Oh that familiar feeling of waking up in pain and confusion. How I loathe it. On my back with my arms hanging off some sort of bed. It was all just a horrible dream. I got my ass kicked somewhere somehow. This has all been a way for me to process things and now I’m waking up on a park bench. Yep that is exactly what is happening to me right now. Not abducted by aliens. Nope not that. That would be silly. My universe is small and uneventful.

“He is waking up,” Chuck's voice breaks my denial.

My perception reaches out like any other sense as I wake up. He is examining me while I lay on one of the bunks of the medical level. Reaching inward with my mind I find my body was not in such good shape.

My right leg isn’t just broken it is shattered. Bruises are more common than non-harmful flesh. Something is wrong with my eyes. They are swollen shut for starters. I can barely feel my hands. Several of my fingers dislocate in a fun array of ways. The only outcome that comes from trying to move is more pain and suffering. I’m a genius.

“Wow the balls really fucked him up. I wonder how long he lasted and what he did to last that long. I didn’t look nearly as bad coming out of the test. Lucy looked like she went for a brisk run when she finished.” Mac says to Chuck. Completely ignoring the fact that I’m there.

“Doesn’t matter. We should have given him more warning. Maybe tell him not to try too hard. It only gets worse from here.” Chuck sighs sharply. “We both know that if he had prep he would have done better. It also has a lower fatality rate.” they continue to bicker but I stop paying attention. More important things to do.

Breathing in and out laboredly. Air in comes pain with the expansion of my lungs straining my chest. Air out brings fluid into my throat. A taste of blood fills my mouth. Inhaling again, taking with it a lot of heat energy. It burns in my body like some wicked combination of being overheated, eating too much spicy food, and holding my breath for too long. It is nothing compared to the pain from all my injuries. Focusing on using the heat to heal me, I begin with my abdomen.

Apparently one of my lungs collapsed and boy does it feel funky re-inflating. Sharp stings in my chest. Ribs are the next on the agenda. Muscle, bone, and cartilage returning to normal. With it smooth breathing. A couple of other internal organs need healing as well, but there is little sensation with that. I just get them functional again.

Ok now double check the old brain box. Perfectly fine. That's umm shocking. I know I took a hard blow to the head. The spinal column has a few issues that were not terribly major. Can save that for later. Checking again seriously, my skull isn’t cracked or fractured. Not even any brain swelling. Doesn't make a lick of sense.

With the important parts fixed and the knowledge that I won’t die. I didn’t use up too much effort. Time to get on the task of healing the rest of me. Starting with the toes, I manage to pull, push and stitch myself back up. With each area returning to normal. A pleasant tingling sensation replaces the pain.

When I healed before, I didn't really get a chance to pay attention to much. That isn’t right. I knew what I had to do. How the cells needed to reproduce or fix themselves in particular ways, or how some cells could just re-fuse to the corresponding cells. What I hadn’t had a grasp on at the time is the usage of energy. I was so wasteful before. This go around I took my sweet time. So I don’t pass out immediately after finishing.

Opening my eyes the first thing I see is the condensed moisture from Charlie's breath. With it comes a faint memory of my childhood and pretending to be a train hit me. Smiling ever so slightly with the warm comforting memory. The entire area around me must be chilled because of me. I really need to figure out how much heat energy I require to heal. It seems like an interesting conversion. Something I can measure and tweak with practice. In the meantime, I will just be happy that healing is in my skill set.

“Do you need to be conscious to heal?” Mac asks, looking me over. Returning his question with a nod he continues with a gloat, “I do it automatically whenever I get hurt. Like freaking wolverine”. Then proceeded to snap his arms out as though claws were going to shoot from his fists.

They did not. Thankfully. If he had metal claws he would end up cutting his own head off.

Expecting to be exhausted I just lay there. Mac doesn’t seem to want that and proceeds to poke at me. He always pushed me to keep going. Never at an important moment. At important moments he was generally uninterested in my fate. So it is usually when my suffering is high and it entertains him. To be fair, I did the same. One time I managed to keep him up for three days straight. He went a bit insane.

