Side Effects

1 - Who He Is

He was an anchor. His own weight pulled him down like a ton of rocks hurling him to the bottom of an endless sea. At given time he could not feel or see or hear. All that worked was his brain, urging his heart and lungs to function.

He was not drowning. A different fate awaited him as his mind began to awaken.

Firstly, he noticed the darkness. A nebulous black that clouded his eyelids as they remained shut. Recognising the state of sleep he was in, he attempted to open his eyes. They were too heavy to move.

Next, his ears were aroused by a thin, sharp noise which he couldn't place. Seemingly endless, it rung deep inside his eardrums and forced his consciousness to arise. As he did this, still unable to open his eyelids, he noticed something:

He was completely paralysed.

Panic struck in his heart. His ears picked up the sound of a heart machine. It was quickly beeping. He felt the swift pulse of his heart. Where was he? Was he going to die?

And all of the sudden... it was over.

His eyelids moved. He slowly woke up to face a plain white ceiling. Crick - his neck snapped as he moved it to his right. A heart machine stood at his bedside, switched off and unplugged. It was clear that he was in a hospital bed - he could tell by both his surroundings and the very thin mattress he lay on.

He could not place what had happened to him. All he could remember was a ray of light blinding him before he went unconscious. Cautiously, he sat up in his bed.

"L-Q-8." A feminine voice spoke. He turned to his left.

"I'm glad to see you awake." The woman smiled. She was stood beside him with her arms folded. She glared into his eyes in such a way that he felt a calming wave of serenity motioning over his body, giving him goosebumps.

"Um... I'm sorry, but, who are you?" He questioned, his voice cracking several times.

The woman withheld her generous smile.
"My name is Cermentia Grates."

Cermentia had grey-blonde hair that curled and sat on her shoulders. Her eyes were beady and surrounded by wrinkles, though it was still easy to see their deep blue colour that replicated the night sky.

By the way she dressed, she looked quite wealthy; of high importance. She did not look like a nurse. But even so, he still asked her, "Why am I here?"

There was silence for a few minutes. He felt incredibly anxious. The moment was almost bizarre - he had woken up in a hospital, with some stranger stood at his beside, somehow knowing more about why he was there than he did himself.

Cermentia took a deep breath, and spoke in her direct yet soothing voice.
"This may be a lot to take in, but it is my job to tell you."

She perched at the end of his bed as he sat up, cracking many of his bones in the process.

"You are in here because you contracted a deadly illness known as the Somnesia disease."

"The what?"

"In its simplistic definition, Somnesia is a virus that feeds off enzymes to survive. Slowly, it drains you of your energy, eventually resulting in death.
Fortunately, the disease had ways of being killed off. The most effective way taking a long time, but even so, you were lucky enough to receive it."

He breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank you."

"There is one thing I must know to see if it has worked properly. If not, then you have woken up too early."