Prisoner 4378

Prisoner 4378

          I awoke to a sound I had never heard before, I should be dead, I died, I know I died. I remember watching from above my body as the doctor tried to revive me. As he worked on my giving me CPR. He was a young doctor, I am somewhat surprised by that, although I should not be. Working the ER is a young man's job, not for those in the late middle age bracket. I should know I was a Doctor when I was alive.

          Totally all my fault I am dead, after all I was the one who made my choices in life. I was successful as a doctor, no real issues after making it through my residency. I went for a medium sized town in a rural area to start my practice. I was fortunate enough to sign on with an already established clinic. The hours were good, and the pay was great for a newer doctor.

          There was not a lot of problems in our community, so even the on call hours were pretty manageable, and there was no requirement to be signed on with the Hospital and the ER rotation. Life was going pretty good. Thirteen years, that was all I worked after getting my medical certificate, and became a doctor. Retired at age forty without a care in the world.

          I had to retire early, I screwed up big time. I fell in with a bad deal. I was approached by an individual that offered me a lot of money. Greed, it undid me. Two and a half years riding high on the Money Train called Greed. That ended the day the FBI came calling at my home. The choice was given to me, they let me know the person that recruited and paid me had turned. I would let them think they had me, that they had a willing and scared victim.

          The problem was when I did get scared, it was to late. I have to tell you when people are shooting holes in your windshield, and you are doing eight miles an hour and only slowing enough to keep the car on the road around the corners, well one corner was bad, like spike strip bad. All I remember of that moment was airborne, and it being a long way to the ground.

          The sound, that irritating sound again, “Prisoner 4378, prisoner 4378, stand by your bed and”…. On and on it droned, I finally rolled over, coming slowly back to myself and my death. I remember hovering above myself watching the action in the ER. I am dead. What is this Prisoner 4378 that I keep hearing over and over. I finally slide my legs out from the bed and look around. One of the first things I see is a monitor flashing Prisoner 4378 on it and a voice coming out of the speaker for it. I look more closely at my surroundings, confused, where am I, is this heaven? If it is why is the monitor calling me prisoner 4378? If it is hell, then where are the demons? This is not what I thought the afterlife was like.

          “Prisoner 4378, prisoner 4378, stand by your bed. Ah there you are Prisoner 4378, nice of you to finally join the land of living again.” the screen said, starting in the robotic female voice and now that of a more real sounding human voice, unrecorded at least. I look over to the monitor and still see Prisoner 4378 written on it. As I was watching the screen the message changed, Life sentence served, you are free to go. The human voice came back on as I read the message out loud to myself, and then said what the hell is it talking about.

          “Let me explain, you were convicted of a crime that involved a life sentence. You served your sentence out. You are now free to go. When you open the door to your room continue to the end of the hall to your left and you will enter an out processing room. They will update you on your life here. Your crime has been expunged from all digital assets, there is no record of why you were here of how long you were here or any of that information”.

          “When you leave here, even the very fact you were ever here in this facility will be erased from all digital assets”. Who are you, and if I am dead who am I, I know who I was when I died, I know nothing of this place. I said. “Who I am does not need to be known to you, your other question and subsequent questions may be asked at out processing”.

          I did another look around the room, a bed, now with a glass cover over it, and the monitor. No other fixtures. I check the bed to see if there are any marking on it, but it is attached to the floor and basically a mattress on a box, with no labels. I am not even sure it was a mattress, as I can no longer touch it. It felt resilient when I awoke and that is all I remember from the bed. The monitor was flush against the wall no words or labels on it either. Room for the bed and not much else, since I had nowhere to sit now or lay down, there was nothing I could do except step through the door and see what awaited me at the end of the hall.

          The hall was much like the room, pretty bare, no decorations of any kind, just plain white walls and plain flooring, black and white checkerboard type linoleum tile from the world I remember, the world I just died in. Instead of blindly following the person in the monitors instructions, I turned right, and tried the first door I came to, it was locked. I tried all the doors, none of them opened. I felt rather fortunate that there was not that many doors, and headed in the correct direction when I reached the end of the hall. I had counted the doors as I went and when I came back to the room I was sure I was in, it too was locked. Now I wish I had tried it as soon as it closed behind me.

          All the doors in the direction I was supposed to initially go were all locked also, there was one door at the end of the hallway in this direction. I don’t know why I did not do it earlier, but I finally looked down at my feet, I was barefoot. All my toes were there, and I am surprised I did not notice my hands either while trying the doors, it is like a part of my brain was still asleep or something, but looking down at my feet, then at my hands I realized just how pale they were, a deathly white color, as if I had not felt the sun on my skin in many many years.

