I used to be a Zombie.
Until a kind stranger bought me a new brain.
They told me the brain was artificial; that it had been grown in one of the continent's many brain labs. "The labs were built to help recover the human population," they said.
The...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
They made me eat the green gloop; force fed it to me. It tasted just as disgusting as I thought it would. Several hours later, the aftertaste still lingers.
I keep expecting to keel over from the deadly poison of the vegetables. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm ready for when it does. Being poisoned would certainly be more interesting than staying confined to this holding cell, with little to do but pace up and down the cell's length.
Sadly, the vegetables don't seem to be playing ball with my new brain's 'vegetables are poison' concept. In fact, I feel more alert and energetic than I did before eating the green gloop.
Sternly, I chide the new part of my brain. Bad brain.
As the minutes tick by, nothing happens and grudgingly I begin to accept that the green gloop isn't doing anything. That my new brain was wrong, unless... ...the gloop is not a vegetable.
Determinedly nodding to myself, I accept this as fact. It's the only logical explanation for the lack of poisonous effects. My alertness could easily be put down to nutrients in the gloop.
'The nutritious green gloop' sounds a tad strange when I replay it back to myself in my mind, but I shrug my doubts off as temporary erroneous thoughts.
If the gloop was not poisonous and is instead intended to help me, that means that I've misjudged the people who are managing this place. I thought they were out to kill me, but it seems that's no longer true.
Given they've gone to the trouble of bringing me back to their labs and giving me a lengthy operation, I suppose that murder wouldn't really be a sensible option. But in this foreign world, I'm wary of anything anomalous or strange. Trust is something to be earned, not a privilege I'd be willing to freely give.
So the question is, who are these people, and what do they want from me? They've kept me in isolation for what's probably not a large amount of time, but to my entertainment-deprived brain, feels like forever.
Perhaps saying 'forever' is pushing it.
Maybe 999,999,999 seconds would be a more accurate comparison.
My musings are broken by a welcome scraping noise and I look towards the door in hope that somebody's opening it.
It remains firmly shut.
Shoulders slumping in disappointment, I turn away from the door. So much for company - it seems that one short visit is too much to hope for. I'd thought it might have been the lady who'd visited yesterday, come to tell me more about the world I've found myself in.
A breeze wafts round the room and I shiver, the hairs on the back of my neck rising at the shock of the cool air.
On impulse, I glance backwards over my shoulder.
And nearly jump out of my skin when a face stares back at me, mere inches from mine.
I become aware of an irritatingly high pitched scream and wonder where it's coming from.
