The space behind him where his grandparents’ couch and end tables should have been was instead replaced by a long row of variously spaced black boxes that ran the length of the room. They were sturdy, made of some kind of metal or steel, with slots, buttons, and dials scattered across their bodies. Some had small, circular lights that remained lit, while others blinked rapidly—on, off, on, off. Cords and wires connected them all, some with lunchbox-sized screens placed at eye level, the screens and boxes and wires surrounding him as if they thought him an enemy and planned to attack.

Where he had knelt watching television was now a long, low table filled with dials and knobs and levers and buttons. Wheeled chairs were placed intermittently. In front, more small screens were set into the wall and it was in looking at them and the images they featured that Jordan felt the first rise of bile in the back of his throat. He knew what he saw wasn’t real, which meant something horrible was wrong. Either he was having a psychotic break or this was a symptom of something physical. A brain tumor or something awful. Malignant.

He looked to the right of the switchboard-looking terminals to a small window the size and shape of a large fish tank set into the wall at eye-level. Peering through it, an all too-familiar glistening white stage found his gaze, sets being swiveled this way and that to block the black curtains and starry landscape for the next portion of the show. Cameramen positioned their equipment while skinny guys with headsets adjusted furniture and stage lights.

Another hot prickle of horror spread through him as he looked down at the sea of heads floating below, the same people he’d been staring at on his grandmother’s tape. Her recorded tape. Of something that happened nearly forty years ago.

Looking back at the various screens set into the hulking machines throughout the room, he saw the same thing on each: a stage, people moving things around, lights and cameras being adjusted and put into their proper positions.

It was possible he was dreaming. But he hadn’t felt tired before, and didn’t now. Which left two possibilities: psychotic break, or tumor.

He wasn’t crazy. In fact, out of the self-absorbed, gadget worshipping Millennials of his generations, he was one of the sanest people he knew. Then again, isn’t that what all crazy people thought?

So tumor it was. He didn’t need Web MD to tell him that. Hallucinations (both visual and tactile), combined with a steady, building pressure in his throbbing head, gave him all the clues—only two, but big ones—he needed.

He’d always been a hypochondriac—each mole was melanoma, each headache an aneurysm—and he’d supposed it was just a matter of time before one of his nonsensical new medical woes would actually be something to be worried about.

If it had progressed to the point where he was already seeing things (and smelling and feeling them, too), he knew he was in trouble. But shit—he was only nineteen! He knew these kinds of things happened to people his age (rare as it was), but not to him. He was healthy! He exercised! He ate right! What terrible thing had he done so that when God flipped open his Big Book of Diseases and Hardships, next to JORDAN JONES, he had written: Brain Tumor?

He instinctively reached for his cell but remembered it wasn’t working. Rubbed his temples and scanned the room for a phone, finally spotting one on the far left corner of the switchboard-looking table. He picked it up, half-expecting there to be no dial tone, and relaxed a little when he heard the familiar bzz before dialing the three numbers everyone is taught from a young age (though Jordan never had cause to dial them before). A young woman answered.

“911, what is your emergency?”

Where to start?

“My head hurts and…I’m feeling dizzy,” he began. “I’m—I’m seeing things that aren’t there.” The words sounded strange as they stumbled from his mouth, things he never thought he’d say.

“Okay, sir. What is your location?”

“My location?”

“Where are you right now?” she said, “From where are you making this call?”

 “I—uh—I’m…I don’t…”

 Should he say where he was, or where he knew he should be? The operator’s next question decided for him.

“Where are you in the Los Angeles area?”

 Jordan froze, silent, picturing the woman at the other end of the line in some nearby call center in a wide-collared shirt and flared pants.

 Los Angeles?

“Sir? Are you still with me? Sir—”

Jordan’s hand seemed to lose its strength and dropped the phone back into its cradle, silencing the operator. He hadn’t even noticed it was a rotary.

His head was banging harder than ever, the blood rushing, pounding in his veins.

There was a rattling from the corner. A door Jordan hadn’t noticed until now. His eyes darted around the room looking for a place to hide and, lighting upon a small gap between the wall and one of the hulking pieces of machinery, wriggled himself in. It was tight, and wires from the back of the machines crisscrossed on the floor and tangled in his feet, but it was better than standing out in the open waiting for someone to show up and ask the question to which he had no answer: What are you doing here?

From his spot against the wall, Jordan heard the brass doorknob turn and waited to be discovered.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3