The prisoner lay rigid, prone and unmoving as he had been for several days. He was somewhere between thirty and thirty-five years of age, dark-haired, fair-skinned, and quite solidly unconscious. His name, though he had no way of knowing it in his state, was Dr. Aaron Sarc
As was typical of someone who had spent any period of time in an induced coma, Dr. Sarc was not in particularly good shape. He had multiple injuries, some visible and some not. He was ill, as well; running a temperature of 104. Of course, he was blissfully unaware of all these unfortunate circumstances due to his unconscious condition.
It was an ignorance not meant to last long, however. He was completely alone in the hold, so it was without any environmental stimulation or prompting whatsoever that Dr. Aaron Sarc began to wake up.
He felt himself rising to consciousness, which was strange, because he couldn't remember falling asleep. He felt it, though: the familiar inrush of awareness that came from awakening.
The only awareness he was getting, however, was that of the awakening itself.
He wanted to open his eyes, but he didn't like the feeling of uncertainty he had about what he would see if he did so. He registered that he had no idea where he was, and began searching his memory for the last thing he'd done before he'd gone to sleep…
But he found nothing.
Nothing definitive, at any rate; his memory was an unrecognizable blur. He couldn't clearly recall a single thing. No past event, recent or not; not even his own name.
Desperately, he continued to search his mind. Perhaps something awful had happened and he was in the hospital. He tried to think of a name he could call, if he could manage to speak…perhaps there was somebody there with him. A few names-Annie, Lyn, Alexandra-filtered through his consciousness, but he couldn't connect any of them with an actual image of a person.
After a moment, driven by a need simply to know something, he opened his eyes.
They were very unusual eyes; such a light green that they were almost gray. They would have been striking if there had been anyone around to be struck by them, but as it was, he was the only person in the room.
It was a plain, unadorned room, and he didn't recognize it. It was small (which was a bit of an issue, as he'd never liked small spaces) and very empty. He was lying on a cot, and he could tell that he had been there for quite some time; longer than any person should be in one spot unless they were dying, at any rate.
Was that what had happened? Had he been dying?
He didn't feel like he was dying now, although he was terribly stiff. He tried to sit up, but he couldn't, because his wrists were chained.
Damn it all, he thought. He realized, then, that he had to be a prisoner. What other explanation could there be?
But a prisoner of whom? And why? His memory was still a big, frustrating blur of indiscernible sensations, no matter how much he strained it.
There was an intercom by the door, if only he could get to it. He pulled at the chains on his wrists, but they didn't yield (not that he had expected them to). He looked around the room again hoping to see something, anything, that could potentially break the chains.
Of course, there was no such thing, and really, he wasn't sure how he would have gotten it if there had been. He did, however, notice as he scanned the room that there were holes drilled into his door, which triggered the knowledge that he was in the brig of a space vessel. Indeed, as he came to this realization, he also became conscious of the humming of an engine. Whatever vessel he was on was going somewhere. A thought occurred to him suddenly; a strange thought, but one that carried with it some sort of memory: Am I in the Twilight Zone?
Yeah, a pleasant awakening that would be. Any moment now, Rod Serling was going to walk through that door and explain what the hell was going on.
Of course, that didn't happen, and the prisoner was still alone. It was good to have remembered something solid, though; useless as it may have been in his present situation. Surely, he thought, if I can remember watching a hundred-some year old television show, I can remember my own name.
It was logical enough. He did have his name, somewhere in the back of his mind, but he couldn't quite call it up to the front.
He considered going back to sleep, in the vague hopes that he would wake up and be somewhere else where things made sense or he could at least remember who he was, but quickly nixed that idea. Surely, if he'd been lying comatose for days as he suspected he had, somebody would eventually come by to check on him, and they'd be able to explain who he was and where he was and why he was there now that he was awake.
He lay still for a few more minutes, trying to think, and then he registered that his face hurt. A lot. His left eye was throbbing, and he could tell there was an immense bruise on his lower jaw. He managed to raise his right shoulder (which also hurt like hell) up enough to touch it to his cheekbone. When he looked down at his shoulder, he saw dried blood from his face on the white cloth of his torn shirt.
Instinctively, he began checking himself for further injuries, fully expecting to find them. He was not wrong; when he moved his right leg, a sharp and intense pain rocketed up his thigh from his knee, and he cried out.
In short, he was a battered mess, and he had no idea whatsoever how he'd gotten that way. This cluelessness was worse than the physical pain, which was saying something. He leaned back, closing his eyes. "Help me," he muttered, more to see if his voice worked than in the hope that anyone would hear him. The sound of his voice was hoarse and low, as if it had been quite some time since he'd put it to use. He tried clearing his throat, but the action was far more painful than he had expected it to be, so he gave up.
