Waking Dead

A person can dream their entire life, only to wake from it soon after. A person can hope their entire life, until it gets crushed by reality. A person can live their entire life, until they lose hope. A person can live their entire life, until they forget how to dream. You see, to hope, is just to dream.

---

Sometimes I dream of a life I wanted. I can see myself standing surrounded by friends, I can see myself better than I am. I can see myself above it all, I feel free. And then when I wake up, surrounded by no one, surrounded by the darkness of the morning, surrounded by the biting cold, I only want to dream some more.

And now I see nothing, I am in a dream that hasn't ended, a dream I can't wake up from. Yet this is no dream I wanted. I hear nothing, I see nothing, I am just here. The one thing that lets me know I'm alive is the biting cold that surrounds me. But when I go to touch my body I don't feel anything touch back. I. Am. Stuck.

.....

Today is the same as last, what day is it even, how long has it been since I woke up? I can't remember, but all that remains is the cold. Sometimes I don't even know if I'm real, all I can do is think, so surely? But nothing lets me know I exist beside the cold, and even that is losing its warmth.

Just when I start to descend into madness I feel something different than ever before, for once I actually feel something warm. It started as a simple touch, like someone holding my hand, but then it soon spread all over, like a thick blanket covering you on a cold winter's day.

This stimulation is something I desperately needed, I don't know if you've ever been alone, I mean truly alone, it drives one mad. Why do I even speak like someone is listening, perhaps I have gone mad? The warmth lets me know once and for all that I am alive. But why can't I feel anything? Why can't I see anything?

These are the questions I ask on repeat, it becomes my mantra, just to keep myself sane. Then I start thinking of how I ended up here. I remember saving a little girl and then falling to what I thought was my death.

I then felt a burning hatred as I remember how I laughed. I am overcome with a maddening rage as I realized that I wasn't at fault. I was a product of my environment, and if that's the case, to achieve what I want, why don't I change the environment? I feel anger wash over me as I realize the problem, its not me, its other people!

Suddenly everything clicked together, I finally had something to look forward to. I finally knew what I wanted.

One issue remains though, even now, more than ever, I am utterly powerless to change anything.

And then time started to blur, I can't seem to remember how much time passed.

Anger, hatred, pain, rage, despair. These are what fueled me, these are what pushed me forward.

And then one day, I was finally able to open my eyes.

---

Checking into work was the same every day, nothing ever changed. I liked this comfort though, knowing nothing would change was always the best, then you never had to do anything different.

As I signed in I knew it would be another day, one to look forward to.

Going into the room right across from reception I started to get dressed for the day. It was the same routine, this part never changed. I undressed and folded my clothing as I pulled out a different set of clothing from my locker. I always made quick work, and today was no different.

And just like that, I was ready to begin another day. Looking down at my watch I stepped out of the locker room, I counted down, "one", "two", and "three".

"Good morning Tom, ready for another day?"

Phil, the security guard, was a very predicable man, not only that, but he was your average middle-aged man, I liked Phil for this.

"As always!", I respond with a wide smile on my face. It really was a great day to be alive.

And then I start doing my rounds, thankfully my work is always the same. But different than any other day I came up to the special ward, unfortunately, we are short-staffed, so I needed to fill in some positions. One of those positions was taking care of the special ward's patients, and this was one of my jobs today. Truthfully I wasn't really looking forward to this, this fell outside my schedule, but money is money, and I wanted to get paid.

These were patients that needed to be treated differently, normally I would just do what was needed, but here, you needed to do what wasn't, you needed to do it all. These were patients of high-class families, or just patients that were special, only the richest, you could say.

Even then it's not like anything changed, my job was to take care of patients who aren't conscious, or patients who are in a comatose state. Even today, without the extra positions that weren't filled, this was still my job, just this time it was taking care of the special ward's patients.

Cleaning the bedsheets, stretching their limbs, washing them, brushing their teeth. Really I did it all, even though we might say we take extra special care we don't really. Of course, appearances are everything, so we do use higher quality care in general, but even then it's not much different from how you'd normally be treated. But some patients ABSOLUTELY needed to be treated like an idol.

I was approaching one of those patients now. I really started to get nervous, if I made a mistake here it would mean pissing off some really powerful people. Needless to say, no one wanted that, so I needed to take extra, extra, caution. I am not a religious man, but I made sure to send my prayers.

I made sure to take a breath before I opened the door. And when I entered you could see just how important this person was. Marble walls were inlaid with gold patterns, and golden vines snaked up the marble wall as if it were alive, a beautifully illustrated portrait of a man lay barren on an opposing wall. The entire northern wall was made of glass, one-sided of course, the room was pretty large, about 7m x 7m. And to top it off there was a beautifully handcrafted chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

This was a room decorated by one of the most important figures in this city, Corrado 'The Banker' Scalzetti.

That man had ties with some of the largest banking associations around, he even had his own association, an organization that grew ever more important with time. He was truly powerful, and enormously wealthy. The Scalzetti's weren't actually around for all that long, just one generation. It only took one generation for them to become one of the most powerful people in the state. It should show just how dangerous they were.

Oddly enough though this patient wasn't directly tied with the Scalzetti's, from what he heard when the patient was admitted, was that he saved someone important to the Scalzetti's. How that could even happen boggled my mind, the Scalzetti's weren't people that needed saving, or any help for that matter.

This only made me even more nervous, that meant this patient was someone really important.

Only after a moment of gathering my nerves did I approach the bed of the patient, his bed was laying in the middle of the room, adjacent to the window. Even the bed was luxuriously crafted, but that didn't matter now, it was time to check vitals.

By using machines stationed around the bed I started taking the tests. His pulse was strong, blood levels fine, and he looked healthy, but his muscles have deteriorated over time, even with constant exercise it was hard to fix atrophy. The patient still seemed to be in a comatose state, signs of cognition were constant though, and for that matter strong? Odd, the patient hasn't shown signs this strong since admission.

This patient suffered severe trauma to the head and spine, on admission we found that he had suffered a fatal fracture in his lower spinal cord, which led to the loss of mobility from the waist down. From the very little the Scalzetti's said it seemed like he fell in a canal during peak flooding hours. Just from basic deduction, and looking at the trauma sights, it seemed like the patient got hit with something hard when hell fell unconscious underwater; most likely a large chunk of debris crashing into him, or him crashing into a large chunk of debris. Not only that but the patient's heart and brain activity were stopped until he was recovered from the Scalzetti's.

This man shouldn't be alive right now, he was past the critical point for having no brain and heart activity. But thanks to the Scalzetti's he was alive now, only by affording experimental drugs. In fact, that was what was so crazy about seeing this strong brain activity, these drugs had an impact on mental cognition and personality. It wouldn't be weird to see a decrease or complete change in personality, but yet here he was showing strong brain activity.

Anyways, that's not important right now, what is, is to ensure his recovery. That being said, he had no expected recovery at all, he would be crippled if he woke up, and that's even if he could wake up. It has already been two years since his admission, and he has shown no sign of progress.

*BEEP!, BEEP!, BEEP!*

Huh? That's odd. Why is his heart rate rising, he has been given no stimulants.

No way. Did his hand just twitch? That's never happened before. Movement under the eyelids!?

---

What's the first thing you do when you wake up from a dream, continue to stay in bed longer hoping to dream again? What's the first thing you do when you open your eyes, close them again hoping to fall back asleep?

Perhaps if you've woken from a nightmare... You'd never want to sleep again.

.....

And then one day, I was finally able to open my eyes.

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