Awake

I wake up shivering.

The chill is confusing--I remember turning up the thermostat before I went to bed last night. My thoughts are sleep-slow and I struggle to process the discrepancy. I should be in my apartment, wrapped in blankets, listening to the chirp of cicadas outside my window. I should be curled on my side, nestled into the warmth of my fiancee's body.

I am not.

I'm lying on my back. Something cold and hard presses against my spine, my shoulders, my arms and legs. The immediacy of the frigid material against my skin makes me register, suddenly, that I am naked, and with this realization comes fear. A rush of terror renders me motionless, heart accelerating, and I am too frightened to open my eyes. I try to count to ten but my pulse is roaring in my ears too loud for me to hear my own thoughts. I am not where I should be. I am not safe.

I squeeze my eyes closed tighter, and try to remember who and where I am.

I am twenty-three years old. I work at a retail pharmacy chain. Yesterday we were short-handed, as we've been ever since one of the other techs was caught stealing Vicodin from the vault. I filled prescriptions, made phone calls, and drank four cups of coffee. A normal day. I took the 73 bus home and read a Stephen King novel until my fiancee Alex got home. We ordered pizza for dinner and argued about politics. I skimmed through the photos my mom sent me of her Bermuda vacation with her new boyfriend. Alex and I kissed good night, and I drifted off thinking about our wedding invitations. That's the last thing I remember before falling asleep.

An idea surfaces. I stop mid-thought. Before falling asleep.

Of course.

I let out a breath of relief. That's it. This is a dream. It makes sense now.

I've always had vivid nightmares. I don't always remember their contents, but I remember the sensations--terror. Pain. Anger. This is just another iteration of a dreamed-up horrorscape invented by my troubled brain. I've never known exactly what causes them, but my penchant for reading horror novels despite them scaring me shitless might have something to do with it. Alex once tried to convince me to stop reading them. Sometimes I regret not listening.

The revelation that my surroundings aren't real is comforting, but the relief is fleeting: I've never been able to control my dreams or wake myself up. Whatever my nightmare holds, I'll have to live through it. I gather my courage.

I slowly open my eyes.

The ceiling is white plaster, shadowed and featureless. The light in the room is provided by a smooth strip of blue fluorescent lighting on the wall to the left; beneath it is an empty counter atop a set of drawers. This seems like a very small hospital room, approximately the dimensions of a twin-size bed. A steel-lined hatch on the far wall appears to be the only exit. A fitting start to a nightmare for a claustrophobe. My pulse quickens even as I remind myself again that this isn't real.

I look to my right and find an electronic panel set into the wall, with glowing buttons and readouts soundlessly tracking my pulse, my blood pressure, and other numbers I can't begin to interpret. A bright red light catches my eye, pulsing next to a label. I crane my neck to read the word. It says "conscious."

I move to get up to examine the panel more closely, but I can't. I look down. My forearms are held in place by thick metal bands attached to the smooth metal of the table I'm lying on. My ankles are similarly restrained, but I can barely see them because there is also a thin metal latch holding my neck down.

It's becoming harder to force air into my lungs and back out. I want to wake up. I know it won't work, but I pinch the skin of my thigh as hard as I can, digging my nails in.

Nothing changes. The suffocating silence stretches on. The red light on the panel flashes rhythmically.

I hear noises outside the room, and my breathing shifts into a harsh staccato. The hatch unlocks with a metallic clank.

It swings open. I am afraid to look, but I look anyway. It is the last person I would have expected.

"Oh thank God," I sob.

The dream has given me one good thing. It's Alex.

He ducks under the hatch and enters quickly. I drink in the sight of him desperately. Short brown hair, long lashes, six foot one. He's wearing a lab coat, which isn't unusual--he works at a university research lab. His green eyes meet mine.

"Alex," I breathe, "I am so damn happy to see you."

He looks away and moves quickly to look at the panel in the wall. I watch him survey the readouts, lingering on the pulsing red light. A matching warning light flickers on in my head. Something is wrong.

"Alex," I try again, pleading, "please just get me out of here."

"That's not my name," he says sharply, still looking at the readouts. He punches in a few numbers on a keypad, faster than I can read them.

I'm confused, and now wary. Something is very wrong with my fiancee. I should have known better than to hope. I stare at his back, at the body I remember holding in my arms a few hours ago. At the hand that does not bear an engagement ring.

"What do you mean?" I say. He doesn't reply. "Please, tell me what's going on."

It might be the tremor in my voice that finally catches his attention. He turns to look at me. "I realize this may be disorienting, but my name isn't Alex, and I'm not here to help you." He sighs, shakes his head. "It's best for you if you just stay quiet."

