The lights flickered again always at the same time every night since she’s been there which by her count has been nearly 2 weeks and she hasn’t had one decent night sleep however not because of the flickering lights. The lights she noticed as a result of her insomnia and her insomnia is the result of the car crash she was involved with that sent her here to Scarlett Bridge hospital.
The crash severed both her legs just below the knee but that didn’t compare to the other part of her life that got torn from her and now without him she felt numb and despondent. Her husband Rick was her soul mate and they married for 7 long but happy years before a drunk driver came barreling down the wrong way of a one way street ploughing into their small hatchback which crumpled like tissue paper.
Although she knew he was gone she still sometimes expected him to walk through the door unharmed as if everything was just some sort of elaborate prank and thinking about this she grasped that was the reason why she couldn’t sleep: she is still waiting for him.
The lights flickered yet again but this time after it recovered there came a faint roar from below her room as if the devil himself was in some sort of agony.
Curiosity got the better of her so she ripped off the covers and slithered to the side of the bed where she lifted herself down to the waiting wheelchair which was only a minor struggle since she was quite an athletic woman. Now comfortable in the wheelchair she wheeled her way to the doorway and looked out down the hall.
The hospital was so quiet and dark it was hard to believe anything sinister might happen here and by the silence she was sure she was the only patient awake right now a situation she preferred since she felt she needed this distraction right now and no one was going to spoil it. She bit her lip judging whether to explore the hospital or go back but before she made up her mind a steady unearthly groan echoed from down the hall originating from the stairs leading to the morgue at that point her mind was made up.
She rolled her wheelchair down the hall cautiously thinking at any point the being the voice belonged to could bound up the stairs to her but that didn’t stop her as she had to know what was making the noise even if it were just some leaky pipes.
Luckily no such creature revealed itself yet the groaning continued as she got to the top of the stairs and looked down to the next level where she could just about see flashes of light like sparks were cascading around the halls below. She thought it was just some faulty wiring at first however, with reflection, the faults wouldn’t account for the monstrous groaning she had heard before but then she heard a different voice
“Ha that should do it now! It will work this time!” it was a deep voice and one that she had not heard in the hospital before. In that instant questions flooded her brain, questions like: what will work? Who is down there and what is he doing in the morgue at this time of night?
She decided her questions desperately needed answering, so disregarding caution she proceeded down into the depths of the hospital and into the morgue. She crawled on her stomach since the chair would make a racket coming down the stairs potentially spooking the man down there so her questions went unanswered and she also didn’t feel altogether safe on it so belly crawling would be her most secure way of investigating.
Down she slithered to the bottom level and past several empty rooms hoping at each one she would finally see the source of her suspicion but with each passing she got more and more impatient until lastly she came to end of the long hall where the last room was, she heard someone rummaging around inside.
‘Finally’ she mouthed opening the door a crack in anticipation since the obscure night was reaching its crescendo and now so was the sparks. They were a lot more of them now and now she knew why: above an operating table stood two large metal domes each one producing a number of lightning bolts, electrifying the table and creating the flurry of sparks however she soon realized it was not the table the bolts were striking, as she once again heard the monstrous groan.
At her view she could not see what was on the table so with some effort and an excruciating amount of pain she dragged herself to her knees and at last set her eyes on the cause of her evenings adventure but once she took one look she gasped in horror and her blood ran cold making her lose any balance she had she fell back to the ground.
On the table was a man but not a complete man, parts where missing and replaced by metal. He had one metal arm and both legs were metal up to the hips with half his chest also covered by the bizarre technology, although that wasn’t what shocked her most and what did was the fact she recognized the half man on the table instantly, no matter if half his face was fused with the metal. She forced her whole body forward against the door
“No!!” she screamed at the lone scientist facing the computer screen who looked up in surprise, securely thinking he would never be disturbed doing his work down here.
“What are you doing here?” he commanded stalking across the room towards her but before he got there an abrupt beeping came from the computer that made him freeze in place and look back sharply at the console then his eyes darted forward at the cyborg who had started twitching and moving of his own free will, murmurings from the monster became more audible and soon a human voice can be heard.
“Oh yes that’s done it! It worked it finally worked!” he shouted with a disturbing amount of delight but then the eye of the monster opened his one eye wide and screamed becoming conscious and back from the dead. It sat bolt upright on the table with his wife cowering and flinching back in fear since she didn’t know if this monstrosity was truly her husband or if the technology has fully taken over his mind.
The half human locked his eye on the reflection in the door window and became still for a second then he slowly raised his robotic arm, which made an unnatural whirring sound to the part of his face that was encased in metal.
“What am I?” It asked itself in a half human voice but before anyone could react it jumped off the operating table and sprinted forward out the door colliding his new knee with his wife’s chest sending her hurling back against the wall, knocking her unconscious.
The scientist ran to the door but by the time he got there the cyborg was nowhere to be seen so he kneeled down to the unconscious lady and performing a few checks he concluded that she will only have a slight concussion when she woke up but then he noticed the two stubs where the rest of her legs should be. His eyebrows narrowed in thought.
She woke up back in her hospital bed the next morning with a start when memories of last night came back to her and a familiar face took her hand in an attempt to calm her slightly but it wasn’t the face of her husband it was the scientist from last night.
“Good morning Eve, I’m sure you will have a lot of questions all of which I will answer for you in just a moment but first I’m afraid you sustained a head injury last night so you will need try to relax and drink plenty of water, I’m not here to hurt you in any way I assure you,” he took a glass of water in his hand as he stood up and tilting her head gently back with comfort he let her take a few refreshing gulps.
She surprised herself just how thirsty she was and how efficient and how caring his bedside manor was so much so she didn’t know whether to be frightened or thankful of the doctor.
After he set the water back down on the bedside table and retired back to the chair he gave her a long kind look “Now about last night,” he started “for a while now I have been tasked by the government to create the best and most advanced technology for soldiers with amputated limbs however due to budget cuts they regrettably decided to pull my funding no matter how close I got to the perfect prototype. So I decided to experiment without the government’s knowledge and believe me” he leaned forward “it was not a decision taken lightly since I knew mistakes can easily happen in the civilian world which takes us to last night. I needed to run trials on the recently deceased because I can still test the brain function and live subjects could be problematic as you might imagine however the technology fused with your husband successfully but there was a side effect. He came back to life” he smiled and even chuckled slightly, Eve definitely felt a weird vibe radiating off him but there was still something she wanted to know, she cleared her throat.
“Where is Adam now?” she asked, his smile faded and he looked down
“I’m sorry, so sorry but I don’t know where your husband is right now” he looked back up to her “I saw you hit your head and it was pretty bad, I couldn’t just leave you there so if you’re up for it I recommend we search for him together”
“Together? But I can’t walk” she almost yelled “and I’m only just getting used to the damn wheelchair” she started to get upset now thinking that her husband is out there confused and scared out of his wits.
“Oh my dear” he said trying to reassure her by taking her hand once again “you haven’t been listening. My experiments are for amputees” at which point he lifted the covers over her legs to reveal two hi tech metal legs.
Her mouth went wide in shock with her heart thundering inside her chest and looking up at the doctor who was smiling happily for her, she smiled back and stood up for the first time in two weeks. At first she wobbled slightly but with support from the doctor she finally made it to the window where she looked out and made a promise that she will find her husband soon. A single tear trickled down her cheek.
