Breaking the Covenant

Ashen woke to the sound of something turning.

A small mechanical click, a pause, then another. Regular enough that he listened through several repetitions before opening his eyes.

The ceiling was white.

He lay still, trying to place it. Not his bedroom. Not any ceiling he recognized. A narrow strip of light ran along one edge, too bright to look at directly, and somewhere beyond his feet the clicking continued.

His mouth tasted stale.

When he tried to swallow, his throat hurt.

Hospital, he thought.

The explanation held for a moment. There was a bed beneath him, a blanket over his legs, the faint smell of disinfectant. He had been in hospitals before. He knew the strange suspension of waking in one, the way his surroundings could make sense before his memory caught up.

Then he tried to lift his left hand.

Something pulled at the back of it.

He looked down. A clear tube ran from beneath a square of tape to a bag mounted beside the bed. His fingers were cold. He flexed them, watching the tendons move.

No cast. No obvious injury.

He turned his head.

There was a chair against the opposite wall. A washbasin. A door with no window.

No clock.

Ashen closed his eyes and searched for the last thing he remembered.

Outside. He had been outside.

A stretch of pavement, damp enough to reflect the lights. His phone in his hand. He had been thinking about something ordinary, something unfinished.

Then footsteps.

After that, his memory broke into pieces.

Another ceiling. A cup held near his mouth. Someone telling him to turn onto his side.

He remembered asking to leave. Not the answer, but the certainty that he had asked more than once.

None of it told him how long he'd been here.

The effort brought a dull ache behind his eyes.

He opened them again.

"Hello?"

His voice came out rough and smaller than he expected.

He waited.

The mechanism clicked.

"Is somebody there?"

He pushed against the mattress with his free hand.

Pain caught low in his abdomen.

Not sharp enough to make him cry out, but deep and sudden. His breath stopped halfway in. He lowered himself again, slowly, and waited for the ache to ease.

Under the blanket, he wore a pale shirt that wasn't his.

He lifted its hem.

A dressing lay across his lower abdomen. The skin around it looked scrubbed clean, unnaturally bare against the rest of him. He touched the edge of the tape.

What had happened?

He had no memory of an accident. Nothing to explain surgery. Nothing to explain why he couldn't remember getting here.

The door opened.

Ashen dropped the shirt.

A person in gray entered carrying a shallow metal tray. Their shoes made almost no sound. They set the tray on the narrow counter beside the basin and glanced at something fixed to the wall.

"Where am I?" Ashen asked.

The person turned toward him.

Their expression was neither surprised nor welcoming.

"You're awake."

"Yes. Where am I?"

They approached the bed and checked the clear bag.

"Do you have nausea?"

"What?"

"Nausea. Dizziness. Difficulty breathing."

"My stomach hurts."

"How severely?"

"I don't know. It hurts when I move." He watched their hands adjust the tubing. "What happened to me?"

The person looked at the dressing beneath his shirt.

"Leave that in place."

Ashen pulled the blanket higher.

"Did I have an operation?"

"Your discomfort will be monitored."

"That's not what I asked."

The person paused with one hand on the tube.

Ashen became aware of how quickly he was breathing. He made himself take a slower breath.

"My name is Ashen. I remember being brought somewhere, but not how long I've been here. I need you to tell me what's going on."

"We have your name."

"Then use it."

For the first time, their attention seemed to settle fully on him.

It wasn't anger. He could have understood anger.

They looked at him as though he had made a request that didn't belong in the conversation.

"I'll record that you're responsive."

They returned to the counter.

Ashen stared at their back.

"Where's my phone?"

No answer.

"My clothes?"

The person made a mark on a flat sheet of something he couldn't quite see.

"I need to call someone."

"Your belongings aren't required here."

The words took a moment to register.

"Required for what?"

They set the sheet down.

"If you need water, there is a cup beside you."

Ashen looked. A plastic cup stood on a shelf near his right shoulder. He hadn't noticed it.

"That's all?"

The person took the tray and moved toward the door.

"Wait."

They stopped.

"Am I in a hospital?"

"No."

The door closed behind them.

For several seconds, Ashen didn't move.

The plainness of the answer was worse than if they had avoided it.

He listened for footsteps outside. Heard none.

Then he looked around the room again.

There was no call button.

He checked beside the mattress, beneath the edge of the blanket, along the wall within reach. Nothing. The bed had no controls he could see. No rail to lower. The chair was empty, the walls bare.

He reached for the water.

His hand shook enough that some spilled onto the blanket.

He drank anyway. It hurt to swallow, but the coolness helped. He took another mouthful, then set the cup down carefully.

Think.

He could still think.

He knew his name. He knew what a hospital room ought to have. He knew that people didn't wake in places like this without something having happened to them.

He needed the door.

Ashen pulled the blanket aside.

His legs looked like his own. Bare feet, a faint bruise along one shin. He touched it without remembering how it had got there.

He moved toward the edge of the bed in small increments.

The ache in his abdomen returned. He stopped until it settled, then tried again.

By the time both feet touched the floor, there was sweat beneath his hair.

The room tilted when he stood.

He caught the bed with one hand and stayed there, bent slightly forward, waiting.

No alarm sounded.

No one came.

That encouraged him more than it should have.

The door was only a few steps away.

He kept a hand against the wall as he crossed the room. The tube tugged before he reached it.

Ashen looked back.

There wasn't enough slack.

For a moment he considered pulling the needle out. His fingers hovered over the tape, but he couldn't make himself do it yet. He didn't know what was in the bag or what would happen if he stopped it.

Instead, he stretched his right hand toward the door.

His fingertips reached the handle.

He pressed down.

Nothing.

He tried again, harder.

The handle moved, but the door didn't.

"Hello?"

He knocked with the side of his fist.

No response.

He knocked again.

"I need someone to open this."

His voice sounded clearer now. Almost normal.

"I need to leave."

Something shifted beyond the door.

Ashen straightened as much as he could.

"I'm awake. You can let me out."

A voice answered from the other side.

"Return to the bed."

He gripped the handle.

"Open the door."

"Return to the bed."

"Why is it locked?"

Silence.

He hit the door once with his palm.

Pain pulled through his abdomen. He folded around it, his forehead nearly touching the painted surface.

For a few breaths, he couldn't speak.

When he could, the anger had thinned into something he didn't want the person outside to hear.

"What did you do to me?"

No answer.

Ashen stood there until his legs began to tremble.

Then he went back.

He hated the short journey. Hated having to brace himself against the wall, hated the relief of reaching the mattress. He sat down because he couldn't keep standing, not because anyone had told him to.

The clicking continued.

He looked at the bag beside the bed and followed the tubing to his hand.

The person in gray had known his name.

They had known he would wake with pain.

They had left water within reach and locked the door.

Whatever had happened, they were prepared for it.

Ashen lay back carefully.

Through the wall, he heard voices passing. Too low to make out. One stopped nearby.

"Eight is awake."

The other said something he couldn't hear.

Ashen turned toward the sound.

"I'm here," he said.

The voices moved on.

He stared at the closed door.

Eight.

He repeated his name under his breath, once, then again.

Ashen.

He kept his eyes on the handle.

The next time it moved, he wanted to be ready.