He tried to maneuver into a position that was less agonizing, but there wasn't one. Any motion of his leg was out of the question, and his hands were connected to each other by a chain that stretched under the cot, so that however he lay, his knuckles dug into his back. This raised in his mind the question of how he'd remained there so long without cracking his ribs or at least bruising his back.
Or had it been so long? Perhaps his perception of time was skewed. Whether it was or wasn't, he understood that all he could do was wait. What it was he was waiting for, he did not know, but something had to happen eventually, didn't it?
Well, of course it did, he reasoned. Whoever else was on the ship (and there had to be someone else; or the vessel wouldn't be moving) wasn't simply going to let him die, although they seemed not to have been in any particular hurry to give him the medical attention he so clearly needed.
Fear, cold and icy, struck his heart at the thought.
He wished he could get to the intercom, but he knew that even if he could overcome the issue of his hands (which wasn't likely) he would still have to get up and walk over there. It was a distance of only ten feet or so, but he didn't think he'd be able to put any weight on his right leg for some time. The feel of it made him reasonably certain that his kneecap was shattered.
"Hello, anyone," he said vaguely. Damn, it hurt to talk, and it was useless anyway since he couldn't muster any real volume. Indeed, it would probably be useless even if he could. He sighed, and cringed when even that burned his throat.
He stayed where he was (it wasn't as if he had much choice) for several more moments, and then, almost miraculously, he heard something.
There was a hiss of air, of the sort that means an automatic door has just opened and shut. There were loud footsteps, and then a shape filled the holes that had been drilled into the door. The door slid open, and at the threshold stood a dark-haired, blue-suited woman.
Her eyes fell on his face, and widened with shock. He registered that she wasn't human, but he couldn't remember what species she was. She took tentative steps closer to him, lifting her feet unnaturally high (which accounted for the volume of her footsteps).
Staring at him, she cocked her head to the side, surprise still very apparent on her face. The prisoner realized that she was actually very pretty (not that it really mattered right then).
A few feet away from him now, she gazed straight into his eyes. "Doctor?" she said.
Instinctively, the prisoner glanced down, and realized he was wearing scrubs. Earlier, when he'd examined his knee, he'd been a bit too preoccupied with the pain to have taken notice of his wardrobe. "I suppose," he forced out, in light of this new discovery reflecting the truth of her address. "Where am I?"
The alien woman came closer and knelt beside him, and he studied her, trying to remember what species she was. She looked, basically, like a human, aside from her ears that came to a point at the top and the intricate, swirling sea foam green tattoos around her eyes and on her eyelids. As the doctor looked at them, he remembered, although he couldn't recall how he knew it.
"You're a Pallandarian," he said.
Her eyebrows drew together. "I am aware of that, thank you," she replied.
"Where am I?" the doctor asked again. He knew well enough that he was on a space vessel in the brig, but he was hoping for a bit more in-depth information.
The Pallandarian did not provide it; indeed, she made no reply at all. Instead, she touched the back of her hand, which was also tattooed in sea foam green, to his forehead. The doctor had been so distracted by the pain elsewhere in his body, he hadn't realized until then that he was burning with fever.
The Pallandarian pulled a shot from her pocket and injected something into the side of his neck. He tried to speak (even though it felt like someone very adept at making bonfires had made one in his throat using his vocal cords in place of wood) but the woman gave him a very severe look and shook her head.
She got down onto her stomach, reaching under the cot, and the doctor felt his arms drop as the wrist restraints were released. He cried out before he could stop himself; the pain in his shoulders was incredible. The Pallandarian refastened the cuffs to each other, but this time they were simply in front like normal handcuffs, which at least was some improvement. She began tending to the cut on his face, and removing the dried blood from it, and the doctor noticed the thin purple scar arcing from the corner of her left eye all the way down to her jaw.
Pallandarians have purple blood, he remembered, as he watched her bandage his face. He wondered, naturally, who she was and how she'd come to be there, but he simply couldn't summon the voice to ask.
When she was through with his face, the Pallandarian straightened up. "That is all I can do for you now," she told him.
The doctor didn't like this. His kneecap was shattered, for God's sake! And he still didn't know where he was or what he was doing there.
"I-" he began hoarsely, but she held up a hand and cut him off.
"I will return, Doctor," she said, "but I cannot do anything more now. I am sorry, but they cannot be allowed to notice."
"They?"
She nodded but did not elaborate. "I must go now," she said, and stood up to exit. Upon seeing the stricken look on the doctor's face, she said: "I promise, I shall be back. Later."
If she had thought that this would reassure him, she was mistaken.
The doctor sat up as best he could. He wanted to shout at her to stay and tell him who he was, not to mention who she was. He wanted to demand that she either fix his knee and the ten other things that were wrong with him, or find someone else who would. The pain in his throat, however, prevented him from saying anything, and he was once again alone.