New Assignment (original)

It’s not that abnormal for former high-quality dreamers to have sudden dizziness or unplanned unconsciousness. In fact, it’s stated on the resume, Annie knew in her head, but— 

"Um..." She choked, "It’s a common side eff-"

"Common? You call that common? No one else here has trouble staying awake, and everyone else here has done sleeper stints. "It was very irresponsible of you withhold your pre-existing conditions when taking on responsibility for minors."

"It says high-quality--"

"It wasn’t very high-quality of you to let three minors get injured while under your care." scolded the guy. She could see him clearly now, but she wasn’t sure if he was the same guy who had hired her. She didn’t know his name and she couldn’t remember his voice. She couldn’t tell how long she had been unconscious.

Annie sighed. Her head hurt so much more than usual, and she couldn’t go to sleep for such a long time. She had to finish a whole day of so much work.

"We’re willing to continue helping you out," he said with a sudden air of concern. 

"With all do respect, I didn’t seek out the childcare. I was trying to help out."

"You didn’t help out. With all due respect, you need to take whatever work we’re willing to give you. You’ve been asleep for ten years. You have no usable skills. Do yourself a favor, take care of yourself and you should consider setting aside some savings."

Anger flashed through Annie’s mind, but she bit it back and sighed.

He gave her a dirty look, as though she was so rude for sighing. 

He looked like he had something he was excited to say, so Annie waited for him.

But instead of making any points, bent over in his chair and crossed his arms.

"Do you have anything you want to tell us?" He said, pasting a creepy fake smile onto his choppy face.

Annie tried to look at him incredulously. It must have looked like confusion.

"You can tell me anything...if you need to..." He said.

Annie tried to think about what the heck he meant and why he would say it. 

"Not anything I can think of right now."

This time he snorted and said, "Ok," as though he was sharing an inside joke he shared with someone who wasn’t there whilst excluding her.

He was chuckling, reaching behind him to pull out a binder.

"We’re worried about you and we want to help you out..." He was saying, without looking at her.

"There’s a field mission we think you would be a good fit for."

She tried to read the papers in the binder, but the words seemed to swim away from her. She grasped at some, but he kept talking and beat them away. 

"K." Annie said, trying to have attitude or whatever passed for strength.

"Alright, well, here’s the city. It’s called white-drop island. They seem to have plenty of electricity, but they’re not getting it from here."

Annie tried think of a response that wouldn’t sound stupid.

"Is the goal to determine where they get their energy?"

He snickered rather than explain himself.

New Assignment (Redone)

 Outline: Get from injury to checking out of items. 

Annie opened her eyes to complete darkness. She had the familiar feeling of a cot with no blanket. She felt a mix of tiredness from work sleep and grogginess from real sleep. 

She reached for her visor, and her fingers reached her bare eyelids. They were unhappily puffed up. Her whole arm shot through with pain. She felt aches throughout all of her bruised muscles. She remembered getting beaten. She tried bringing her hand back to her side and the pain redoubled. She felt the spin of regaining consciousness in a strange bed facing the wrong direction. 

She realized she was in some kind of hospital or something. 

An unfamiliar voice scolded, "It’s not there."

All of Annie’s muscles tensed with shock at the force of the tone. They also all hurt. The unfamiliar voice laughed hideously. 

She blinked at the darkness and closed her eyes. The sound faded and so did most of the pain.

She could vaguely hear sharp noises from the voice continuing to talk and possibly footsteps. They sounded about the same.

She could no longer feel the pressure of the cot. She felt herself floating, instead. 

She thought she smelled and tasted salty air. It was heavily wet like the air around a seashore...or the lungs of a person who has just cried a lot. She wondered if she had been crying. She wondered if she was still being beaten. 

Then she thought she could hear again. There was a low rumbling like a wave simulator machine, or like real waves. It was only waves. There were no bird or boat sounds. 

She listened for footsteps. She thought she hear clicks on a hard floor. She thought she heard the plink of metal hitting something solid.

