Welfare and Warfare

Chapter 13

Day: 3130

Days Left: 2350

Lives Saved: 17

The flight back to his home country was long, and Dex mostly used it to sleep, or at least he tried; however, the armed guards on the plane were quite off-putting. Even now, they were still wary of him. Apparently, it was going to be this way until he had been deemed safe by a psychiatrist in his home country, and only then would they allow him the option of regaining his memories. How long would it take for him to see his son again finally?

When they finally arrived, he was then driven to an apartment complex. Dex gawked up at the building, how tall and shiny and metal everything had become in the city, with such large windows. Did he even live in this city? Was his son living here? His family? His friends? Or did they place him here because he had no chance of meeting them before his evaluations?

A representative of Nasim's organisation showed him to his apartment, the studio flat spacious and modern, with technological advances, Dex had not witnessed in the years he was imprisoned, but the rep showed him how they worked. It seemed that technology was implemented into everything now; with his voice, he could control the lights and temperature, and his fridge gave him recipe suggestions.

Once Dex was given all the information about the flat and the schedule of the psych evaluations, the rep left, easily contactable through the intercom near the door. Dex looked around his new home, seeing the cold and colourless surfaces, the sharp corners, the bare and minimalistic appearance. He did not think he would miss those wooden medieval houses in the Abyss, and yet they felt more homely with their imperfections, lived in, compared to this lavish new cell.

Dex opened the fridge, seeing it fully stocked with the basics along with some packs of microwave meals that were scientifically made to help released prisoners of the Abyss regain their health, along with suggested times to eat them. Whilst Dex could cook his own meals, they did not trust him with any sharp knives, everything in the fridge and cupboards already chopped up for convenience, nor was there a hob, he would have to cook using the microwave and something called an air fryer which Dex was too confused by. How does it fry something without oil?

The television did not have any channels but instead had a handful of movies and TV shows that Dex would have watched or at least known about before his imprisonment, as any new ones could apparently affect his mental health or be overwhelming. There were also numerous documentaries to summarise all of the world events Dex had missed, any technological advances and discoveries which Dex had to watch and study as homework before he could be released into society.

In one room was a small personal gym fitted with a treadmill, a rowing machine, and several weights. In front of the treadmill was a screen so that you could pretend that you were running outside, along with a stereo.

He wandered over to the bedroom; his wardrobe was packed with new clothes; whoever had bought them must have done their research as they were all the similar style of clothes Dex wore in the Abyss. Dex changed into a set of pyjamas and flopped onto the king-sized bed.

"Fuck..." he mumbled, feeling how soft the mattress was, like a marshmallow.

It was only 7 p.m., yet all Dex wanted to do was rest, exhausted mentally and emotionally. He placed his crude drawing of himself and his son on the bedside cabinet, staring at it and hoping that the next few weeks would go by quickly and he could finally have his life back.

Day: 3137

The week of evaluations was brutal. When Dex was asked how he was feeling, the very first question, he immediately broke down; everything was too overwhelming. Dex wanted to remain calm and collected, knowing that if he did, he might see his son sooner. But his psychiatrist said his feelings were normal, and it would be concerning if he did not react this way; otherwise, it meant he had become disconnected, but Dex had retained his humanity. He was luckier than most Abyss prisoners, having never lost any limbs or suffered too severe injuries, though he had witnessed others experience them. The toil of fighting for survival, food, and shelter, pitted against humans and monsters, would have affected him still and needed to be checked upon to see if he could acclimate back into society and how soon that would be. It could be a few weeks, explained the psychiatrist, or could be years. Dex was glad she was honest with him but hoped it would not be years. It had already been so long since he had last seen his son; he had missed out on half of his childhood. He did not want the gap to be even larger, and then, for definite, people would think they were brothers or cousins and not father and son.