Purgatory

Chapter 18

I hadn’t realized I had fallen asleep until Cole woke me with a nudge.  He stood and raised me to my feet with him.  I felt weak, and my eye sight flickered for a moment.

“You’re starting to shut down,” he stated.  “You need to eat.”

Maybe I hadn’t gone to sleep, and it was just my depleted energy causing my implants to stop functioning.  Cole began to help me out of the stargazer room, though it seemed to take some effort.  He grunted slightly as he held me, and I began to wonder how much I weighed.  I am the weight I should be for my height, so surely I’m not too heavy for a man of his stature.  I tried to grumble at his offensive grunt, but I was distracted by how my feet were dragging on the floor.  They felt heavy making them difficult to move.

“Could you help me out just a little?” Cole requested through a laugh of amusement.

“I feel odd,” I said to him.  “Actually, I can barely feel anything right now.”  I could feel the tingle of numbness beginning to take its effect on me as I leaned heavily against Cole’s sturdy frame.

“Well, just keep yourself running as long as you can,” Cole advised.  “Don’t freak out if your eyes black out.  That’s typical in this situation to conserve energy.  When that happens you have about two minutes.”

“Until what?” I asked.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Cole responded lightheartedly.  “I would assume that’s when other vital implants stop functioning, but I’m not certain as to how that would impact one of us.”

“Why is it so difficult to move?” I complained.

“I don’t know, maybe the way you were sitting cut off the circulation a bit?” Cole guessed.  If that were true, the act of walking would return the circulation of blood in my legs to normal, not cause it to numb further.

Cole led me up the staircase to the residential quarters, and I looked up at him curiously.  “Why are we going upstairs?  I thought I needed food.”

“Afternoon meal is in two hours,” Cole explained, and I noticed everything beginning to haze.  “I still have my power bar in my room from this morning.”

“All this time you told us how important eating that bar was,” I said with a laugh.  We turned left down the hallway towards a part where I’d never been.  There were small groups of people gathered outside their doors scattered about, each group softly chatting while they eyed me with curiosity.  One group greeted Cole, their eyes thoughtful as they were likely guessing our situation.  Eventually Cole stopped at a door and pressed his hand upon the panel.  The door hissed open, and we entered a room that looked just like all the others.

Cole set me down on his bed and lightly tapped the wall panel to my left to access the topmost hidden drawer.  He tossed the power bar onto my lap and then opened the drawer below, rummaging through it briefly before producing a white box labeled with a glowing red cross.  I still felt rather strange and light headed, and my eyes flickered once more before completely shutting off.

“Go ahead and eat,” Cole said to me, and I detected a hint of irritation in his voice.  He reached behind me and plugged something into my USB port before sitting down next to me.  My eyes then immediately began to display everything around me once again, and I looked over at Cole briefly, noting the cord running from his port to what was likely my port.  He opened the box to reveal a medical kit, and he pulled out some bandages and skin glue.

“Wait, do we all have med kits in our rooms?” I asked as I unwrapped the power bar.  I was already starting to feel just a bit livelier and less numb.  “And why am I plugged into you?”