I awoke with a splitting headache, aching muscles, and a spongy mouth.

And before you say anything: I know, okay? Hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that.

“I’ve never seen a […] like this!”

My head throbbed. I was sure my eyes were open, but I couldn’t see shit other than weird flashes of multi-colored light.

“[…], but how does he have […]? Is he a […]?”

I could intermittently hear snippets of a conversation taking place right next to me. That was odd.

“We don’t know anything about […]”, an indistinct voice whispered, “what about [...]? are his parents […]?”

It kind of irked me that I was missing all the important parts, without fail. Speak the missing keywords more clearly—god damn it—whoever you are.

“No, we’re not sure of his identity, and we couldn’t find any ID on him,” the muffled voice of a guy responded as my ears started working again, “the guy who brought him in gave us his name and that’s it. He left as soon as he dropped him off,” the voice explained, “he was muttering about how he had to return to the diner now or get stonked, whatever that is.”

Good ol’ Earthworm Jim. I internally chuckled despite the pain in my head.

“Doesn’t matter. We’ll figure it out later,” a womanly voice stated.

“I can’t wait to see doctor McGrath’s reaction to the MRI results. She’s going. to. flip.”

I was now positive I was brought to a hospital. I tried to recall the last thing I was doing before finding myself here. I was at work and everything was normal, then… it all seemed fuzzy from thereon.

I slowly moved my hand to touch the spot on my head where I’d worn the DreamStream, and my hand came into contact with a bald head instead. It seemed they had removed it. Fuck.

Wait, bald? Did they shave my hair too? Triple tiddity fucking fuck.

That was… less than ideal. I wondered why they’d done that, and more importantly: why they did it without my consent. This pissed me off.

My hand movement attracted their attention. I heard a door open, and someone spoke to me.

“Mr. Mohammed. You’re finally awake. That’s good,” spoke the same womanly voice from before.

“Yes, and acutely bald,” I said sarcastically.

“I’m Doctor Olivia Samuels, and we’re sorry about that. We had to shut down your augmentations because they went into overdrive and nearly killed or paralyzed you,” she said politely, “unfortunately, we couldn’t find any ports to connect to.”

“I have neither ports nor any augs.”

“That would explain it. Would you care to tell us why your brain is showing signs of neural resonance?” She said as she performed whatever it is that doctors do on patients when they wake up.

“I don’t know what that is, and I’m also experiencing searing agony at the moment, so excuse me if I can’t talk,” I dodged the issue, “mind telling me what’s happening to me, exactly?” I asked as she shined a light in my eye that made me cringe.

She sighed and finished her examination before stepping back, and I felt more than heard a slight creak as she sat down at the foot of the bed. I could see a blurry silhouette of the shape of a human in my peripheral vision, but that’s about it.

“You’re exhibiting the symptoms of neural resonance, which is a condition that manifests when augmentations make too many drastic changes to the brain all at once,” she explained slowly. “All augmentations have a fail-safe against that, but the interesting part is—” she tilted her blurry head, “—is that you don’t have any augmentations installed—” she drummed her hand against the rails of the bed, “—that we know of.”

“And?” I asked irritably.

“May we assume the device you were wearing on your head is responsible?”

“You may assume what you like,” I said in a pissy tone. “You may also assume that you may have caused permanent, irreversible, brain damage to me by removing it from my head without my explicit consent.”

I was angry, and I wanted to scare them. Serves the fuckers right for shaving my hair.

“I’m sure our legal department would love to go over this with your lawyers in the future—” she responded icily, “—but for now, you’ll have to pardon us for being more concerned about saving you from death by the seizure, which may have been caused by the use of an unapproved, unlicensed, and most importantly illegal augmentation device.”

An implied threat, great.

“Who said it’s illegal, or an augmentation device to begin with? I’m not implanted with any augs, doctor.”

“That’s not what your MRI scans suggest, but let’s shelve that discussion for later. For now, you need to rest.” She said before getting up. “Good night, Mr. Mohammed. We’ll talk more when you wake up feeling better.” She walked to the bedside, then pressed something on the wall, and the world went dark.

Except, it didn’t. Not exactly.

Well, the world around me went dark, but I was still wide awake and looking at the flashes of color that had been hounding me since I woke up. Then they settled down into patterns, and before I knew it, I could see myself standing… somewhere… elsewhere?

Where the hell am I now? I thought to myself, and the thought echoed around me as if I’d said it out loud.

I was standing in an endless, azure expanse. Sandwiched between two planes that extended into the distance endlessly.

I thought it was an out-of-body experience. Oh, how wrong I was at the time.

I tried to look down at my body, only to find I had none. I was currently a disembodied wisp of light.

It was disorienting. I tried to walk… or float, and nothing happened.

I thought of moving real hard, and then it worked. I could move about, and fly with but a thought.

What I found disorienting was the fact that this whole world—whatever it was—would glitch out of existence and return every couple minutes. During those moments, I had glimpses of many of my old memories. I would see through my eyes—or feel and hear things—at different points of time in my life. Gradually, the flashes increased in frequency, till all I saw was constantly changing perspectives. It was disorienting and it made me sick.

I saw through my eyes as a child. Then as a teenager. I was a toddler. I was a fetus. I was a baby.

Did I just recall things from when I was a fetus in the womb? What the fuck is wrong with me?

I saw happier times. I saw my mom and my dad. I saw my kindly grandparents. I saw myself at three years old, playing with my sister and our cousins…

Wait, I had a sister…? And cousins?

I saw myself as a baby. I saw my mom talking to me. She was telling me something. Something important. Something that I couldn’t quite grasp.

This wasn’t an out-of-body experience. It was an in-the-body cement mixer experience.

I wished it would end. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Morning, knucklehead.” I heard Fuchsia’s voice say.

I stirred awake and slowly opened my eyes. I looked to my right and saw her sitting there.

What was she doing here? How did she find me? I couldn’t help thinking to myself.

“What happened? Didn’t Mrs. Dana tell you to be careful with the DreamStream?” She chided me, and I almost flipped out because I thought she was live-streaming this.

She noticed my look of panic and took mercy on me.

“Don’t worry, I’m not streaming.” She chuckled. “Privacy laws and all that, besides there are the hospital’s policies against streaming. You know?”

I nodded blearily, and my vision swam with the act.

“How did you know I was here?” I was curious.

“A mutual acquaintance sent me a message. At the perfect time when I was in the privacy of my shower.” She sighed. “I gotta remember to ask her how she did that.”

I bolted up straight when I heard that.

“Mrs. Dana told you?”

“Who else?”

I slowly lowered myself back against my pillow and held my temples in my hands.

“They took my stuff.” I confided.

“Including the phone and the DreamStream?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.” I said dejectedly, “and the bastards shaved my head.” I pointed out the obvious.

“So what? I’ll ask them to return them,” she snorted, “and the new looks kinda suits you, by the way.”

I sighed, I still felt self-conscious about my perfectly smooth head.

“Any idea when they’ll let me out?” I asked worriedly.

“No clue. They said you’ve improved a lot overnight, though,” she comforted, “but you have to tell me: what happened, exactly?”

Just as I was about to tell her, there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I said.

A gaggle of people walked in. Some appeared to be medical professionals, while a few weren’t. They all looked at me with various expressions in their eyes, and one of them—an older gentleman with the bearing of a professor—who’d been holding my DreamStream, approached.

“Hello, Eric. We’d like to have a word.”

Fuck.