It's Somewhere Beneath Us

I Might Be Ready

I stared at my phone intensely, wrestling with whether I should try again or not. Two calls over the course of a year wasn't a lot, but given the circumstance, it felt like two too many. My thumb hovered over the dial button for nearly a minute before I clicked the lock button and jammed the slab into my pocket. There was no use. It would only be another missed call and a dose of disappointment. Besides, Jan was probably wondering where I was. With a sigh, I popped the car door open and stepped out.

Knock, Knock, Knock... Knock!

"Just a minute!" I heard a warm voice call out before the front door opened. Jan smiled brightly at me "Hey, come on in! I was just about to call you and see where you were."

"Sorry, I got a little caught up with something," I told her, hugging her from the side as I slipped my shoes off. Together we stepped over a baby gate and into the living room.

"Andi, look who's here to see you!" Jan announced as we entered.

"Doel!" The toddler declared as she began to hobble over to me to the best of her ability. I scooped her up with a smile.

"Hey, sweet pea. You're getting pretty good at that, huh?" she stared at me with a big grin, but her attention quickly went to the same place it always did. I held up my hand for her to see, and she eagerly grabbed ahold of a finger. Gently, I tensed my muscles, causing the prosthetic to slowly close around her hand. She watched, amazed as if I had just done the greatest magic trick on the planet. To be fair, it still surprised me sometimes with how well it functioned.

I took a seat on the floor and began entertaining Andi while Jan and I caught up. It had only been a week since we had last seen each other, but with how fast our lives were moving, it seemed like there was always too much to keep up with.

"Sorry I can't stay for dinner tonight. Tell everyone I said hi, though."

"Of course. And no worries. You'll just have to host next week to make up for it." Jan said with a smirk.

I chuckled and helped Andi place a shape into the correct slot on a toy before looking back up to her mother. She was gazing out the window, lost in thought. She had lots of windows in her house, all big and open, peering out into the sunny world outside.

"You okay?" I asked.

Jan nodded, "I'm just still getting used to all of this. I can't believe how different things are from just a year ago. I used to have dreams just like this when we were back there. I still worry that I'm suddenly going to wake up, and we'll have never escaped.

"Yeah, me too. Although mine are nightmares, and I'm afraid I won't wake up. But I always do. And if you've been dreaming this whole time, then I'd be worried about how much you're sleeping."

Jan laughed, and I smiled, but it faded quickly. We made light of our situation, but it was clear that while we had left the house, it had never left us.

When I opened my eyes for the first time after passing through the exit, I found myself in a hospital room. It was quiet and dark, and had it not been for the machines I was hooked up to, I would have thought I was still back in the house. I knew I wasn't, though, because of what I saw outside the nearby window. City lights twinkling and sparkling beneath a starlit sky, and cars buzzing busily through streets below. Civilization. Life. My vision blurred as relief swept over me. Of course, we had always told ourselves we would make it out of the house, but deep down, I never thought I truly would. I should have died among the cold, labyrinthine halls of old rooms and structures, yet by some miracle, I was in one piece.

I looked to my right and saw a panel on the bed. It was all labeled in some kind of Asian lettering, but there was a small button with a nurse icon on it. I lifted my arm from the bed to click it but stopped as my muscles didn't move quite how they used to. That's when I remembered. I wasn't entirely in one piece. I stared at what remained of my arm, taking it in. I had been in so much shock initially that I barely had time to think about it. I did recall the wound looking very, very crude, though, about a fourth of the way up my forearm. I wasn't surprised that they had to amputate everything that remained below the elbow. The stump was currently fitted with a tight white sleeve, and the thing that was the most strange to me was that even though I could feel where my arm actually ended, it still felt like the rest of it was there. As if I could move it if I tried hard enough. There was even a slight pain in the ghostly appendage on top of the discomfort from the stump itself.