Author's note: This is the 2nd chapter. For the 1st one please visit the following link: https://www.launchora.com/story/planet-they-call-death
For many a moments passed as I suspended to that half opened mechanical suit, all weak, burning with headache and trying hard to breathe. Nevertheless, I kept myself alert. My eyes wouldn't really focus on anything properly and it all looked kinda dizzy then. But still I kept my eyes opened. The lights also were too bright for me to take in. Squeezing my eyelids every now and then thus I tried to maintain the required exposure.
Rubbing the eyes would had been a good idea then, but something, rather someone suddenly held my hand, "No... don't do that!"
"Wha... wh... who are... who are you?" I gasped.
"Calm down, you need rest" then after a sudden pause "42% oxygen, eh?" And a short laugh followed.
I would had given a tight reply to that laugh, only if that headache had not crumbled my mind.
"Well now as you have won... which wasn't quite expected, but lets not look into that. You have won!... Look... what you have done... captain"
That last sentence was nowhere near a happy one. It just, wasn't. He didn't sounded like congratulating me, rather it was rough, and much angry. The headache was burning. Everything that just happened, every memory, were getting jumbled up in my mind. It was all a storm, with no sun, no wind, and no clouds.
The voice I was hearing was somewhat a heavy one and a low pitch. And surely it was annoying.
"Yeah... yeah... no no no no no... not that... FUCK IT! Just send the medics! He has doubled the intake of Oxygen." The voice shouted then moving to my left it said, "So, where were we? Ah! Yes... You as a captain."
I saw his blurred figure slowly working over something, typing. It was the machine, maybe. As soon as he did that the lower abdominal metallic hold, opened ever so slowly. I, who was already finding it hard to breathe, gasping for oxygen now fell on the group, collapsing.
Maybe I heard him saying something before I fainted, but well, I wasn't quite in the position to pay any attention. After that it was all black and when I reopened my eyes, it was a bed I was lying on, white infirmary. It wasn't still a clear view but I could actually feel the presence of two people beside my bed talking. Shouting.
"The results aren't good, professor. Those magnetic waves... They seem to affect his brain in a minute way... But that is NOT good! You shouldn't use EMJs on them! You must not!"
"Is he dead?"
"No but-"
"Then SHUT UP! What I use on them, is totally my field! Your a mere doctor! STAY LIKE ONE!"
Then suddenly they stopped looking at me awake. I immediately figured out that the one in white suit was the doctor. Now that wasn't anything strange. But strange was then I somehow was recognizing that other man with the same voice as the one talking to me earlier. It felt like I knew him from ages.
"Oh... LOOK! The captain's awake!" the other man cried.
I kept quite, and went on staring at him, trying all my brain out, just to remember what that person really was to me. And then it came.
"Professor?... PROFESSOR!" I uttered in shock. I quite well knew, but somehow I couldn't make myself agree to it.
"Yes you remember now" he smiled in a large, making that lips turn crescent. Then he turned towards the doctor and in his calmest manner he softly whispered "See, it works."
The doctor raised his wrist and looked at the suit covered arm. It looked like a standard wearable but with special functions for medical uses. The suit was a skin tight one with a multi-touch system. Somewhat a strong icosa-cored processor, it should have used. After that the doctor simply swiped two to three times, finally getting the desired result and saying "Your heartbeat is... fine. And that... fine... fine... fine... This too... Well... it seems you should take a day off and the next day you can resume."
"Oh yes he will!" Professor cried and then under his breath, murmured "Assholes... relying on machines..."
I laid there a few more hours, thinking, trying to remember what was going on. I was missing something. I was missing a lot. And although I remembered who I was or what any specific machine was, yet besides that, everything was a storm in my mind. After what seemed like an eternal time of hours, I finally rose. I removed the blanket cover and slipped out of the bed.
For a long time I kept on wondering at that bed. I knew every single details of the internal design of it. It was creeping me out as at that point I was pretty much sure I haven't seen any of those stuffs ever in my life, yet I could tell every single details about them. The bed I found had a solid deca-core microchip processing at the bottom. It's normal looking mattress had an advance heart rate monitor, which could detect the rate of the pulse and the beat of the heart from a distance of 1 meter from the surface vertically. Internally it's operating system's developers had taken this very ordinary looking bed to another level by making it read patients heat rate and tell his or her mood accordingly.
I need my lens, I thought for a moment then suddenly realized, what the hell... what the hell... What is happening with me?
