2 1.2
Cold fingers grazed my bare abdomen as the fabric covering me lifted, exposing my skin to air. I tried and failed to open my eyes or move. Instead, I could only lay helplessly as my stomach was completely exposed for those cold hands to touch me again.
Who would be touching me if he was dead? He was dead right?
At those thoughts, adrenaline coursed through my veins as I let out a feeble scream. Instinctively I rolled away from the touch, my body hitting a metal rail.
Eyes blinking open to a bright light, I tried my best to take in my surroundings and assess this new danger.
The danger was in the form of a short, stocky, middle-aged woman in a white lab coat. She stood over the other side of the bed, pale-faced.
"This is a hospital," her voice was pitchy as she raised her hands slowly, "I'm a doctor," then she pointed to the ID card pinned to her lab coat. My eyes squinted to read 'Dr. Fang'. "I was only checking the recovery of your wound," her eyes drifted to the reddening gauze on my stomach.
Why was she so scared of me? My body was so weak and feeble… then again, I had killed a man.
The memories, the only memories I could find, flooded my mind alongside a sharp pain in my temple. Groaning, I gripped it with both hands.
"Miss Wei, are you in pain?" Swiftly she moved to press a button on the wall at the head of the hospital bed. Then forgetting all her previous fear, she pulled my hands from tearing at my hair, coaxing me to sit still.
When I looked at her face, gone was the kind doctor, instead cold blue eyes were all I saw, filled with accusation.
"I k-killed a man," I whispered in disbelief, lips quivering whilst tears streamed down my cheeks.
Warm hands enclosed my trembling cold. Her thumb stroked comfortingly against my skin. If only I could find solace in her touch.
"I killed him," I spoke again, my voice firmer.
"No honey," she shook her head, "you survived."
***
"Hello Wei Zhiyue," I glanced at my reflection for the third time.
Leaning on the edge of the bathroom sink, I awkwardly moved the muscles in my face trying to get accustomed to the stranger in the mirror.
During my brief talk with Dr. Fang, whilst she and a nurse detached my humiliated self from many wires -a catheter was not an experience I wanted to endure again- she'd answered a few questions I'd had about myself.
None of it felt familiar.
I guess I really had amnesia. Whether it was down to just my head injury or psychological, Dr. Fang was unsure. Only time would tell.
It had taken a lot of negotiating to be left alone after the nurse helped me shower. I'd lingered a while in the bathroom, finding solace in being alone to study myself.
Such a childishly innocent-looking face I wore, behind the long mahogany damp curls that clung to a small, pale frame.
It was hard to imagine I was twenty-two, only the gentle curves of my bust and hips showed I had the maturity of a woman. I was not the frightened little girl I felt inside.
No matter how long I gazed into these amber eyes, they belonged to a total stranger.
"Host."
At the sound of a voice, I snatched the hanging towel to wrap around my frame. It made me feel even smaller as I scanned the room for the source of the weird, androgynous voice.
"Host, can you hear me?"
After frantically searching for a sign of a device or speaker anywhere, I concluded it was empty and I was hallucinating things.
Shaking the paranoid thoughts away, I gingerly stumbled to the shower seat. Sitting with a groan, I decided to finally get dressed. I'd stood there long enough that I was now bone dry.
"Not only am I an amnesiac, but I get to be insane as well, yay," I sarcastically cursed at myself, whilst angrily stomping my foot through the hospital's blue and white striped pyjamas.
"I don't think I'm qualified to diagnose your mental health," the voice startled me again. Jumping up in fright, still only half-dressed, my wound pulled, forcing me to collapse forward to grip the sink edge.
"Who, no, what are you?" I asked, panting and trying to muster up the strength to stand tall again. Catching my reflection in the mirror I paused, was it two-way? At that thought, I snatched the shirt and slid it on.
"Shit. Have you lost your memories also?" The voice sounded just as panicked as I felt.
Fumbling with the buttons of the pyjama shirt, I felt ashamed and apologised to the weird voice in fear, "I'm sorry."
Was I truly insane? Was this an alter ego? Would it hurt me?
"Aiyayaya, I won't hurt you," for a moment it almost sounded cute, "I'm a System, your System, I swear I didn't do anything wrong, I swear."
"Don't you know that by denying it so adamantly it only emphasises your guilt?" I frowned, then raised my hand to stroke at my throbbing temples. "Besides you said so yourself, you cannot remember anything, so what if you really are the one who did this?"
Realising it was now ignoring me, I began to search my scalp for signs of injury or interference, my paranoia reaching new limits into the realm of sci-fi.
"You won't find anything," it finally retorted, sounding pissed off.
"You're definitely inside my head?" I asked, still searching my scalp, then I began to search my body. All I could find were the signs of love bites, some real bite marks on my inner thigh, and a few bruises, alongside the thick white gauze on my stomach.
"Kind of," it answered eventually.
Instead of fearing the voice, I grew only curious. I glanced at my reflection, trying to find something, anything.
"Are you AI?" I voiced my only thought, overly hopeful that it was true so I was not insane.
"How can you compare me to a mere string of code?" It sounded aggrieved as it complained.
What was so wrong with being AI?
"What I am is beyond your imagination," its once cute, meek voice was now filled with arrogance, "I am a living being that has chosen to aid you."
My knees wobbled, struggling to maintain my current position. Leaning against anything my hands could reach, I slowly staggered back to the hospital bed.
Once sunk into the plush, white covers, I groaned realising the pain hurt a lot more than I thought it did. Acknowledging the pain only opened the floodgates for it to run rampant through my aching body.
I needed more of those drugs. I raised my hand for the nurse call button.
"No need to poison your new body with opiates," System beamed in my head.
Still not used to the sudden voice appearing out of the blue, my trembling hand dropped the nurse call button onto the floor, making me curse out loud.
A warm sensation gathered in my head, then spread slowly down to my abdomen, ending at my wound. The pain gradually dulled into a minor annoyance, reminding me of what that man had done to me in the room.
"Did you just do that?" I asked, genuinely terrified. This was supposed to be my body. If it could control and manipulate things inside of my body, what else could it make me do?
"Who else? You feel better now right?"
"No need to sound so full of yourself." I scoffed, glancing nervously at the still-white gauze. Thankfully I wouldn't have to listen to Dr. Fang's scoldings again for reopening it.
Could a hallucination have such a strong impact on my mind?
"For the last time," it sounded irritated, "I am not a hallucination or AI. I am alive, we would have bonded in the void for us to be here."
"The void?" Curiosity overcame my fearful inner monologue.
"Death, the afterlife, the underworld, Heaven, Hell, or whatever else you humans call it."
The blood had been dark and crusty, he had said she had died, though not me. My memories began to spiral out of control, the horrid feeling of being trapped inside his arms.
"Calm down Host, I'm here," System soothed me, flooding my whole body with warmth, like being hugged from the inside out.
If I'd been in the void, that meant I, whoever I was, had died right?
"So… you're original carbon-based shell should have expired for us to have met…"
I almost choked on my spit. Carbon-based shell?
"So I am dead?"
"Unfortunately so."
"Then this body? She died too?"
"Yes, we can only enter a freshly dead corpse at our weak level," it replied.
"So I am possessing a corpse?" Cold chills crept up my spine.
"Semantics," System quipped.