It's the pity in his expression that terrifies me most. Not empathy, not love, not even anger. Seeing the man I love look at me this way sends a sharp spike of horror shooting back through me. I know his face by heart, have kissed his lips a thousand times and run my fingers through his hair. But this man doesn't know me, doesn't love me, doesn't care.

Before I can say a word, I hear footsteps again. The rapid click of high heels approaching the open hatch. Alex--not Alex--looks at the hatch, lips tight. I know that look. Bracing for impact.

The clacking pauses as the woman makes an annoyed noise at the low height of the hatch, stoops to enter, and straightens, readjusting her hair.

I stare at her, eyes wide. I can't process the sheer impossibility of it. There's a sick feeling in my stomach. I might vomit. If you vomit in a dream, do you do it in real life too?

This is fucked up.

Her hairstyle is different, and so are her clothes. She wears all white: pencil skirt, blouse, and heels. Even the clip in her hair matches her bleached wardrobe, stark against her dark hair. But the shape of her eyes, the curve of her lips, the high cheekbones, the small nose---that's all mine. That's my face, my torso, my legs, down to the small birthmark above my knee.

I'm looking in a mirror. Despite the clothes and the hair, she is unmistakably me.

Jesus. My subconscious has issues.

She's angry. I've never seen myself angry before. The lips twisted in annoyance, a glare that could melt metal. I didn't know I could look so intimidating.

"What the fuck happened?" she snaps at not-Alex. My voice exactly. "Why is it awake?"

"I'm so sorry for the inconvenience, Ms. Weiss," he replies, tilting his head deferentially. He gestures at the panel in the wall. "There was a malfunction with the stasis system. We alerted you as soon as we could."

"I don't want to be alerted, I want you to fix it. God! This is supposed to be a state-of-the-art facility." Her hands rest on her hips, as mine always do when I'm annoyed. Even her posture is mine.

"I apologize. Our engineers are just about finished with the fix now," he says, checking a smartwatch-like device on his wrist. He taps the screen and nods. "Yes, they're deploying it now. It'll just be a few minutes. We'll need your approval to put her back down."

"I don't see why I had to come here for that," she says. "I would have sent an e-sig. I had to leave in the middle of a meeting."

He sighs. He pushes his hair back with a hand, a painfully familiar gesture. "It's company policy. You know what the political environment is like. All the talk about biomatter rights. We have to be careful."

"Whatever," she says irritably. She surveys the room with obvious distaste, lingering on my body but not making eye contact.

I decide this is as good a time as any to say something.

"Alex," I try one more time. I know it isn't really him, but I can't bear to call him anything else. "What's going on?" I wish my voice sounded stronger. My version is a wisp compared to hers.

He looks annoyed. The woman looks at me as if I'm a dog who has learned to speak. She glances at not-Alex, eyebrows raised, expecting an explanation. He rolls his eyes. Even though it isn't him, it still hurts to see that disdain.

"I look like her fiancee," he tells her, not acknowledging me. "The sim just uses whatever elements are convenient."

"Well that's revolting," she says. "Can you just put it back down? It's staring at me and it's creepy as fuck."

She looks directly at me. I realize belatedly that she's talking about me. I am "it" to her. To her, this figment of my imagination. My knee-jerk reaction is anger, sharpened by fear. I speak before I can stop myself.

"Excuse me, I'm right here, and you're the one who's a manifestation of my subconscious."

There is a pregnant pause. Her eyes bore into mine--the same eyes. My heart skips a beat, and I immediately regret speaking, but I refuse to back down. She steps closer to the metal table, leans closer. Despite her appearance, she feels less and less like me. When she speaks, her voice is quiet, but vicious.

"You don't even have a name. You're a bag of blood and spare organs. The only reason you're not a mindless slab of flesh is to keep the brain intact. That could change." Her voice is almost a hiss now. "So if you know what's good for you, I'd keep your mouth shut."

"You aren't real," I spit at her, with more bravery than I thought I had in me.

Her eyes narrow, and I think she might slap me. I stare up at her defiantly. Then her mouth twists into a smile. She looks up at the man who isn't my fiancee.

"What's your name?" she asks him brusquely.

"Ryan," he says warily.

"Well, Ryan, I think this model has been coddled too much in the sim. Let's make it a little more interesting, shall we?" she says airily.

"Interesting...how?" he asks.

"Start by killing off the fiancee. Slow and painful. Then the parents. Then wake it up and let it fester for a few days. Once it breaks, wipe and loop it."

