Chapter 11

The one and only thing that I am sure of regarding the treatment that occurred the next morning is that it made me sick. Morning sickness has nothing on the nausea that I felt after taking the dose of herbs that I was carefully given. Even with all the anti-emetic drugs that were available to modern medicine, I could keep nothing on my stomach, and the only time that I don’t remember throwing up was when they had drugged me enough that I was able to fall asleep, but even then, I remember awakening at night with the dry heaves.

They had told me to expect this, this side effect of nausea, but I think that even Krell, and the rest of my staff of physician/scientists, grew concerned after the second day of intractable nausea and vomiting. They gave me IV fluid, even pumped my stomach, but nothing seemed to help.

I began to get nervous when one night Lyssa appeared in my room. I had just gotten a large dose of Phenergan and had actually rested for a few hours when I awoke to find her standing at the side of my bed, holding my hand. I noticed a small tear rolling down her cheek and a worried look that I had only seen in her eyes one other time, the time that I had found her shot in my basement, a look of fear and worry. For just that moment I did not feel nauseated, I think I was too scared to see that look in her eyes and at the same time so overjoyed to see her that my brain just didn’t know what to do, so it just did nothing.

To no avail however, for a moment later, I felt the old pangs of nausea returning and I once again began retching until Lyssa was able to get in touch with the nurses, who immediately came running to give me another shot of some different medicine designed to give me a moments rest. And as it reached my vein and circulated to my brain, returning me to that semi-comatose state where I didn’t know that I was nauseated, I watched Lyssa disappear out of the room as silently as she had come, one last glimpse from her tearful face, and then she was gone and sleep overcame me.

Then, almost ten days to the minute, the nausea stopped as surely as it had begun. I awoke from one of my latest drug induced comas and I was hungry. No vomiting, not even the slightest hint of nausea, just hunger, hunger pains that would soon be as bad as the nausea if I didn’t satisfy them soon.

The most amusing thing of it all however, was the look of relief on Krell’s face when he arrived later that morning and saw me sitting up in the be eating a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit slopped in white gravy, just as my grandmother had prepared it when I was a child. It was almost too funny to describe, sort of like being overjoyed and astonished all at the same time, so that it seemed to screw his face in several different directions all at the same time until the joy won out and he regained enough of his composure to speak.

“So, it appears that you are better!” he started, still sort of trying to figure out what had occurred. “I must admit that you had us all a bit worried. A lot of initiates have a lot of nausea, but we are usually able to control it fairly well. In your case I was beginning to fear internal bleeding from all the retching you were doing.”

“Well, it sure isn’t something that I want to do again,” I replied between mouthfuls, “but it sure seems to be over now and I am ravenous, so if you have any tests or studies to do, you will have to wait until I finish eating.”

“No, no! Please eat all you want, you need the nutrition, and as far as I am concerned, if you can keep down that food for a few hours, and you are feeling well, then we are done with you and you can get out of here and see the sun again.”

He came over and shook my hand and then turned to leave and I swear that I heard him sigh as he turned and left the room.

A few hours later, I found myself standing outside the front door of the hospital building, feeling a little lost and disoriented, sort of how you feel after you wake up from a long afternoon nap and you really aren’t sure what time it is, and what you are supposed to be doing. I took the opportunity to just stand there for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth of the sun in the cool mountain air, just for a moment enjoying just the sheer joy of being alive.

It was then that it hit me, for I had really been far too sick too even think about it. I was now IMMORTAL! Or at least I was supposed to be. I mean now that I was over the nausea, I felt just fine, nothing different, nothing abnormal. I moved around a little and everything seemed to be working right, nothing felt different. The sun and the sky both looked the same. Maybe a little sharper, maybe a little more vivid, the colors just a little brighter, but nothing that I wouldn’t expect after spending ten days in a drab hospital room.

But then, I noticed that the people that were out and about today seemed to be looking at me in a different way, watching me out of the corner of their eyes, and I began to feel a little uncomfortable, and self-conscious, so I decided that I would head back to my room at the hotel.

All the way there it seemed that people were watching me. Just little glances out of the corner of their eyes, and I couldn’t help remembering how the Elder had warned me that the treatment could cause you to go insane. I wondered if I was really just going paranoid, or if people really were just watching me, because they had heard something about the tribulations of my initiation.

Whatever it was, that feeling persisted all the way until I got back to my hotel room and I had closed my door. It had gotten especially bad when I had walked through the hotel lobby, when even the concierge, who normally had a warm greeting for me, just seemed to watch me warily from across the room.

