Chapter 1
There was something to be said about revisiting old haunts, even if it was "old" by way of barely two months ago and I'll probably visit numerous more times in the future. The research lab was rather empty at this time of the year, but most of the people I wanted to find were present.
My supervisor was there as well as our research manager/lab secretary, whom we all likely owe our lives to at some point or another, and the two PhD students that were cramming the last leg of their thesis preparation before their defense. The end of summer tended to be like that. The other students were probably either off at class or off on vacation, and in my particular case, in the nebulous zone of being in-between places post Master's defense and pre-PhD suffering.
Gods, that still felt weird to think about.
Almost two whole years spent at this lab, knowing all these people, working with them, and in a rather embarrassing case, crying on them— and now I'll be moving away for a PhD in a mostly adjacent field but still two steps to the left.
Which was also the story of my life at this point, I guess. Work towards a goal, have it become in ingrained part of my personality, and nope the fuck out when the pieces wouldn't fit right.
Happened with transferring out of a program in first year, happened during clinical of neo-first year (quasi-second year), and now instead of the lauded medical doctor my miniature past self had wanted, I was fully on the path to become a doctor— PhD version.
Unless I end up starting, realizing how bad of a fit it was, and noping the hell out of that as well.
Life is… full of weird twists and turns, and I gotta say, having spent most of clinical practice in a pandemic probably didn't help with wanting to stick around in a clinical setting for the rest of my life anytime soon.
Although, that experience did give me a leg up in applying to both my graduate programs. Unfortunately, jokes on them. I haven't practiced clinically since finishing undergrad.
As it were, there were only a few more days before I was going to move to a different province for my PhD, with the full intent of moving back when it's over with. Maybe back into the family house, maybe find my own apartment if possible, albeit that sounds a bit like a silly dream in this economy.
…
One step at a time! Gotta survive PhD first.
Or— gotta deliver the souvenirs to my other supervisor first.
Having been a complete fool, my brain had gotten distracted chatting with people in the lab office and didn't notice said co-supervisor wandering out, and he didn't see me on the way out either, so now I'm gonna have to find him in the medical learner's building across the road, in his office, way up on the fifteenth floor.
Whelp! As long as I don't see anyone wheeling around brains on a trolley again, it'll be fine (long story). Hopefully all the wastewater from the burst… something two floors above have been fully cleaned out though, as I think there were rumors that it was somewhat uh. Radioactive.
Isn't research just wonderful?
(It's fascinating and amazing and you get to learn so much but the next time I have to write a thesis I'll probably just cry.)
(So. I'll probably just end up crying in three-ish years, continuously, and probably regret choosing academia. Everything's fine.)
At the very least, as long as I keep my credentials and keep up self-learning, if all else fails I can still probably find work in some sort of clinical setting as a part-timer, or return to work under one of the university professor's start-ups. One thing they don't tell you in undergrad is holy fuck a lot of professors have start-ups.
It makes sense? Since university funding isn't always… consistent? But oh my gods. The things they don't tell you about academia until you're up to your pits in lecture notes and Khan Academy videos, wading through the field with a perpetually bewildered expression of oh shit was I supposed to know that?
I think I might need another vacation.
For nostalgia's sake, I ended up jaywalking across the street despite the crossroad being like a handful of seconds away, and made my way through the entrance of the medical learner's building. To think, this might've been my home base if I had embarked upon that medical doctor's route. To think, if I had, someday people would've trusted me with their lives, however indirectly from behind a screen.
Yeeeeeah, no. I don't think I would be able to take it, if someone died on me.
The building was old, named after some old guy, and probably hid old skeletons in its closets. I took the familiar path to the elevator past the overpriced coffee shop where the line was always too long, and waited for the one functioning elevator to get down from wherever the last passenger had gotten off. If it was six floors or less, I might've taken the stairs, but fifteen… I like having legs, and I like having my legs intact, thank you very much.
I would also like to keep my legs for the probably last time I can go free-running across campus, once this bag of tea cakes was no longer hitting my legs every two steps.
