Chapter 2
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His head hurt. It felt as if his skull was being split open.
Stirring where he lay, he reached up to touch the top of his forehead, where
the pain was the worst. It felt warm. Wet. Sticky. He tried to open his eyes,
but as he did a wave of nausea washed over him. He clamped them back shut and
gritted his teeth against the pain and sickness.
For a
time he laid there, trying to will the pain away. As he did, he listened, but
he didn't really hear anything. What little sound he heard made no sense. He
couldn't place what it was. Where was he? What happened? He tried to focus his thoughts on these simple
questions, but each time he did a fresh stab of pain split through his head. He
couldn't seem to recall.
It felt
like he was laying on his back. There was something cold and solid against his
back, so that seemed to make sense. He lifted his hand again, this time more
focused on the sensation. Gravity was definitely under him. He was on his back.
Why was he on his back?
Again
he tried to open his eyes, more carefully this time. Another wave of nausea
gripped him, but he was ready for it. He stomach turned and rolled, but he kept
his focus on the light in front of him. Light?
His vision cleared slightly and he realized there was not one light, but two.
They seemed to be cords of luminescence that ran along a metal ceiling on
either side. The ceiling couldn't have been more than a few feet high at the
most.
He
thought about sitting up, but figured that if he did he'd probably vomit. Let's start small. He looked at his
hand. It didn't seem the right color. Red? Hands aren't red. Not bright red
like that. He rubbed his fingers together and they again felt wet and sticky.
Red. Sticky. Blood? Touching his head
again, he came back with a fresh sample. Definitely blood.
His
vision drifted slowly up and down, trying to get a feel for his environment
without sitting up quite yet. The quarters were quite cramped. It looked like
he had been stuffed in some kind of a metal tube, and not a big one at that.
There were monitors on either side of him, however the screens were dark. On
one end, near his feet, he saw the tube empty out into darkness. This caught
his attention the most.
Moments
drifted by as he simply stared in to the inky blackness. Where was he? He
couldn't see anything down there. Trying to steel himself against his gut's ongoing
threat of throwing up, he tried to sit up. His hair stuck to the floor, but
came from with a soft tug. A large computer console beneath the darkness came
into view. Then, just like that, it snapped into his mind. Submarine. I'm looking out the cockpit of a submarine.
He
crawled forward to inspect the control console. The console was still
functional and nothing looked damaged, although one section seemed to be
smeared with blood. Did he hit his head on the computer terminal? Why couldn't
he remember? A switch label "Exterior Lights" caught his attention
and without even thinking about it, he reached down and flipped it on.
Through
the glass bubble of the cockpit, the deep black outside was drowned out by
massive flood-lights snapping on. Brown. No...there's something else. He gently
shook his head, trying to clear his vision. What was he looking at? There was
nothing but brown outside. It looked like ...dirt.
That was it! He was staring at a wall of dirt. He could see some of the
sediment floating amidst the water around him. Did he crash?
With
that mystery solved, his attention was drawn back to the rest of the submersible.
A small puddle of blood, congealed now, had collected where his head had been.
There was no one else in the sub with him. Aside from the cockpit's console,
none of the other computer systems in the sub seemed to be functioning. Nothing
looked damaged, so what had happened? Sitting down into the pilot's chair at
the cockpit, he took a minute to try and gather his thoughts.
Hehe, voted for the winner! Could you please keep results of the previous poll up so we can see what the end score looked like?
ReplyDeleteInteresting chapter, to say the least. At first I was like "this is some Hangover material, right here". Who knows!
Hah! Awesome. You know, I had been thinking about keeping up the previous Poll, but I was just worried that it might confuse everyone. I might do it, just because it will show the progress, but I need to mull it over so I can find away where people won't accidentally vote on it after it's been written. Maybe just writing out the stats?
ReplyDelete