Time and location (present day): 7:00am, ENDURE Center for Rehabilitation

My eyelids flung open, and I inhaled forcefully as if I had been waiting with bated breath to wake up from the nightmare I had been trapped in. I tried to move but found my body giving me no leeway. Sleep paralysis, I was told. A symptom of my post-traumatic stress disorder. Doctor Atticus Cais diagnosed me with it shortly after my arrival here. Here, being a rehabilitation facility by the name of ENDURE, whose staff were renowned globally for their talents in reintroducing those with even the most severe of disorders or physical disabilities into society. After the crash that took the lives of my family, I was placed in a medically induced coma, one that lasted three long years. When I finally awoke, I was transferred to this facility for physical and mental rehabilitation. Still being the only part of my body released from slumber, my eyes slowly glanced over to the clock on the bedside table. It read 7:00am on the dot, a seeming constant over the course of my now six months and counting stay here. It felt as if an internal alarm clock had been secretly implanted in my brain, triggering me to wake up at precisely the same time each morning. At least that was the reason my now hyperactive and rampant imagination had conjured up for the strange occurrence. Something in the corner of the room moved ever so slightly in my peripheral vision, drawing the attention of my sight. There, across from my bed stood the shadow from my nightmares, a shadow I’d come to know as Mallen. It was a self-given title, one the shadow bestowed upon itself during an earlier episode of my ailment. For better or for worse, Mallen was now my own personal sleep paralysis demon. As it tilted its non-descript head and featureless face to the side, I began to feel the tips of my fingers jitter. The sensation worked its way up my arms and eventually throughout my body, and with my reintroduction to motor function came the dissipation of Mallen like the early morning mist. With the demon now being held at bay, I let out a sigh of relief and sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. No matter how many times I saw it, it unnerved me all the same. Mallen was a product of my imagination, but that didn’t stop it from feeling all too real. It didn’t help that I had taken stock in its presence, and therefore gave this figment further form. And so, it didn’t take long before I was communicating with it verbally during rem sleep. Nightmares, I reminded myself sullenly. Shortly after we began speaking to one another, Mallen began appearing in my room when I would first wake, the edges of reality and fantasy bleeding over on one another more and more each day. A knock at the door broke me away from my thoughts, and shortly thereafter Lena entered my quarters. She was the nurse assigned to care for me during my stay at ENDURE and had become something of a comfort over the last half a year.

“Morning Royce, did you sleep okay?” she asked as she entered.

I feigned a smile.

“Like a baby.”

Lena raised an eyebrow at me.

“Mallen again?”

“Always,”

I replied as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed to stand.

“He’s not so bad, once you get to know him,” I chided.

She let out a short laugh.

“Oh, it’s a ‘he’ now?”

I shrugged in response, and she smiled again. It was hard to avert my gaze when she smiled; she truly was stunning. Even in the sky-blue scrubs she wore, her golden-brown locks fell elegantly, just barely passing her shoulders. Her eyes were vividly green, so regal one might describe them as viridian. What intrigued me the most about her though was that she seemed to be completely aloof to her beauty. I of course was a patient who stood no chance of catching this fish, but it never hurt to try, and I really didn’t have anything to lose. It was this line of thinking that doubled as my reasoning for confiding in her and telling her about the shadow that haunted my subconscious.

“Aside from the visit from your friend, how are you feeling today?”

I meandered over to my desk, leaned on it, and stretched.

“Pretty okay; no nausea or pain today,” I said, knowing she was seeking an update on the side-effects of my condition.

Inexplicable nausea, muscle aches, and intense migraines were something I had been suffering from ever since the wreck. Dr. Cais still wasn’t certain whether these symptoms were linked to potential brain damage suffered during the crash, but repeated MRI scans hadn’t suggested anything of the sort.

“Well, that’s good news, my uncle thinks your body simply suffered a good amount in the accident, and that these other symptoms will fully pass with a little more time. Our primary focus is making sure that your sleep paralysis is cured before you’re discharged and that your body and mind are up to snuff. Three years is a long time to be unconscious, and though we did our best to provide proper coma stimulation therapies while you were under, we need to be certain.”

That was a small point of contention between Lena and myself; Dear old Dr. Atticus Cais, who I grew decreasingly fond of with every passing day, was both the owner of ENDURE and Lena’s uncle. Though she swore his intentions were altruistic, I often would argue that his methods and deliverance left more to be desired. He was an astute man, and as such always seemed to be working some sort of alternative angle, or at least that’s how it felt to me whenever we interacted with one another. Perhaps my animosity was misplaced after a recent interaction with the doctor left me with a much longer than expected and seemingly infinite stay at the facility. I had no family of any nature to return to, no job, and no home. As such, Dr. Cais thought it best that I stay at ENDURE until we were able to cure me of my sleep paralysis and get to the root of my other illnesses. When I argued that I wouldn’t be able to pay whatever bills I continued to incur due to the lack of a steady income or savings, Dr. Cais assured me we would work that all out later.

