FuturePast

Chapter 28: Julia

     I feel like my skull is splitting. All sorts of images and memories I don't even remember having keep showing up. Most of them disturbing. 

     Dead cows with flies dancing on their eyeballs. Lotus living inside someone's mouth. A little girl in a red dress walking through a tall fire. A man tearing someone's heart out and eating it. A blond woman tearing someone's head off with his spinal cord dangling. A handsome man kissing a girl lying on the ground right before he is stabbed through the back by a witch.

   Then, there are some good images in between.

    Me as a little girl sitting on the couch with my dad. Another little girl who I don't recognize in an old fashioned setting. She's playing in a cave with her father. Then is shows her all grown up in the dark with her hair soaking wet. Blood staining her ivory white dress. A man with blood smothered on his face comes into few and kills her. A man and woman making love on a bed. A teenage looking boy with bright blue eyes staring at something in the distance; he seems at peace. I wonder if it's William. It's kind of what he would look like if he was younger.

     I see Vanessa sleeping with some man who looks familiar but I can't seem to put a name on him.  It switches to an image of a human heart, beating slowly, then eventually stops. I see a girl with a red hood grasping for something in the air.

     Then, I see myself. Walking in a forest covered in ice. I am running from something and keep looking back behind me. I keep looking back, not even worried about what's ahead or if I'm gonna run into anything. Then, the moment I turn around, I smack into William. We crash to the ground and he kisses me. I close my eyes and everything goes dark. 

                                                                                   ***

     I woke up with pain erupting everywhere. I sat up and I felt like my brain was melting. The room around me almost seemed futuristic. It looked like the inside of a spaceship you'd see on television. It was round and had a huge iron door on the front. I absolutely love Doctor Who, but this was kinda scary. That's kinda what it looked like from my perspective, with me in the center of it. I had an IV stuck to my arm and decided to rip it out in case they were trying to put some chemical into my body of some sort. You know, anything I didn't want flowing through my veins. 

     I walked to the door and tried turning the knob. Easy as cake and the door popped right open. I walked out into a completely white corridor that had absolutely no other door out of it. It was just a long and narrow hallway that looked like it was made out of padding. It kind of reminded me of the mental institution. 

      I ran all the way to the other end of the hall, by the time I got there I was out of breath. I looked behind me and noticed that the room I was just in has disappeared. Talk about delusions.  

     I heard a loud popping sound and the wall in front of me just opened like a door. Behind it is the creepy inhuman doctor.

   "Come my dear. It is time for the series of tests for you to take now that you are finally awake."

     He takes my hand and leads me through a maze, taking twists and turns here and there. 

     He sits me in a room and starts asking me questions. Like, do I know who I am? Or, What year is it?

     "Juliet. The year is.....2016." I reply.

     He asks me a whole bunch of other questions and I answer them. 

     Finally at the end he says, "Hmmm. You should be fine. Although, it did take longer than expected. We thank you for your cooperation. We did not think you'd survive."

     I frown. What does he mean I'll be fine? I feel like a dope right now by not knowing what he means by a single word he's saying. Besides, I wanted to do anything but cooperate. 

     He has two men escort me outside. I look behind me and the place looks like a restaurant on the outside. They let go of me and walk back inside. I look around me, and nothing has really changed except for that I see new electronics in some people's hands. Ones that I've never seen before even though I am always the first one to be up to date on recent technology. I look for a street sign to tell me where I'm at. I'm on Elm St. I have no idea where that is or yet if I'm even in the same state as I was before. I look for a local news paper stand and the date on it is totally wrong. 

     "January 20th, 2017." I say aloud to myself. Mainly to help myself believe it's true. Which I don't think it is. It's the day of the inauguration. It's been exactly a year later since I got taken. 

     "They had me in there for a year!" I yell in frustration.

     I head back to the restaurant and slam through the doors.

     "What the hell did you do to me?" I yell.

     I stand back in shock and close my mouth to avoid any further curse words from bursting out. I look around the place and people are eating at tables with someone waiting on them hand and foot. Everybody is staring at me

     "Where are the doctors?" I yell. 

     People start to laugh.

     "Talk about delusional." Someone said.

     "That's what I was just thinking a few moments ago." I said aloud.

     I stormed out of the place and caught a taxi.

     "Take me to the Ohio State University." I told him.

     "Are you crazy? That's 18 hours away." He replied.

     "Where are we?" I ask.

     "Denver, Colorado. What's wrong with you?" He says.

     "Nothing." I reply. I get out of the car and watch him drive off.