mr. Lester continued, "Gauge received your phone call and reacted immediately. Since we couldn't call the local police because of potential exposure of The Other, we tried to find if we had anyone nearby that could assist. Finding out we had no forces nearby, we left directly from Three Rivers City in our fastest helicopter. Gauge, myself and some of the healers arrived about an hour and forty five minutes after your phone call."

"We looked around at the explosion site and could only find the bodies of your parents" Mr. Lester paused, "I'm sorry, David. I know what it is like to loose parents and I sincerely offer my condolences to you."

"Continue," David said with a slight lack of emotion to his voice.

Looking at David's face, Mr. Lester felt a tinge of sadness for the man as he continued, "Gauge eventually found you at the edge of the woods in an unconscious state. The two healers managed to treat some of your worse wounds on the spot to help preserve you life.....You were in pretty bad shape. Then we transported you back here for continued treatment. You were in and out of surgeries for the first 6 days. Then you didn't want to wake up. A lot of us expected that you would be out a long time due to the head injury and your past experience with comas. I didn't expect you would wake up so soon."

"Did you figure out who attacked me and killed my parents?," David asked with a slight bit of anger in his voice.

"You said that you fought and killed two men?", Mr. Lester asked instead of answering the question.

"Yes, one taller man and one short man. I fought and killed them both. I don't have anything to identify them, but they were pretty strong. I had a knife on my hip for the hike in the woods....that helped," David responded in a very calm voice.

"No other bodies were found at the scene. Someone must have removed them before we arrived at the site," Mr. Lester stated.

"Before I attacked them, the two men were talking. They said something about waiting for someone else, but they never said names or any information. I don't know who they were. That is why I threw myself into the bushes at the tree line.....I just couldn't fight anymore."

Mr Lester offered some information, "We sort of figured that is what happened. Based on who you are and the limited amount of contact that you have had with people from The Other, we could only guess of two options on why this attack would have happened."

"One, the Carmine Family could possibly have a spy internally and you were determined by another gatekeeper to be a future risk to be disposed of as soon as possible. From my experience, I do not believe that this is the case since your actual value to the Carmine Family would not exceed that of a spy already embedded in another organization. They wouldn't risk possible exposure of the spy in order to kill just you."

David didn't say anything and waited for Mr. Lester to continue.

"The second option seems much more reasonable. Remember the guy, Atkins, that tried to kidnap Karine?" Mr. Lester said looking for a verification.

"Yes, he tried to kill me. How could I forget?" David responded with a little attitude.

"Atkins was affiliated with a group of rouge cultivators that want to gain access to The Other by strong arming the Carmine Family on Earth," Mr. Lester explained, "Since you were involved with Atkins' capture and played a key role in his foiled attempt at kidnapping Karine....we think that the group may have targeted you for revenge....or as a deterrent to keep people from interfering in their actions. A few of the weapons that were left at the scene appeared to closely resemble some old surveillance photos we have from the group, but we have no 100 percent guarantee that this is the group that attacked."

"Mr. Carmine has ordered a full detailed investigation. If you killed two people, then that means that someone else showed up and removed the bodies...then that means the group of people that planned the attack is still out there somewhere," Mr. Lester said with a bit of anger in his voice,"We can't have that sort of threat lingering out there."