Ryan looks nervous. "That could cause serious psychological trauma to the model."

She shrugs. "The organs will be undamaged. And there are always others." She lays a proprietary hand on my leg. I long to rip it away from her, but I can't move. She finally takes it away and folds her arms.

My pulse is accelerating again. My lungs have contracted to the size of a fist. I need to wake up. Now. This isn't real. This can't be real. Breathe. Wake up. Instinctually I start pulling against the metal restraints on my hands, feet, and neck. They are immovable. It only makes my panic rise faster.

"Stop this," I manage, to no one in particular. "Just stop. Please."

"Don't worry," my doppelganger says with poisonous sweetness. "You won't remember." She nods at my naked body as I writhe against my restraints. The cold metal chafes my skin. "Ryan, put it down."

"The fix isn't deployed yet--" he begins, but she interrupts.

"Do it manually."

"Manually?" he asks incredulously. "That's against procedure.."

"Do you want my business or not?" she snaps. "This has been enough of a fiasco. I can easily take my money elsewhere. Put it down, now."

He still hesitates, and it makes her angrier. She holds up her wrist device and moves her other hand over it, ready to swipe. "Now. Or I leave, and you lose one of your top clients. Not to mention your job."

"Don't," I say wildly, knowing that whatever this means, it cannot be good. "Please, Ale--Ryan, please. I'm human, I'm real. You know that. You can't do this."

After knowing that face for five years, I can read the internal struggle he's going through. I also see the moment when he acknowledges defeat. Any doubt he might feel over what he is about to do is overridden by self-preservation. His features grow cold and resolute. He doesn't look at me.

"Yes, ma'am," he says. I watch as he presses a small black button on the upper left hand corner of the wall panel. A password prompt appears on a small screen, and he enters the correct numbers quickly, as if the keypad burns his fingers. Again, the screen asks for confirmation. He confirms. A low beep sounds, and a small section of the panel slides back to reveal something. I twist my body to get a better view.

Ryan takes out a small device, metallic and oblong. He uncaps the narrow end to reveal a sharp point. It looks like a cross between a needle and a drill. As he grasps the device's handle, it makes a whirring noise and a band of light near the handle glows green.

"Oh, by the way," the woman interjects. "Before you finish with it, let me give it a glimpse of what it really looks like." She smiles at me. "Heaven knows you don't look quite like me anymore."

She points her wrist device at me, and there must be a camera of some sort on it, because in the next moment, an image is projected from the device. A face.

It can't be mine.

This face is grotesque, stripped of skin, red and pockmarked. Its eyes are wide with horror and fear, stark against the ravaged flesh around it. Its mouth is open, trembling, above the metal band that circles its neck. It is ruined.

The woman taps her wrist and the image disappears. "I needed skin grafts a few months ago. Took quite a bit of your blood, too."

My body is shuddering, shivering, rejecting what I've seen. No. This is not real.

"Go ahead," the woman tells Ryan. He has been waiting with the device in his hands. Now he steps close to the metal table and lowers the sharp needle. It moves out of my field of vision, towards the opening in the underside of the table where I can feel the back of my neck exposed. I'm begging, thrashing against the restraints.

"Please, please, don't," I gibber, "please please don't."

I see a flash of it before his features smooth back out--pity. He pities me. His face is no longer familiar. I don't know him. I don't know myself.

"I'm sorry," he says. He jams the needle into my neck. The pain is unimaginable.

I start screaming, and I do not stop.

---

---

I wake with a start, covered in blankets and sweat. I'm gasping for breath. I thrash until I fight off the blankets that are restricting my movement. Alex is already sitting up beside me. He grabs my shoulders, and I struggle automatically for a moment before he turns me to face him.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. It was just a dream," he says. His green eyes gaze into mine, and for a moment I'm struck with a nameless horror, as if I do not know him, as if he is a stranger rather than the man I love.

After a moment, it fades, and I relax in his grasp. "Alex," I say.

"You screamed," he says, looking concerned. "You haven't done that in a long time. I think the nightmares are getting worse."

I do remember screaming in my dream, but nothing else. Just the feelings. The horrible feelings.

I rest my head on Alex's shoulder. Pain shoots through the back of my neck---I must have slept at a bad angle.

"It was awful," I tell him.

"It's okay now," he says softly. "It wasn't real."

"Yeah," I breathe. The room is a little colder than I remember it being, so I stay close to Alex. "I'm awake now."

Submitted May 19, 2018 at 11:04AM by capyhappy https://ift.tt/2KF2lMK