Dead Men Walking: Code Seven

The world dropped out from underneath Eric. The woman was lying. He wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead. He was breathing. He could feel pain.

And yet, this place. Its white walls, its alien shapes, its too soft beds. This was not his home, his world, but the woman knew his name. What if this was what the afterlife was really like, and all that talk of paradise and eternal rest was fiction?

"Now, stay calm."

Her words snapped him out of his spiral of dread, but probably not in the way she intended. His eyes fixated on her. The mask hid her face, but her fear came through in her flinch and immediate half step back. He almost shouted, screamed in her face. But then, as she continued to back away, the wall she'd come in through split open again, and he saw an opportunity.

Eric leapt off of the bed, surprising even himself with how quickly he could still move. A powerful headache took hold just behind his eyes, and his legs wobbled under him, but he managed to stay upright. Still stumbling, he broke into a sprint, shoving the woman aside and making a break for the way out.

"Eric, wait!"

Outside was just as white and oppressively lit as before, but now he was in a corridor filled with more figures dressed exactly like the woman from before. A few pushed drag gray carts laden with supplies, and at least one of them was wearing pants instead of a skirt and carried some kind of blunt weapon on his hip. All heads swiveled to him, and a chorus of gasps sounded off.

He barely paused to take it in as he kept moving, half running, half falling through the corridors, looking for a way out of wherever he was. Someone shouted at him to stop. He ignored it. When another wall split open, he ran through, trying to evade the pursuing footsteps now behind him.

The voice of the woman who'd first spoke to him now echoed overhead, filling the halls.

"We have a code seven in Recovery. We have a code seven in Recovery."

The next time he ran through a doorway, he found himself barging into a wide, open intersection of halls with a large desk counter tucked against one wall. There were dozens of masked figures quickly shuffling away, but two of them advanced on him, and drew dark, narrow clubs that extended with a flick of their wrists.

Reflex drew Eric's hand toward his hip, but his hand grasped empty air. He was unarmed.

The armed masks advanced, flanking Eric on either side as they swung. As blows came in from both sides, Eric became a desperately flailing mess, blocking and swinging back with bare fists. The narrow clubs hit with a sharp force that defied their small size, but adrenaline dulled what his skill couldn't deflect.

He knocked one to the ground with a right hook to the chin, and forced the other back with a kick to the chest. Without wasting a second, he scooped one of their fallen clubs off the ground, turned, and rained down a beating on the one that looked like he was going to get up until he stopped trying.

Eric staggered back, waiting for more attackers.

None came. 

Everyone else in the intersection was running away from him, screaming. The lights and noise made his head throb, and sweat was starting to roll down his forehead. He pushed forward, picking the hallway that the least number of people had gone down. As he did, everyone still in it hurried to get out of his way. Some dove through openings in the wall that quickly shut behind them. Others simply flattened themselves against the wall or curled into a ball.

Eric ran on instinct, taking turns and doorways with nothing to go on but desperation until finally, he stumbled through another opening into a wide, open room, mostly empty save for a few tables, and dominated by one wall made entirely of glass.

On the other side of the massive window stretched an endless, twinkling haze of gray and purple wisps that rolled slowly by, occasionally illuminated by small, brilliant flashes of color that appeared and vanished like lightning in the clouds.

In that moment, Eric froze, mesmerized.

Nobody else was in this room, the noise and panic of the rest of the place was gone, faded to a distant, muffled din somewhere behind him. Slowly, without thinking, Eric found himself walking toward the window.

He placed his hand on the glass, and was met with a icy cold sensation. Immediately, one of the wisps outside twisted to and swirled to touch the glass where he was. The gas pooled against the other side of the glass, mimicking the imprint of his hand, and a tingling sensation spread across his palm.

He looked down as far as the glass would allow him, and saw only more of the expanse. Same above.

Eric had no idea what he was looking at. And yet, all at once, he knew in his bones that he was very, very far from home.

A sharp whistle bit into his eardrums and dragged him back into his surroundings. He spun around with the club, expecting more masks.

Instead, he saw a man, dressed in a dark leather coat full of holes worn over scrap metal armor. The man sported silver flecked dark hair and a beard, and where his left eye should have been, there was strapless metal eyepatch.

After seeing so many figures all wearing the same thing, the man's distinct appearance caught Eric off guard, and he hesitated. The man didn't.

"Drop," he ordered.

Brandishing some sort of armless crossbow, the man took aim. With a loud, hollow thump, the weapon fired a fist sized, hard pellet into Eric's stomach. Eric's legs dropped out from under him, and he wheezed as he struggled to get air back in his lungs.

The man shook his head, and made a noise that almost sounded disappointed. Still winded, Eric tried to force himself back onto his feet, only to be hit by another pellet, this one straight to his face.