(Considering that free-running was probably the closest I'll ever get to flying without finding somewhere I can learn skydiving, well. It's too late to change directions now to be a pilot, wasn't it?)
The goodbye-I'll-see-you-next-time went about as well as the previous one, with promises of coming back and keeping in contact and all the societal niceties that I don't really know how to navigate. And like always, any lingering awkwardness was soothed away by my co-supervisor's easy grin and the belief that I'll do great wherever this next stop in life takes me.
I was going to miss them all, so, so, much.
Despite getting off the elevator bare moments ago, it had already ditched me for floor seventeen instead, and I had to wait a good few minutes as it sort of just— hovered there, went up two floors, came down three, went up again, got stuck, and by the time the doors dinged open I had have a heart to go sliding down the fire exit stair rails. Wouldn't be a grand idea to break my neck on my last day on campus, but it would've been funny. It would be even funnier if I still had the insurance to cover it.
The elevator was empty when I stepped in, and smelled faintly of formaldehyde.
It took a moment to find the ground button, because my brain decided to overshoot and contemplate the basement instead, but soon enough I was on the way, sense of gravity falling briefly as the overeager elevator began its way down. But— the elevator shuddered in its relatively smooth descent before the red number on the screen even ticked and I began to regret taking a metal box suspended by wires.
On second thought, fourteen floors going down wasn't as bad as fifteen floors going up, right? Mind made up, I poked the floor button for fourteen to get off early with a forlorn glance at the glowing “one” button.
Which did about jack shit.
The elevator jittered, a very unfortunate term to be used to describe an elevator, and I skittered towards a corner and latched onto the hand-rail thing like a panicking marmoset. A shrill screech emanated from somewhere above the ceiling as the elevator almost seemed to slide down a few feet, and the sound of something very large, and very old snapping. It sounded very much like my heartstrings.
So this is what an out of body experience is like, my brain supplied detachedly, as the body decided that screaming was the best next course of action when the elevator began freefall in earnest. A corner of my brain was calm, apparently not quite caught up to the fact that this was actually happening, and ran through the facts that elevators had failsafes to prevent this exact scenario from happening.
This "scenario" was happening.
And fourteen floors? Not that long of a way to fall.
The last thought that I would ever have as a student living in the 21st century was unfortunately rather insignificant.
Fuck— my library books
My consciousness seemed to skitter around the fact that it existed for a bit, and by the time enough of me existed to acknowledge consciousness again, the only other thing that I could acknowledge was the darkness.
I could see nothing (but darkness, or does darkness not count?), hear nothing, feel nothing, and smell nothing.
For some reason the last one bothered me the most, and only with a jolt did I understand why.
I wasn't breathing.
My mind flipped to full on panic mode, alarm horns blaring inside my cranium, and I desperately attempted to draw breath into my lungs—
Nothing.
Turns out I no longer have lungs, or at the very least, could no longer feel them.
More panicking resulted in me recalling my last moments, where cold metal bit into flesh and I, for some inane, stupid, reason, got killed by a malfunctioning elevator.
…Now that’s embarrassing. If they carve it on my headstone, maybe it'll become a tourist attraction.
Or maybe I'm not dead at all, and just stuck in some weirdly sentient but trapped coma. That shouldn't be outside of the realm of possibility, right? Loads of weird things have happened in the medical field over the years. It'll be fine.
It'll be fine.
In the meantime, I can probably just— take another nap, even though it feels as if I've already been sleeping forever. With nothing better than the inside of my brain, and gods know that that isn't the kindest place, I might as well try to sleep this off.
If I’m only living in my brain anyways, what would taking a little nap do anyway?
A lot.
Taking a short nap while presumably in a coma could apparently do a lot.
By the time I regained what counted as a semblance of consciousness again, everything was groggy and my higher brain functions were all shot.
(Goodbye higher brain functions. I'll probably miss you.)
Oddly though, instead of the constant darkness that I used to exist within, there was now a tentativeness difference that I could almost seem to perceive, with my distinct lack of proper senses. If this was what coma patients felt like, no wonder the more conscious ones seem to appreciate people talking to them.
