Chapter 1

In grade six, I got the chicken pox--a bad case of the chicken pox. I remember feeling lousy, and the horrible itching. Then the hallucinations started. The giant bipedal rat was the worst. After that, my memories have a gap.

I awoke with that strange-bed start. I was on my back. My mouth and throat were dry, and my lips were stuck together. I had trouble working up enough spit to moisten them. My eyes felt like they were full of gravel. I reached up to clean them out, but my arm was brought up short with a jerk.

I looked down. My arms were tied to the rails of the bed, and my left hand had a tube sticking out of it. That gave me a jolt of fear until I identified what the tube thing was--an IV. I must be in the hospital.

Wow! Aren't those arms and hands small? So is the rest of my body! What is going on? At that point, a torrent of confused memories came flooding in. I became overwhelmed with panic and started struggling with my bonds and attempting to scream, which came out as rough croaks.

At about that time, a nurse came in and pressed down on my shoulders to dampen my thrashing. "Artie, calm down. Everything is OK. You are in the hospital, and we are taking good care of you."

I kept struggling a bit, but it was beginning to seem kind of pointless. Still, I was badly frightened. "Help," I attempted to croak.

"If you calm down. I'll get you some ice chips." Ice chips. Ice chips would feel good. I forced myself to be still. After I had quit moving for several seconds, the nurse said, "Are you going to be all right now?"

I nodded. She let go of me and hurried out. I noticed that I was in a semi-private room, but there was no one in the bed next to mine. I worked at trying to keep myself calm. It wasn't easy, but I at least didn't move, except for a tremble in my hands and legs. Things were not right, definitely not right. Memories were still flooding me at a rate too fast to comprehend.

A few minutes later, the nurse came back with a cup of ice and a doctor. At that moment, I was far more interested in the ice. "This is Dr. Clawson."

"Hi," I tried to say.

The doctor returned my greeting and got down to doctor business with her stethoscope and penlight. She was young for a physician, had dark blonde hair tied back in a loose bun, eyeglasses, and was rather stacked. I distractedly noted that it felt good when she pressed against me as she conducted her examination.

The nurse spooned a heap of ice into my mouth, and it was heaven. She then began to cut me loose with blunt scissors. "Don't pull out your IV," she warned, "or we'll have to tie you back up." She left after that.

"Can you talk now?" Dr. Clawson asked after I had sucked on the ice for a bit.

"I think so." My voice was hoarse, but it was working again.

"Some of my questions might seem a bit silly, but you were unconscious for quite a while, and I'm just checking to make sure your head is working OK."

I nodded, "All right." Dr. Clawson was hot! When had I started noticing things like that? Why, I had been noticing things like that for years. No I hadn't, it had only been a bit over a year, at most. What! That can't be right. I felt the panic building again, but I struggled to keep it down.

"Do you know where you are?"

"A hospital."

"Umm hmm, and what is your full name?"

"Urs--," no, that wasn't right. "Arthur Teagan Powyr."

"How old are you?"

I had to think about that a bit. "Eleven. I'll be twelve in a few months."

"Where do you live?"

I had to think about that, too. "31266 Dewey Drive."

"What country?"

"The United Provinces of Novi Orbis."

"Province?"

"Michigana."

"And city."

"Packard."

"What year is it?"

Again, I had to think. "1973."

"What are your parents' names?"

"Warren and Agnes Powyr."

"Do you have any brothers and sisters?"

"Uh-huh, four."

"What are their names?"

"Mary, Rich, Charlie, and Susan."

The questions continued in that vein for a while, then the nurse returned with a woman who looked familiar. She was well built and had brown hair, blue eyes, was somewhat shorter than average and good looking. She was my mother, wasn't she? But I remembered a different woman being my mother. No, no--this woman in front of me was definitely my mother.

"Hi, Mom," I said softly.

We weren't a touchy-feely family, but she did come over and brush the hair off my forehead. "You had us worried as hell, you little shit." She smiled when she said it.

"How did I get in here?"

"What do you remember?"

"I remember waking up with chicken pox on Friday morning and being taken to the doctor to make sure that is what it really was. Then I remember a couple of days feeling miserable and a lot of dreams and nightmares and some hallucinations, I think. After that, I don't remember anything, until now."

"Last Monday, I went into your room to check on you a few times," Mom said. "When you hadn't woken up by noon, I gave you a shake and couldn't get you up. Dad came home from work, and we took you to the doctor. Even jabbing you with a needle didn't get you to wake up, so you were admitted to the hospital.

"This is next Monday. You've been out for over a week. You've been having nightmares and yelled in your sleep a lot and thrashed around, but nothing has been able to wake you up."

Dr. Clawson interjected, "It's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. It wasn't a coma. You went through all the normal stages of sleep and mumbled a lot, but you just wouldn't wake up." She addressed my mother. "He takes a bit longer than normal to respond to the standard memory questions, but his answers are correct. Physically, he looks fine, other than some apparent anxiety, but I think we should keep him at least another day for observation."

The adults in the room continued to talk over me for a while. I felt a bit peeved at being excluded. Wasn't I the one who was sick?

Calm down, a voice said in my head. That frightened me enough that I forgot about being ticked off. I had the urge to hide. But how could I hide from a voice in my head?

"Are you all right, Art?" Mom asked. "You look like you just pissed yourself."

"I felt really scared for a second."

That caused Dr. Clawson to prod me some more. "Do you feel OK now, or are you still feeling scared?"

"I'm OK."

"You look anxious."

"I feel nervous, but it's not too bad."

"Let someone know if it gets bad. We can give you something for anxiety, but I'd rather not if we don't have to."

I acknowledged her instructions. When the doctor left, I asked my mother, "Is Dad at work?" He was a partner in an engineering consulting firm that did a lot of automotive jobs.

"He was, but I phoned him. He's on his way."

Mom began to fill me in on recent family doings. "By last Monday, the rest of you little monsters were down with chicken pox, too, and I'm not going to forget that you were the one who dragged it home," she said with a smile. I was the oldest of the five kids.

"It sounds like you had an interesting week," I said.

"You can take your 'interesting week' and shove it up your ass, thank you. The next time you feel like livening up my routine, you can get me a box of assorted chocolates."

"Is everyone still off school?"

"This is their first day back."

"Who's taking care of Susan?" She was too young to go to school.

Chapter 2 »