          I was forty three when I died, not old by any stretch of imagination, but my skin did look aged some, with wrinkles and a couple of almost bulging veins, my skin on my feet and my hands looked young. At this point I really wanted a mirror to see what I looked like. The walls in my room and the monitor to best of my recollection did not offer any reflection at all, and the hallway walls were a flat tone, there was nothing I could use to see what I looked like.

          Is my hesitancy to open the door to out processing because I feel my brain coming back on, am I delaying so that I can ask questions of the person or thing that is in the next room? Why would I think Thing along with person? I needed answers yet I felt I did not know the questions. I remember as a doctor that blood deprivation to the brain can cause problems, so I dropped to the floor and did ten push-ups, then when I got back up a few jumping jacks, and deep knee bends, a little light exercise to see if I could get my brain functioning enough to ask questions, I jogged to the end of the hallway, and did a slow walk back taking deep deep breaths to get my blood flowing.

          I think it helped a little bit. At least I learned my body was somewhat fit and that I could do some light exercise. I did not feel short of breath or anything, and did not break a sweat or even really noticeably raise my heart or pulse rate. The only question was try the door, or wait for someone of something to ask If I needed help? Would someone check to see if I needed help if I did not open the door soon? How long would the wait after an individual wakes before they check why they have not entered out processing?

          I examined the hallway once again, it was then that I noticed that the doors while of a normal height, the ceiling was well above the top of the doors. I tried jumping to see if I could nudge a ceiling tile or not. No luck from standing and jumping, so I tried a running leap, put all my effort into it, the ceiling was unreachable. Why such a high ceiling I wondered. It did not seem unduly high in the room, but then again I doubt myself, did I look to even notice the ceiling? Was there a big space above the monitor or the door? I honestly can not remember if I noticed or not. I do know that I did not hear or see the glass cover the bed, and I was very close to it when it happened. I don’t know if it came out of the wall or lowered from the ceiling or if it just materialized over the bed. One minute it was not there, then the next it was.

          I have been, as near as I can figure, awake for about two hours, and I really needed to pee. My stomach was beginning to make some grumbling sounds also, so I could just sit and wait a little longer to see if anyone or thing would come for me, or I can open the door and ask where I can go pee at. Think that thought brought me to the realization that I had not even looked or examined what I was wearing. How could I have been awake for almost two hours and not even question what I was wearing. It seemed to be some sort of slightly off white one piece jumper. It had upper chest buttons and a belt line zipper. The odd thing was that the button part did not unbutton all the way to the zipper part. It had a four inch gap area. Odd, it had to be difficult to dress someone in it with that configuration. It would be difficult enough to dress oneself in it. Then it struck me as really odd, okay we have pee evacuation covered, but what about the other bodily function? How does one use the toilet with out getting fully undressed. This silly jumper thing needed to go as soon as possible,

          Just as I was wondering about opening the door….”Prisoner 4378, prisoner 4378 please step into the out processing room”...came from some invisible speaker in the ceiling. I reached for the door and turned the knob. I slowly opened the door, and standing on the threshold of the doorway, used my hand to open it all the way so I could see all of the room without having to step around the door.

          I gazed into the room, the checkerboard floor pattern continued, I did notice in the left distant corner that it seemed off somehow, I just could not really place it, something just not right about that corner. There was a desk about seven feet into the room with a chair to sit in. To the left was the left hand wall, no decorations just a plain off white blank wall, same with the wall about three feet behind the woman at the desk. The only odd thing was that distant left corner. The wall the door was set into ran about 8 feet to the right and the other wall like the left wall plain and barren, no decorations. I did notice that the door wall had one of the screens set into it and that the desk was on a slight angle so as to be looking at it. Once again as I noticed the woman, I noticed there were no reflective surfaces to look upon myself in.

          The woman motioned me to sit in the chair, I saw her motion, and decided I would wait until she spoke, I turned my back to her and reached to close the door. After the door had closed, I tried to see if it would reopen, nope, no dice. Looked like this was going to be a one way trip until I ran into the outside world, if ever. As I was closing the door I caught a slight flicker from the monitor screen, I do not think the women or the person on the screen noticed that I noticed a quick view and head nod in the screen.

