Chapter Nine: Lucky

  Have you ever heard of post-traumatic dissociative amnesia? Because I wish to god… or rather, to Axiom, that I had it right now.

  What I experienced of the crash while “safe” in this slime pit was a nightmare on steroids, and while I am glad to have survived it, my broken body was less enthused. Honestly, the only reason I was still alive was that my suit tore open in the initial impact, which had slammed me against the wall so hard that I was left wondering just what it took to black out. I didn’t find out then, nor while I was being tossed around like a shoe in the dryer, smashing against the sides, breaking bones and opening huge gashes in my skin. Really I’m only still alive thanks to the seals on my helmet, which was cracked but still hanging in there, as my suit had torn open and was able to totally fill with the healing goo, thus keeping me from bleeding out from all my new and very fun wounds.

  Honestly I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. I am not sure how long has passed since the crash. I have spent most of the time sleeping, plus, time hardly seems to pass while I float in here. The glasses had broken in all the ruckus and fallen to the bottom of the tank. So no Fragment, no AR interface, only the pulsating pain and the feeling of the slime helping to stitch me back together… that, my thoughts, and Syn’s screams.

  I had a lot of time to think though… Just what the hell was happening to me? Was this really what I signed up for? God… was I even who I thought I was? Was my life on earth just a manufactured dream to pass the time while my body was being transported to a new planet? I was no stranger to lucid dreams, or dreams that seemed to last days or weeks… and I had to admit, looking back on my life, it was pretty unlikely that I would have been born at the exact time to see the human race go from floppy disks to AI simulations… and if not, if I was in Endymion, then why was Axiom doing this to me? What was I supposed to gain from all this pain and suffering? What does it mean to evolve?

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  Another thing to be thankful for? Liquid nutrition capsules in the helmet… because I did not want to be digesting and passing solid food in the suit…

  Days must have gone by now and I was able to move my body again, at least a little. Through careful testing I was able to confirm that my left arm was broken beyond any hope of the slime's help. Add on top of that a shattered right shin bone along with a mangled right foot, what felt like what must be several cracked or broken ribs, and that the skin on my hands had torn all the way up my forearms, and I could confidently say that I had gotten off lucky all things considered. Another lucky break? The tank was slowly draining, as it had been damaged in the crash, I could tell because after I had woken up the third time I could wave my good arm in what I have since realized is an increasingly empty space above me… I wonder if after a few more days I will just fall out of the damn tank.

  After what was probably a week, who knows, I am now out of the liquid nutrition capsules which were stored in the helmet. So, despite every moment still sending squidgy pain spasms through me, I have to try and get out of here. I force my body to move, I swim crawl through the goo, my left arm at my side cries with every nudge, my broken leg and foot howls with each kick, my ribs scream with each paddle, but holy-god-damn-fucking-hell I get to the where the tank has been damaged. Lucky, the rent in the tank, though now slightly above me due to how much slime had poured out, is wide enough for me to pull myself over, causing me to fall a good few feet and slam into the floor.

  Lucky again, this time I pass out from the pain.