But once in my room, with the door shut the feeling began to subside and I was able to just relax, lean against the door, and take a few deep breaths. I practiced some of the meditation skills I had learned in residency to help calm my mind and body, slowing my heart rate and respiratory rate, concentrating on my inner calm, and in a few moments, I was relaxed and able to rationally think about what had just happened to me.

It was then that I saw my reflection in the mirror. I had seen myself in the hospital before I had left, but I had been in a hurry to get dressed and get out of there before they changed their minds and told me that I couldn’t go, and I really hadn’t taken time to assess what ten days of not eating could do to a body. I realized that I must have looked like a walking ghost. The skin on my face was pale and taut and I had lost all that extra weight that I had carried on me since I had graduated medical school.

And just when I thought that I had discovered the reason why everyone had been eyeing me suspiciously, I suddenly felt that same feeling of paranoia. For a moment I almost panicked, for I would have sworn that someone at that very moment was watching me, but there was no one else in the room besides me.

Then came the knock on the door, and for a second, I forgot about that feeling and was relieved to open the door and find the bell boy standing there patiently.

“The concierge sent me up, Sir,” he stated when I opened the door, “he was wondering whether or not you would like something to eat after your long ordeal?”

I am pretty sure that he went on and said something else, but I really don’t have a clue what it might have been, because it was at that point that I started wondering if that feeling of paranoia was like a premonition whenever I was around other humans, or maybe just immortals.

So off I went in a daze down the hall, and as I passed other doors on the hall, I felt a tinge of that feeling, and riding down on the elevator, when another person got onto the elevator, it got so intense that I almost panicked again, but then I realized that it wasn’t really paranoia, but rather like I was feeling that these people were watching me, or perhaps thinking about me.

As I concentrated more, the more I was able to feel subtle differences. When I walked through the lobby and the concierge once again watched me like a hawk, the feeling was very strong, but when I happened to be standing near a tree and a couple walked past deep in their own thoughts, I almost didn’t feel them at all.

After I had figured it out, and I was certain that in fact I was not going insane, I began to figure out how I could use this new-found talent. I wondered if this was a form of telepathy, and if I honed my skill, could I tell more about what a person was thinking. Or was this in fact something that only worked on other immortals, because indeed, there were no mortals here to test this on.

Then I began wondering if this was something that happened to everyone when they took the treatment. I tried to think back over everything that I had read, and been told, about the process and I couldn’t recall anyone ever mentioning anything like this. The closest thing that anyone had said to me had been what the elder had said about the treatment causing insanity among some of the initiates. I had asked her if it caused schizophrenia, as in paranoid schizophrenia perhaps.

I immediately decided that the safest course of action was to keep this to myself, and not to tell a soul, until I had some better understanding of exactly what was happening to me, because if I was the only one this had ever happened to, they would either want to run about a million more tests or else they would lock me up, and right now neither of those options sounded very good to me.

It was around then that I noticed that I had wandered all the way across the compound, and that it was starting to get chilly as the afternoon sun faded into the dusk, and again I was struck by the sheer beauty of it all. The last dying streaks of sun, breaking through the clouds, setting the sky on fire with a crimson hue, like a huge ember glowing in the night, and then slowly dying, giving in to the dark of night. Standing there watching my first sunset as an immortal, I prayed, something I hadn’t done in a long time, that Krell was right and there are just some things that you never get tired of seeing.

On the way back across the compound I found that if I relaxed and concentrated, that I could tune out a great deal of the sensations that I got as I approached other people. I figured that I could work on trying to detect differences later, when it didn’t give me such an eerie feeling, but for now I needed to learn how to cope with it.

I had done pretty well until I got back into the hotel, where a large party had gathered to await a table in the restaurant. The sheer magnitude of the noise that I heard inside my head was almost more than I could bear, and then having some of those thoughts directed towards me, as I neared the group, caused it to swell even more, and for a second, I was tempted to make a bolt for the elevator and just get past all these people, and to the relative safety of my room.

However, I suddenly noticed a particularly strong sensation, and the nearest thing that I can relate this feeling to is hearing a familiar voice stand out from a choir for a moment. I looked up and quickly scanned the room to see who could create such a strong sensation and I immediately made eye contact with Andre Townsend, who quickly excused himself from the conversation he was having with a rather beautiful brunette and started making his way over to me, smiling, and waving his hand.

“Well, David, I hear that you had a rather rocky time of it, but that you awoke this morning feeling well and Krell is certain that you had an above average response to the treatment. So, how are you feeling this evening?”