“Well, I know you’re looking out for my best interest; your uncle on the other hand…”

Lena sighed and gave me a look of disappointment that stung.

“Royce, we’ve talked about this,”

I immediately backpedaled, if only to appease her and make sure our interaction didn’t end negatively.

“I know I know, I’m sorry. It just slipped out, forget it entirely.”

Her face relaxed, and she grinned gently once more. It felt like we were frozen in time for a bit before a second knock at the door shattered that perfect moment. Dr. Cais entered the room.

“Hello Mr. Wilko, just doing my rounds. How are you feeling?”

Lena and I glanced briefly at one another, a silent goodbye, and she left the room, leaving me to the doctor’s inquiry.

“I’m feeling alright, thanks. Anything new on the agenda for today?”

Often, Dr. Cais would provide me with some form of daily regimen meant to challenge both the body and mind. ‘Restorative therapy’, he called it. Though I’d never admit it to him, they had certainly been helping me regain my strength and mental fortitude.

“I’m pleased to say no. You have your workout routine, which I’d like you to continue with. Your recent MRI scans have shown promising results, all brain function is relatively normal, or at least as normal as is to be expected after enduring what you have. I trust that from here on out, your chess games with Mr. McAllister will suffice for mental gymnastics.”

Mr. McAllister was a young man in his early thirties by the name of Jonathan. He and I had met just days after my arrival at the facility, and we hit it off like old pals. After a while, Jonathan and I had developed a habit of playing chess at least once daily in the lobby. He was a few years older than me, but we had a lot in common and he quickly became someone I felt I could trust, someone I could even call a friend.

“Sounds good to me, Jonathan and I can use the extra time for more rounds per day.”

It was small talk, something to appease Dr. Cais, to mask my distaste for his presence.

He smiled, though it seemed forced.

“Excellent. I also wanted to talk to you regarding,”

His cellphone vibrated repeatedly, breaking his train of thought.

There was the briefest trace of worry behind his eyes, then it was gone in a flash.
“I do apologize Mr. Wilko, but we’ll have to continue this discussion later. I’m needed urgently, enjoy the rest of your day.”

He gave me one last toothy smile and then exited the room. I let out a sigh; every interaction with that man was exhausting and left me on edge. What was it he wanted to talk to me about? I wondered. This led me further down the rabbit hole, what was so important that he left in such a hurry? And why did he attempt to hide his concern? The questions began to jumble around in my head, a perfect cocktail of stagnancy and psychosis fueled by my imprisonment in this place. Overthinking had been my strong suit long before the accident, but now it seemed that I was clinging to every potentially strange occurrence I could, if only to eke out some excitement from my situation. The lights in my room shut off suddenly; pitch dark surrounded me. For the briefest of moments, I swore I felt someone in the room with me… Then the lights turned back on, only this time my room was swathed in an ominous red glow. I walked to the door and attempted to peak out into the hallway, see what was going on, but it had automatically locked; I was trapped. A voice suddenly exploded from the P.A. system.

“Attention all residents, lockdown has been initiated. All rooms have been secured and all residents not currently within the confines of their rooms will be escorted to them shortly. Rooms will remain sealed until lockdown is lifted, signaled by the return of normal lighting. At that time, all doors will unlock, and you may proceed with your daily activities. We thank you for your understanding and cooperation. Remember; together, we can endure anything.”

The P.A. system cut out, and I was left in the silence of the flashing crimson. Somehow, the lack of alarms and the presence of utter quiet made the situation even more daunting. With nothing left to do but wait, I laid back down in bed, staring at the ceiling as it flashed in and out of existence. I thought about what might be happening beyond the threshold of my room’s door, and quickly decided to block out those intrusive thoughts before I got too carried away. Ignorance truly was bliss, and thus sometimes I was perfectly content to be ignorant. I began to daydream about Lena, how in a perfect world the idea of us could somehow work… but my mind soon wandered where it always did when left alone with my thoughts for too long, an eventuality that seemed inescapable… the crash, my family, how things could’ve been so different… Rory popped into my head suddenly. She was, or rather, had been my younger sister. I closed my eyes, tried to picture her, but it was becoming harder and harder to remember the distinctions that made her Rory. I refused to open them, determined to conjure up her image, to not let myself forget… and then suddenly, before I knew what had happened, I was asleep once more. I was subconsciously aware that I was boarding some temporal train at some astral station, and I knew that I would arrive shortly at my destination, yet another eventuality: Mallen.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2: Conspirers