Case in point: I distantly recalled that there was a coach who was also in a coma but woke up after his team announced that they had won, so there has to be some measure of interaction between a comatose patient and the surrounding environment— the only problem being how much?
But now it seems less like a coma and more of a… something I had no fucking prior on. Comas generally don’t give people supernatural senses, or at least I hope they don't, and this energy that seemed to thrum in tandem with the constant beating I can hear were evidently things that weren't present in all my previous years of living. Not to mention the fact that I could barely feel my own weak heartbeat, a feeble fluttering compared to the steady ba-dump, ba-dump of a strong cardiac muscle that I’ve gotten used to.
Time passed between short bursts of consciousness, and from the stagnant pool of non-existent, my senses have emerged to not only exist again, but stronger. And also no longer as confined, although that mainly pertained to the odd, fluttering energy.
The persistent pounding that had earlier seemed all-encompassing also appeared to decrease with time, followed by how the little sound I was able to grab snatches of also seemed to muffle into indistinct whispers. A pity, even though I couldn’t tell what was being said to begin with.
At least it wasn't for a lack of trying, but what I managed to snag with my ears was only complete and utter gibberish. Who the hell let babies and lizards into my room? At least the music was pleasant, mostly instrumental but still with barest hints of gibberish.
And then a day came where my surroundings temporarily squashed me, although I couldn't really muster up the energy to be annoyed. But even so, I attempted to kick and claw at the membrane that seemed to want to compress me into a little ball of sludge with my limited mobility, to predictably little effect.
(Other than the membrane continuing to press down on me, that is. If this was some new fangled therapy, I want a refund.)
Distantly, I could hear screaming— but somehow from a source close by.
Weird, wonder how that works.
The uncomfortable squashed feeling persisted for a while, but just when I thought I would die, everything went back to a questionable state of normal. However, there was a change in scenery, and more strings of gibberish floating into my ears. Some of the voices sounded happy? Overjoyed? I wasn't all that sure, and not to mention one of them definitely needed a cough drop.
The previously soft darkness of my surroundings was replaced with a muffled dark blue, and the physical aspects of my surroundings almost seemed harder as well.
So. I’m definitely not in a coma anymore, or never was to begin with. Nice to know that this uncertainty is a constant.
The thrumming energy had also changed though, and only when the ever-present ba-thumps were gone did I realize how much its existence distracted me from the prickles of the energy that was now borderline painful.
So I dealt with the pain and confusion and annoyance the only way I could, given the entire situation at hand, by hoping to whatever deity out there that I could fall asleep in the next few minutes.
Heedless to say, it worked to mixed effects.
Thankfully, as more time passed between my sporadic periods of wakefulness, the prickles of pain became duller— either a sign of acclimatization or just not being so… stimulating anymore. I could also feel my own heartbeat again as well, weak as it was, and gradually I was able to figure out a bit more of what my senses were telling me.
Yes, the energy was all pervasive, no, the energy within me was not interchangeable with that of what surrounds me. Granted, this had required actually establishing the boundaries of my own existence first, which came with its own existential dread that will be locked in a mental box and thrown into the mental cupboard for post-processing, but it was fascinating.
The energy of the surroundings seemed to be more of an ocean— roiling and massive and deep enough to choke on, while mine was barely there, barely a tablespoon of marinade just the slightest shade different. It helped that within my confines the energy was closer to what existed within myself, but…
That came with the existential horror of realizing that this body was much smaller than what I used to have, and that I now existed within some type of capsule.
As much as I had an inkling that the coma thoughts were just denial, it would be another beast entirely to face the fact that should the rest of my theories hold true, then I was well and truely dead and something had fucked up and yeeted my soul into a foetus that should not be able to process this many thoughts.
Which explains the pain, at least. Fetuses do not have enough brain capacity for a twenty-something year old's everything.
…
I guess that means I can quite literally say— I do not have the brain capacity for this.
And in true "me" fashion, this meant running away from my problems by sleeping even more. I'll process the grief later, it'll be fine.
(I don't think I racked up enough bad karma to be reborn as a lab experiment, but considering the energy bullshit and the capsule— well, that makes the most sense, doesn't it?)
