The softness of the bed felt quite different from the makeshift bed in the cave, so it was easy to discern he was not in the same place where he went to sleep.

He could hear distant footsteps on a hard surface and the noise of something spinning and rhythmically squeezing and wheezing air.

Soft moans could also be heard intermittently from nearby with some low beeping noises here and there in between.

The air smelled of antiseptics, and bodily fluids so he got a clue from that.

'I am in a hospital.' He thought.

He tried moving his mouth then his hands, and it was the same experience as with his eyes. He could feel them but they were locked in place by an invisible force and now matter how much he tried just stayed still.

He could feel what seemed something like a plastic tube pressing on his tongue which was going into his throat.

He still didn't have the vaguest idea who he was, and how he got here.

'What the hell happened to me!?' He yelled on the inside angrily and tried to move every muscle in his body with no success.

The only muscle that showed any reaction was his heart which sped up which the machines he was hooked up to monitored and sent an alarm to the nurses' station.

A minute later the clonking footsteps came close with a whooshing sound a door was opened. As they got nearer another set of footsteps was coming closer with another whooshing sound following.

"Doctor." A female voice was heard.

"What is going on? I saw you rushing here. Nurse Finkle was it?" A male voice replied.

"The cardiac monitoring machine sent off an alarm as it detected a sudden rise of blood pressure and heart rate so I came to check on him if there was any bleeding through the gauzes.", the nurse replied.

The nurse replied and there was a rustling of the blanket being uncovered and soft touches on his body were felt.

"Everything seems fine. Good work, although we have to do something about the blood pressure. Push him with 1 mg of lorazepam in the IV and we will see how it goes." The male voice said.

As the nurse was preparing the medicine she suddenly asked nervously, "What happened to him? Is he a criminal?"

"As far as I know he was swatted and I don't think he is a criminal." Doctor replied.

"Swatted?" Nurse Finkle asked in bewilderment as she was not familiar with the term used on anything but insects.

"Oh. Sorry. Someone called the SWAT team on him. It happened a few times in the past but not in our state and the media made a new name for it; swatting." Doctor replied.

"SWAT team? You mean someone reported him to the special police force unit? Did they shoot him?" The nurse asked in amazement.

"Yeah. I heard he is quite famous in the Esports scene. He must have rubbed someone the wrong way, and they took out their competition this way. The SWAT team rushed his place on a report he was building bombs and held hostages in his basement. They turned off the power grid to his house and busted inside his house only to find him holding a fake machine gun in the living room with a VR set on his head and pointing it at them. They didn't figure he would have his equipment hooked up on a backup power source and was still playing in a first-person shooter tournament. They opened fire and shot him full of holes. It's a wonder he is still alive. The worst part is the bullet that hit him in his head through the VR headset. Even if he survives he may never be anything more than a vegetable. We usually would not even bother saving him if not the pressure from the police department since it's a PR disaster.", the doctor explained in detail stunning the nurse.

"How do you know all this?", nurse Finkle asked.

"I have a friend on the SWAT team. We go to the gym together sometimes. He came to see me after the incident since he was one of the guys who shot him. He begged me to take extra care of him. Honestly, though we should just let him go. He is just like the guy in Metallica's One video. I don't even want to imagine myself being in his shoes.", the doctor said with a sigh.

"The pressure is not going down. Do you think he heard us?, nurse Finkle asked.

"Give him an extra milligram to be sure. I highly doubt even if he can hear us that he can understand us.", doctor replied.

But he did hear them and he would have cursed and yelled at them if he could at that moment. The drugs not working was him hearing what they said.

"Lorazepam seems to start having an effect. What now?", the nurse said.

"Let's wait a minute or two until it goes down to normal and grab a coffee after?", the doctor replied.

"Ok.", the nurse nervously replied.

"How did they mistake the fake gun with a real one?" she suddenly said switching the topic back to the incident.

"I guess it looks like a genuine one except the weight and functionality. I once saw these VR harnesses at an exhibit and they had all sorts of weapon accessories. I guess the more accurate the model is in real life the better effect in virtual reality it shows when using it as a prop. I would have bought it if not for the damn 30.000 dollars price tag.", doctor replied.

"30.000? That is half my annual!", the nurse said in shock.

"Yeah. Esports came a long way, and this stuff is only used by pros. You need to have it if you want to play in the Diamond League but before that you need to climb through, bronze, silver, gold and platinum. To the ones who make it that far 30k is chump change. To them this is like buying the PlayStation 7 for 300 bucks." The doctor said.

"Thank you for explaining doctor Nash.", the nurse said.

"I hope the media don't focus on this for too long and we can let him go as soon as possible. It seems like the pressure is back to normal. Let's go grab that coffee." The doctor said and started walking towards the door which made a whooshing sound.

The nurse started walking away too but stopped midway and turned around.

"I hope he is wrong.", she said and left.

As he was hearing all this all sorts of emotions overwhelmed him. Anger, unwillingness, fear, anxiety but soon lorazepam washed them away. They faded like snow on a hot day and soon the sound of his breathing and his heartbeat was all he heard. The rhythm reminded him of a song called Teardrop from Massive attack and he imagined it before he drifted into oblivion.