-Scattered electrical static crackles in the background-
“Where am I?”
He managed to muster up the stereotypical words of the every day man who is uncertain of his location, and as pointless as it was he still had yet another typical question of someone in his situation.
“Hello, anybody out there?”.
Not that he expected an answer, this was more chancing his luck than anything else. His eyes seemed to be welded shut and his body tingled with little to no sensation,
Have I been poisoned?. As irrational as the internal inquisitive voice was, it was not far from the truth as to him, he had sustained his equivalent of poisoning. From what he could tell in his brief moments of feeling was the he seemed to be laid down vertically on a surprisingly comfortable surface, the back of his eye lids seemed to glow so with his best guess he could say the room was very well lit.
His eyes flickered open, it took only a few seconds to close them again as the overpowering bright light blinded him, a mechanical voice rang within his head much like his own thoughts but with the exception of being distinctly female.
“All primary functions reinitialising, please flex the fingers on your right hand to begin diagnostics”.
He did so with ease yet with wonderment of something actually talking to him, a sequence of bleeping in a multi-tone fashion gave him a start as the tingling throughout his body intensified he lurched forward to sitting upright with a spine wrenching jolt.
“To complete diagnostic please stand in an upright position with both feet together and facing forward”.
He gingerly shifted his legs over the edge of the inclined surface he sat upon tenderly rubbing his lower spine, wobbling at first as he made an attempt at maintaining his balance, eventually he stood firm but with grievous difficulty and strain.
“Diagnostics complete all organic and mechanical functions are stable, now scanning system storage and adjusting visuals to suit room illumination”.
He pondered this for a moment then came to an enraging conclusion.
“You couldn't have done that from the start!”.
Yet another almost musically arranged series of beeping commenced before the voice answered.
“Done what?”
“The thing with the lights!”.
“No”.
He punched the air then in an obsessive almost mentally broken way he began to think about this voice.
After a few minutes his only rational came to mind
I've gone insane, that's it! This is an asylum!”.
Once again the voice spoke but this time in a highly offended tone.
“I assure you I'm as real as the ground you stand on, I am your on-board computer, [i]Marion”.
His eyes widened at the notion.
“On-boar, is that even physically possible?”.
“It must be, I exist after all”.
He scoffed at this with a paranoid retort.
“But that's exactly what a crazy persons voice would say”.
The voice did not reply so he considered this a victory over his possibly non-existent demons. His eyes had adjusted clearly to the lighting, to the discredit of the room the fact he could see had not changed much. The general surrounding was nothing but white, very white, the ceiling was no more than a foot above his own head hight and the walls were set at six meters each. With a further look around it became apparent there was no door and the only object occupying the room other than himself was a small two seated sofa pressed against the back wall.
“Now scanning the surrounding room”.
The mechanical voice rang once again.
Why is it doing what I've just done?.
“Because your inferior eyes would not have noticed the foreign object stuck to your forehead”.
His jaw dropped as he swiped a sticky piece of paper from his face and became deeply offended at many things in the previous statement .
“OK, you can here my thoughts, your contradicting me and did you just mock me?”.
What he was convinced was a happy beep, the voice spoke again.
“Yes I can hear your thoughts as per requested by you upon installation for silent communication during missions, I simply corrected you as you were wrong, and yes I mocked you”.
He took a quick glance at the piece of paper which held scrawled hand written information.
You are Gairo Hem, we left you a present under the sofa.
“What?”.
This confused him further than needed right now, he couldn't remember his own name or anything about himself and trusting this parchment was at the bottom of his list.
“New data processed”.
“Wait! Gairo Hem is my name! Why is that new data!”.
The pause in response gave him time to both become angrier and stop caring all in one.
“It appears you have suffered a physical trauma causing memory loss and half of my file storage has been deleted”.
“So there is no recollection of who I am other than a piece of paper?”
“That is correct”.
He looked to the floor then his eyes wandered to the shining box just visible under the sofa.
“Switch off, your no use to me right now”.
“Logging off”.
He bent down on hands and knees and crawled steadily to the box, he made a long reach under and slowly dragged it out, it had yet another note.
Open it already we don't have all day.
There where two hinge clips on the front corners he flicked them open and the box slowly raised itself up showing something glinting at the bottom and yet another note.
This is Zenith, your most prized possession, use it well.
He clasped his hand around the visible glinting metal only to feel a sharp sting as the blade cut into his palm, he uncovered the rest to find a beautifully crafted thirty-two inch blade and a very decorative handle inscribed with the name
Zenith. He took the handle and swung it in a one-eighty motion as he did the flecks of blood from his hand shot across the room dotting the pearly white wall,
my eyes must still be screwy, the blood was spreading, then trickling, it was writing something on the wall. Gairo waited patiently for it to finish and when it did the message was clear, in large blood letters it said
ESCAPE