The clicking came closer to her. There seemed to be a flurry of steps, as though from multiple pairs of feet. 

She wondered if they would hurt her. 

A strange thought came to her suddenly, as though spoken out loud.

"Shield...Protect."  

As though she wanted a shield to appear around her and protect her from being beaten any more. 

It seemed to work. The clicks retreated, or maybe her hearing was fading again.

The sound that was like waves faded, as well. Once again, Annie was in sensory deprivation.

For an eternity she sensed nothing, and then a low buzz grew. She heard the machines around her humming and beeping. She heard something dripping. She heard shuffling feet and crinkling clothes. 

She felt the cot pressing at her back again. She started to sense the direction she was facing. She could feel her balance on the cot. She heard the low thump of her heart beating and felt the passage of time. 

Her eyes were still closed, but she could feel the growing brightness blasting through her eyelids.

She heard voices talking. 

"I tried to tell her but she’s awfully rude. She didn’t nod or anything."

"Yeah, how rude," said a squeaky voice, and snickered. "Anyway I just heard from home. My stepmom just inherited four-hundred and thirteen thous—"

"—So you’re asking for leave?"

"Well, no. Just had to tell someone." 

Annie flinched at the light. It was now too bright.

"Oh look who’s finally back with us," said the older voice. The younger voice didn’t speak again. The person of it left the room. 

Annie very painfully opened her eyes. They wouldn’t open all the way. The top of her field of vision was her raw skin, crowding her eyes. The room was bright, but also very blurry. The tall, squarish man was there.

He remained blurry and the light remained dim.

She heard rumbling, fuzzy versions of whatever he was saying, and got nothing useful.

She thought she may as well sit up, and tried to do so, with an enormous amount of pain. 

She was still wearing her interview outfit. She could see her arm was bruised all the way down. 

She got a sense from his blurry posture that he was disappointed and offended.

The stern reproach of his voice was dulled as he struck her with it. She did feel bad for having done a bad job in the nursery, and guilty. 

The more everyone around her reminded her she how bad she was supposed to feel, the less sorry she was. 

She nodded as much as she could. He didn’t seem to be asking any questions. He was animatedly making a speech.

He came all the way into focus and in between spasms of pain she saw him in detail.

He had a forgettable middle-aged face and a forgettable color of hair. 

"... ..." He was pontificating, then he phased back out. 

She wondered what her face looked like. He wasn’t looking at her, not really. She felt like a big balloon inflated with pain.

"—but we’ll keep trying to work with you here."

Annie saw very dimly that he was holding something. As she focused, the pain faded a little and she saw it was a large plastic binder. She couldn’t read any letters on it. 

He quickly and violently made dog-summoning gestures. She did the emotional labor of not being offended and then tried to follow him.

He then held up a a fist, lifting his forearm. With a furiously explosive jab he pointed behind her. There, sadly wilting on itself, was her little backpack. 

She hesitated much too long for him, nearly a second. So, he scolded, "Remember your effects, please."  He put so much reproach into the word that it hurt more than each step hurt her bruised body.  

She felt obligated by his haughty anger to hurry even more, which hurt any more.

"Sorry, it hurts quite a bit," she said in the tone of voice she had been conditioned to use in all polite situations, as though hoping to demonstrate to him the correct way to talk. 

"Hmm," he grunted in disagreement. "You need to be more careful."

She had climbed through the air to get to her bag. She checked inside, according to habit. Someone had carelessly thrown in the stuff from he classroom. Her keys and everything else were sloppily piled, along with some rectangles of cardboard that must have been under the stuff. She checked for her cords and clothes. She checked for her water bottle. She almost had time to breathe.

"Do hurry up a bit. You’ve missed a lot of the day."

At some point she found she was suddenly holding the binder, and straining to read the title. It was something like Drop and White in the title. It didn’t seem appropriate, but neither did anything else. 

Next Chapter: Drop Island