“Actually, I am rather exhausted,” I replied and realized it was true even though I hadn’t really noticed until just then. “I just had to get out and walk around outside today after spending so long in the dull hospital room, but I think that it is taking its toll on me and I was just on my way upstairs to get my first good night’s sleep in several days.”

“I can sure understand that. Well, I wanted to catch you and tell you that whenever you have fully recovered, and you are interested in trying to get back into the swing of things, just give me a yell and I’ll see if I can’t find a job, or position, that suits your fancy.” And with that, he shook my hand and was off, back into the crowd to socialize and mingle.

Grateful to be alone again, I took the opportunity and ran for a closing door on the elevator, and thankfully, rode up to my room alone.

Apparently, going through the treatment successfully is sort of like a holiday to these people, I guess much like a birthday, because when I returned to my room, I found it covered in flowers and cards from different people that I had met around the compound and during my stay here in the valley.

I tried to look at a few of them, but I was so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open and so I tried to lay down and go to sleep. I just sort of crashed there on the bed, not even bothering to take off my clothes. And it was the sleep of the dead that I slept that night, the first non-drugged sleep I had slept in days.

You would think that nothing could have aroused me from this kind of sleep, but for some reason, I awoke with a start sometime around three a.m. I felt panicked, like how you feel when you awake from a bad dream, but I could hear nothing that should have woken me.

Then suddenly, I felt it again, that same feeling that had woken me, that same feeling that had spooked me the day before. Someone was nearby, and since it was so strong, they had to be thinking of me.

I quietly got out of bed to see if perhaps someone was outside spying on me. I carefully slipped over to the door but the feeling just continued to slowly grow in intensity.

I jerked the door open and looked down the halls but no one was there. I rushed over to the window and looked out onto the balcony, and the grounds below, but there was no one to be seen. I even went and got my flashlight but could see no one in the darkness.

Yet, the feeling continued to grow in strength. Soon it had reached such a level that my head started to pound with the sheer magnitude of it all. It literally took all the self-control that I could muster to avoid screaming aloud and trying anything to get this feeling to stop.

I was starting to think that I had been wrong about sensing when other people were near, maybe I was really going insane, becoming a paranoid schizophrenic. I even wondered, for just a second, how I could be going insane and at the same time, realize that I was going insane.

Then, I heard the elevator chime and the sound of the elevator doors opening. I realized that the door to my suite had been left open in my haste to find out what was causing this feeling. Not wanting to draw more attention to myself, especially until I was able to gain a greater measure of self-control, I started towards the door to close it.

I never made the door. The intensity just continued to grow and as I heard footsteps coming down the hall, I collapsed on the floor, holding my head just trying to keep the noise, and the fear, under control.

Lying there, I heard the footsteps stop at the door and I heard Lyssa say, “Oh my God, are you alright?” but it was weird, like it was inside my head and though I heard her run across the floor, I didn’t hear her voice. This struck me as odd because she did ask out loud if I was sick, and even then, it was as if I was hearing an echo, like her voice was echoing the words inside my head.

And then it dawned on me that the reason the feeling inside my head was so strong was because this was Lyssa, the person that I knew the best, who had strong feelings for me, and cared for me. Who obviously was thinking about me a lot right now.

Though that realization didn’t make the noise and the pain that I was feeling disappear, it did help with the feeling of paranoia and fear. I was able to crawl into a sitting position and while catching my breath, I managed to whisper to Lyssa, “Please, think of something, think of the ocean, just think of anything except me!”

Scenes of the beach suddenly filled my mind and there was a dramatic change in the intensity of that feeling.

“That’s it, just don’t think of me, don’t worry about me, just think, concentrate...” I started, but then the scenes of the beach disappeared and the feelings of panic returned. I clutched my head and I must have made a terrible grimace, because I saw Lyssa open her eyes and look at me and when she saw me, she quickly turned away and the scenes of the beach returned.

As the panic subsided, I continued, “Listen, Lyssa, I do not understand what is happening, but I think I need to speak to the elder. Something happened to me during that treatment, something I don’t want the Townsends to find out about. Something is going on in my head. I think I can sense when people are near, or when they are thinking about me, and it is nearly driving me crazy.”

Again, the scenes of the beach disappeared, replaced by horrible scenes of old black and white movies of what were probably insane asylums or old prisoner of war camps. And even though I was repulsed by these images, it was not the feeling of panic that I had felt before, something I could fix on.