Huh it seems like more memories are bleeding through.

Still poking me he says in a whiny voice “come on get up”. He put emphasis on each vowel. It was incredibly annoying. I roll over to get away from the poking. This was not the best plan. The bunk I was laying on is barely wide enough for a person. I fall right on my face. Again. I am sure I would have suffered some permanent damage by now, if not for my healing.

I went full on Spiderman back in that testing room. Not only that, my perception gives me a mental picture of my surroundings. Yet I keep falling on my freaking face.

“This explains your extensive injuries from the test chamber,” Chuck says coldly. Mac tries to chime in but he is laughing too hard to form a coherent sentence. I reach up and flip them both off. Then pull myself to my feet.

Maybe it is because I am more practiced at healing, that I’m more conservative with the usage of energy, or with my memories intact I’m able to heal just better. Whatever the case, I’m not nearly as exhausted as I thought I would be.

“It’s ok Dimitri, When I went through the test I got knocked out as well. Only a few manage to make it all the way through the last test. They are designed to push our endurance and to use abilities that we don’t know we have. I am sorry. We lost so many when we tried to train them for the test. The harder we push ourselves, the more intense it is. There is more. Mac and his crew will explain it.” Chuck presents his hand for me to shake. When I grasp his hand a pulse rushes through me. The little bits of damage I left for later heals completely. The sensation leaves me dizzy.

Mac wraps an arm around my shoulder. Whether to help me move about or to keep himself from falling over laughing. It is unclear.

“So now the million dollar question. Is this his first or second time going through the test? The two highest possibilities are as follows. One: he went through the tests and showcased some sort of skills or abilities that interested our hosts. If he was in the general population before the memory loss. Then he would not have been tested again.” Chuck pondered

“How do you know this?” I ask.

“Our hosts have informed me of the rules. If you were injured to the point of memory loss. Their interest in you would be gone. No need for retesting.”

“Ah yes. For a moment I forgot you are a collaborator.” Mac shot me a look and shook his head.

“I’ll let that slide for now. Two: They isolated him for an unknown reason. Which is why he never got tested. I did examine him before. His amnesia was genuine.” Chuck continued.

Rage pulses through me. “You shouldn’t let it slide. People like you were the cause of the death of millions in the past. All had reasons to do so.”

I glare at him but his demeanor remains unchanged. My fists ball up. The temperature around us drops dramatically. The change causes wind to whip around. Mac places a hand on my shoulder. He might not be working with our captors, but he has some sort of relationship with Chuck. Physical contact drives some unknown impulse. Mac goes flying back.

“You shouldn’t,” Chuck warns me. Not listening I put heat into my fist. Concentrating on his face and preparing a kinetic punch. Somehow my perception of reality slows down to a crawl. My punch is already in motion, not moving any quicker. It slowly inches towards the collaborators dumb face.

Kinetic and Heat energy ripple on my knuckles. If he knew what was about to happen, he would have played things out much differently. Inching closer and closer. An unfortunate side effect of my slowed perception reveals itself. Everything is moving slower, but this clouded my knowledge of everything around me. Which might come in handy as Chuck's hand quickly moves to intercept my fist. Much much faster than me.

He catches it without taking any sort of damage. My slowing perception collapses.

“Get this child off my floor.” As he grabs me by the throat. I’m not going down without a fight. Maybe if I knee him in the chin. He twirls me around. Throwing me with remarkable force. It happened so fast I was unable to process it.

Flying through the med level was a strange sensation. Mostly because I have been doing it long enough and at a constant rate to make it improbable that Chuck is merely just strong. I am very dumb.

Landing rather softly at the elevator. It has not been a good day for me. Could any of my recent days be considered good?

Mac appears next to me. I didn’t sense him coming. He is laughing again.

“Come on buddy let's go home before you dig yourself a deeper hole.”