I slowly looked around scratching my head to find something to wear. Those light patient's wearable were giving me an awkward feeling to walking around with. Nevertheless, I found the suit I was once wearing, although I couldn't remember when, exactly.
With the least of the pace, I stepped out of the room. The gate slid and I was out in no time. A short corridor followed and ended on another long one, suddenly throwing me into a deep pit of awe. I was dumbstruck looking at the gigantic thick hard glass pane following continuous with the other side of that long corridor, outside of which, was the humongous universe, filled with uncountable stars, distant but visible. Looking at that, so many visions started to strike my head that I was almost on the verge of falling numb. Now to mention this, it was really hard to distinguish between any one of those visions, and then, there was that! That memory. That of those people, close to me that man and that woman, of those moments admiring the night sky, from a planet, from Earth.
Earth, I thought and my eyes went become moist. No... Dont... I stopped. I was then, standing at the edge after which was a gap of 3 meters and then was the glass pane. It was there that it hit me suddenly, hard.
I am Akhil Das. I left Earth... I am a coward... And then, there was nothing but pain. I was not crying, I was feeling cold, I was alone. Then someone suddenly pulled my shoulder bringing me back to reality. I turned and found a familiar face, which somehow, in quite a surprise, I knew. "Damil!" I shouted in excitement mixed with fear that whether I had recognized him correct. And he nodded, taking me totally out of thoughts.
"Man! I thought I had lost you! Why weren't you in the mission?!" I cried.
Now Damil was a stammerer and used to prefer writing the stuff down in a chat box or as a message. But that time, he didn't, rather he spoke, and afters months I found his voice again. "Whe... Where is... yo... yo... your le... lens?"
I thought for a while and then I told, "I... I don't remember... Where am I? I mean all these memories... I just..."
"Ca...Ca...Calm!" he somehow made his word. Then moving toward the interactive map on the opposite wall, we started moving him fingers in the air as if typing something. Those lens... I thought, as I admired, only the wearer can see. I smiled after that as the finished moving his fingers, touched the side of the eye equipment and send the whole text data to the map monitor.
I immediately moved towards the monitor and started reading the whole text -
Lel, I hacked it ^_^ !! I mean, the map monitor...
Okay serious talk where is your lens? That's 1st. 2nd, where are the rest of the team? Oh btw, I heard u have cleared the test as a CAPTAIN!!!! MAN THAT NEED A PARTY!!!!
Reading what made 50% sense to me, I could only say, "What is going on?"
He gave me a irritated look and typed something back again shifting the data to the monitor-
God! SOME ONE HELP THIS IDIOT! EMJs, huh? u are gonna die early my child!
Okay okay! I am helping you remember wait...
After that he went on typing another message while I kept on asking "What is EMJs?"
Okay you remember me right? I am Damil! Your best bud, and your an idiot... mind the word kay? And you are currently on ISS 17, that is, International Space Station 17 orbiting Pluto... and well... u are one of those so called "survivor" of the 2125, meteor crash. BTW u are here to become and engineer (thank me later, lel)... Now you were... oh for God's sake SHUT UP!!! I AM TELLING!! EMJs a... its like an invention of Professor Reeder... (that guy with white hair u just saw while u were lying on that stupid little bed!) Its called in the very common language an EMJ or an Electromagnetic Memory Jammer. Yep, the name must be clearing a lot to you... in case it is not... It fucking plays with your memory... according to the wishes of the user... here it is Reeder himself. He must have used it on you guys during the exercise to increase the virtual reality effect! You guys should be 7 if u remember (Lol, but do remember? xD)... 7 of you were put in a Virtual Reality Exerciser and the one to reach the bottom of the core, that is, to find the portal or command to end the program will be the captain of the squad. (Doesn't your whole life looks like a lie now? :P ) You reached the bottom... your the captain now GIMME PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And dont worry you will remember things soon... Prof wont make u forget everything... lel...
(You must be thinking how I know all these infos, especially that EMJ thing which is soooooooooo secret??? Well for that... HACKING PAYSSSSSS!!!!)
He finished there bringing a large smile on my face with his texting style. "Great... Just great..." I sighed.
He kept on giving me that irritated look and thus I finally said "Okay come to the canteen! I will see what I can do!"
I was finally happy, as we walked towards the canteen, to have a meal together. That would be our party!
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To be continued in chapter 3...