It took many more waking periods before I realized that not being able to breathe like a normal human being no longer bothered me. Even if my lungs were still capable of pulling in something, I no longer cared. I’m supposed to be dead, and once upon a time I would’ve said that anything would be better.
Ha, yeah right.
What does life hold beyond the emotions and memories gained and lost? If nothing remained, death would seem like the better choice, especially if I can see my family again in another, better world. At least, in a world where worries are as fleeting as a brush of wind at a coast in summer.
But then, reincarnation is supposed to be a myth, and not something that is generally taken into account. Especially when memories of a life lived loved and treasured are concerned.
Fuck. Regardless of the grief, this was an unwarranted second chance. And knowing that there's more after death, perhaps living will be enjoyed more? Or less. Depends on the perspective.
And I’m getting too morbid aren’t I?
…must be the ADHD and boredom kicking in. Huh, since ADHD is a literal brain thing, would I still have it in this new life? It'll be funny in a depressing way if I do.
As with most of my other functions, I had finally regained some meager control over my four limbs (and head, never forget the head) after what felt like a lengthy period of time but was probably not actually that much. Unfortunately, all functional senses were still dulled, which spurred the boredom towards a lot of grieving. The sounds of speaking still sounded from time to time, interspaced with hissing and music and maybe laughter, and on a few rare occasions my entire being seemed to be jostled within this capsule of mine. A horrible, floaty, gachapon where the only prize was a burnt out graduate student.
Over the periods of time where I was graced with consciousness, I could tell that the flowing energy within myself had gradually accumulated in my back, around the area that I would assume to be my spine. With a do-ever, I was hoping to escape the annoyance and persistence of having back pains. Well, at least it wasn’t my tail bone. If it gave me a legit tail or something, I think I'd die a second time of laughter.
The blue of my little enclave also seemed closer somehow, although its approach was slow enough that half the time I thought I was gaslighting myself into believing it true. Boredom does weird things, trust me. Eventually though, it was undeniable.
In fact, the realization only really set in once it seemed to press in on me from all sides.
Not close enough for my measly sense of touch to function, but enough so that I felt mildly claustrophobic.
Well, at least that was before the day when the blue was but a finger's twitch away, and I realized that if I didn't get the fuck out, then this second chance might end before it's even truly begun.
There were many benefits to being stuck in a limited capsule with dulled senses: namely if I was running my mouth akin to a drunken sailor nobody else would know.
After finally coming to the realization that the blue was starting to press in on me, I figured that it was my cue to get out of here. Wherever “here” was.
Unfortunately, the minuscule amount of strength that I could muster to my limbs wasn't even close to what was needed. No amount of stretching allowed me to expand my space and all actions in a single direction were met with unyielding resistance. Not even far enough to punch, let alone kick, as if my weakness wasn’t apparent enough...
So now, here I am, stuck in a fetal position with walls on all the sides that matter, with only a couple of centimeters to spare in all directions.
Well, at least I think they're centimeters, but spatial measurements are all relative and if I was kaiju sized or some shit then it’d actually be meters, but hey, if I was kaiju-sized, that would bring with it its own host of other problems, yeah?
But-- How did the walls get this close to me without me noticing? Like, granted, I was paying more attention to my inner dialogue because everything was so damn boring, but this is just ridiculous.
Looks like I'll need to pay more attention from now on, in case my luck decides to kill me via something other than shitty engineering or shitty building maintenance. In my defense, situational awareness is something that needs to be practiced and I haven’t had any reason to practice it considering recent shenanigans.
After a bit of futile struggling, the only contribution my brain had to this predictament was that the barrier felt relatively smooth? Unfortunately, I can’t really trust my sense of touch right now so it might just be as wrinkled as a dried prune. Or raisin. Take your pick, I couldn’t care less.
I allowed my fingers to twitch across the surface of the walls with all my limited mobility and “fine” motor control, as there was barely enough wriggle room to permit my elbows to shift.
Actually…
Like what my kickboxing coach had once upon a time said, “elbows are for cutting”, or something like that. Tldr was that while punches and kicks can generally cause plenty of damage with blunt force, elbows are sharp in a way that fists aren’t. Knees can do similar damage, but in my condition, they will only break my nose. If I had one. I think I have a nose.