          I turned back toward the desk and the woman behind it. I was going to hold my tongue until she spoke, so I looked at the desk to see what was all on it. Not surprising there was nothing on the desktop, just a clean empty surface, not even the all inclusive always there from my past experience with desk and peoples desk, no matter how clean they were, there was always a coffee/tea cup stain from years of habit and the cup or glass being placed unknowingly in most cases in the same spot day after day year after year. You could discern a lot about the person behind the desk, if it was a shared desk or if they were new to the desk. Were they left handed or right handed, the size of the ring was it coffee, tea or a bottle of something. Her desk, no tale tales at all. Clean like it was brand new.

          There was no trash can in the room and no other furnishings at all, just the woman, the desk and the chair. I turned my attention to the “guest” chair. It looked used. It looked like a lot of people had sat in it, the cushion was somewhat flattened, the back of the chair looked vibrant, but when I looked at the back from the sitting area it was worn and dull looking like the seat cushion. The wood on the arms of the chair looked polished with years of arm sweat and oils, the front legs worn and scratched and scuffed from worrying feet, while the upper parts of the leg and higher wood parts looked to be in good vibrant shape. I walked around the chair and stood behind it with my hands on its back as I gazed over into that left hand corner, still not right looking.

          My eyes had full adjusted to being awake now, and I noticed a flash again from the direction of the monitor. I ignored it and the woman looking at the monitor. I continued to stare at that corner. I needed a closer look, that was all there was to it, I had to solve the corner mystery for my brain. I could concentrate on nothing not even on thinking to speak to the woman behind the desk, I wanted to out wait her, but was not sure I would be able to, so I moved around the desk to the left to go and look at the corner.

          The room I was in if memory serves me correctly was spic and span, not a speck of dust or dirt anywhere, same with the hallway, and with almost all of this room. So how did a spider escape the notice of the cleaners? What was it doing in here? How did it get here? What did it eat to stay alive? I have neither seen nor heard any other bugs in the short time granted that I have been awake, but somewhere, somehow this signified a crack in the armor of this building. Having determined what it was I continued on a slow circle of the desk, hoping that I had not given away the little spiders secret.

          The woman's chair seemed to be a comfortable enough affair, in a lot better shape than the “guest” chair. She sat prim and proper in her chair not turn or following me at all, like she was a living mannequin, playing a part in sitting in a chair. The desk had three drawers on one side, none on the other, and a center drawer. None of the three drawers were large enough to hold file folders. Since the woman just sat there staring at the monitor, ever so slightly shaking her head, I decided I would look in the drawers. Locked, figures. Everything else was locked or locked behind me as I left. From the desk I continued over to the other door, it was locked. Should have known. As I turned around there was the image of a man on the monitor. His eyes were following my movement, but I chose to ignore him, I continued back to the guest chair, and sat down.

          I sat staring at the woman behind the desk. She was just a woman, nothing special about her. Some would have called her beautiful with the looks she had and her hair, to me it was all so artificial, this whole setup silent treatment. To me she was nothing special, like most men I did a quick check of her chest area and this elicited a slight smile on her and a lightening of her eyes, it was this condescending type action on her part that made me decide to break my silence.

          “You can forget the slight smile and eye flash, I do not find you attractive at all. I grow weary of the game this place is playing. The gentleman on the screen, and I am just guessing it was him on the screen in the room I woke up in, said you will answer my questions. Now what is this place and who are you, who is he and who am I we can start with those question, then you can tell me how and why I am not dead”? I sat back and waited for the answers, all the while continuing to evaluate the woman behind the desk.

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I hope you enjoyed the story, let me know. The rules for the contest are outlined below and linked if you would like to give it a try. It runs until Oct 1st, so plenty of time to enter.

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Rules for @calluna's - - Tell me a Story Contest

1. One Entry Per Person
2. Prose, poetry, any form of fiction is accepted, as long as you tell me a story based on the prompt
3. Your entry must be written for this contest, and inspired by the prompt
4. Entries must be submitted by Midnight (BST) on Monday October 1st (That gives you just over two weeks to enter)
5. Use #tellastorytome, you don't have to, but your stories are so good I feel like they deserve their own tag
6. One picture only please, additional images of text are fine, but I want you to tell me a story with words, so only one actual picture
7. First Place wins 5 SBD more prizes up for grabs if we get enough entries - very happy to have this back at
8. Link back to this contest somewhere in your post. I would be really grateful if you also resteemed this contest (not doing so won't get your entry disqualified, but it is very much appreciated to help get the word out there, and more entries means more prizes).
9. I don’t really want to specify how long it should be, so no min length, and aim for under 4,000 but if it goes a little over, don't worry, I normally find myself wishing your entries never ended
10. Post a link to your tale in the comments on the original contest post

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The Prompt

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Your entry must be inspired by this prompt, I am looking to hear the story where

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When you die, you wake...