(Please let me still have a nose.)
So technically, if I jab my elbows hard enough, it should break through!
Boing...boing...boing...ba-chh-
…Owww
Bad news, my elbows now hurt in a very offending manner, but bright side was that there was clearly an indent in my surroundings, as the once uniform blue was now veined with webs of bright, eye-searing bright blue. At least the place where I jammed my elbow was like that, everywhere else remained the same. With my elbows facing behind me, however, it wasn’t like I could see the entire extent of the site of impact.
However, even a hint of the cobweb-like cracks gave me a sense of hope. More than what I had ever since realizing that death might not have been a permanent state of being, even if my eyes felt like they were going to be burned and shrivelled like tiny, dried cranberries.
I might’ve imagined the webs of blue too, considering the fact that my eyesight was smudged as hell, but we’ll just throw that entire depressing train of thought out the window thank you very much.
After a bit longer of me trying to wiggle around to face the original impact sight though, I could verify that it actually was an impact site, and to my delight the blue also felt loose! Freedom is mine! I inwardly crowed, before freezing. An unneeded and unbidden question floated to the frontal lobe of my brain. What was out there?
Taking into account the state that I’m in, it wouldn’t be farfetched to say that I’m in some sort of spherical construct, where everything is blue and floating and so very warm. And safe.
My expectations have been shattered enough the past few somethings to know that whatever is out there probably isn’t what I would expect. Given that I have finally conceded the point that I’m not in a coma but was reincarnated (after a failure of a death), well, the world outside could be inhabited by giant-man eating spiders, not a pleasant thought. I didn’t get hit by truck-kun, but this was still ridiculous, and I wouldn’t put it pass the logic of this whole situation for me to end up somewhere distinctively not… home.
But the blue that envelops me and the hissing… they can only mean one thing, right? And there aren’t many other plausible explanations either.
Now that I wasn’t trying to destroy the bones of my very pained elbow, sounds could clearly be heard from outside of my confinement. Most of it being rapid-fire gibberish that I’ve nearly gotten used to by now, and some being the reptilian hissing that were present throughout my stay in the blue.
I did an imitation of a gulp, as I have determined that my body was currently submerged in goo. No wonder I couldn’t breathe, but at least the goo didn’t seem to choke me. (Just like how fetuses survive while drinking and inhaling amniotic fluid, my brain supplied in a distinctively unhelpful and simultaneously very disturbing manner.)
Without moving, I tried to listen to what was transpiring on the outside, a feat that was accomplished and yet did nothing as a result of me not understanding a single syllable of what was being said. But with the web of brightness that told me that an outside world truly existed, the gibberish became more pronounced and less like muffled nonsense. For one, it was much smoother although there was rasping present, along with hissing, and both sounded like they had that particular lilt that came with east Asian languages…? Hell yeah! I love being barely able to tell what people are saying, because that sure as fuck didn’t sound like Mandarin.
How sad it is that I must listen to my own sarcasm all day.
At least with one (of many) worst-case scenarios out the way, I can tell people that I thought before acting, for once. So nobody can blame me when I started bashing that web of spidering cracks with a tiny fist, and then tiny feet, when the cracks extended far enough down.
With each subsequent bash, I could hear my surroundings creak, or make a pzzt sound, a bit like when you just gently tap an egg while it was slowly chipping, but a bit wetter and more… dunno, connected?
…
Ha. Hahaha.
I’m screwed, aren’t I? Nice to know that denial managed to push this possibility out of my brainspace long enough for it to now hit me with the force of a sledgehammer.
At least it means I’m not in a test tube for some funny chimera hybrid. It could’ve been so much worse than hatching from an egg...
Huh, but does that mean from now on, I’ll be celebrating hatchdays instead of birthdays? Do I still have an umbilical cord??
For now though, I’m a bit tired. Fetal limbs aren’t that great for smashing through walls of calcium carbonate however thin it may be, and unlike most things that hatch from an egg, I don’t think I have an egg tooth. As a matter of fact, I don’t even have teeth yet. So, not anything new, and back to the grind of the near literal gnawing at the bars of my enclosure it was.
I exhausted easily, and it took me four waking periods to actually break through the shell and not just cause faint imprints of lighter blue smudges.
But now, now I could clearly feel the light streaming in, even with eyes shut tightly because damn it’s bright out there. Considering the fact that I was virtually living as a bat in dark blue cave for the past however long it has been, it wouldn’t be strange if my eyes decided to metaphorically shriveled like raisins once I was out.
As it was, I could feel the faint tugging of the meager amount of gel that enveloped me sluggishly leaking out of the jagged hole in the wall. The sense of zero-gravity that I had since the beginning was beginning to vanish, as the cushioning liquid slowly vanished from my enclosure. Turns out I was fetal positioned on my front right side, so it made sense that the goo would leak out from there. As the liquid level slowly dropped in my little cavern, I realized that I would breathe again. But, that would require me emptying my lungs of all the goop that had stuck around inside of me ever since I realized that breathing air wasn’t an option.
And if I manage to only partly rid my lungs of the liquid but not fully, uh. Well! Probably nothing good would come of it!
Conclusion: remove thyself from egg least risk (second) death of the even more embarrassing method of suffocation as a mammal inside an egg.
Hence: I struggled.
An egg is a sturdy capsule because it is more or less round, thus resulting in the pressure being evenly distributed when applied to the shell over a large area. However, it can and will break when all the force is focused onto a single spot, such as bashing the poor thing with pointy bones and against the kitchen counter. But once the sphere-like construct is damaged, like with a hole, then everything becomes much easier.
Over the course of my waking periods where most of my energy was focused on destroying eggshell with my puny arm bones, I had noticed that the egg was stretchable, but barely. And now when I tried to uncurl from the position had held me for so long, a dull crack vibrated through my bones. It took a mortifying moment to figure out that it wasn’t actually my bone that had made the crack, seeing as my once grad student self was once a bit too accustomed to the sounds of my back mimicking that of a xylophone, but thankfully it wasn’t from my bones. Small mercies, I suppose.
The smudge that was barely on my peripheral vision from when the shell first cracked had elongated into a slash in the once dark blue. Then it split in two.
Freedom at long last.
I might’ve fell out, or might’ve somehow rolled out of my temporary residence, but I’ll never know due to the tiny event being a blur.
With all my strength gone, I could only remember screaming or wailing, and probably a lot of crying (perhaps for joy). Either way, not the proudest moment I’ve ever had in any of my two lives. As a result of air finally hitting the inside of my lungs and compounded with the brightness and sheer loudness of everything, well, needless to say I don’t remember much from right around then.
I don’t know how much longer it took me to wake up again, but when I did, my eyes didn’t open immediately. Instead, I reveled in the sensation of breathing again, and being able to hear without a layer of shell. Actually, I took stock of all of my senses first before opening my eyes, and realized that even without sight, I had five.
…Guess I didn’t make up that sense of energy when I was going stir crazy inside that egg.
Even though I had taken stock of the energy before, it was nothing compared to the outside. Now that the barrier was gone, it became apparent that the shell itself was infused with the energy, but also that the energy outside of the egg was much less solid? And it felt a lot more liberated, for better lack of a term, except for the blots of concentrated energy moving around.
Welp, this is weird, but my life. But still weird.
In fact, there were three such blobs of energy hovering right around me, with one of them a lot more “fixed” than the other two, perhaps a bit like dry ice? Although that would imply that the energy wanted to evaporate, which was also incorrect.
At this point… do I really care that much? How much worse can it get?
I opened my eyes to a smudged landscape of what could tentatively be described with colors such as green and purple and white and gold, and the memory that baby eyesight and depth perception were complete shit.
A few blinks later, and baby brain managed to parse two pairs of glowing golden lamps hovering in an expanse of white, the source of the two not-so-muffled energy. Then I looked up and realized that the green ceiling wasn’t a ceiling at all, that it was surrounded by a pleasant purple, and then the green blinked.
I screamed.