Without much going on in my life, and the thought of the expense that had gone into the gift, I had quickly went to the Swap Clinic to cash in my gift without any real thought into who could have sent me such a gift. Thankfully, the local Clinic was more than capable at cashing in the little voucher, the woman beaming at me as she scanned the card with a little beep.
"Thank you for coming in early... Mr Hughes" the caramel skinned young woman had chirped from behind the counter. "We always have issues with people checking in right before the deadline. We can get you sorted now if you want? Next thing you know you'll be off enjoying...Perfect Prom!" the young woman cries with excitement, her slender frame nearly launching out of her seat.
"Uh... Thanks?" I mutter in response, my hands fidgeting with my jacket as I try to pull it around me.
"It's sooooooooo sweet that someone gifted you this" she coos, her deep brown eyes practically sparkling as she looks off into the mid-distance. "To relive such a big event, the excitement and powerful emotions rushing back and..." she giggles, obviously longing for her own chance to try the holiday package. "Sooooooo..." she muses, smirking at me from across the front desk. "Who got it for you? Wife? Partner? Maybe..."
"I..." I stammer, completely in the dark as to who had left the card in my mailbox. "I have no ide..."
"Mr Hughes!?" calls a low and honeyed voice from the hallway beside the front desk, a short and fit man in his forties soon leaning out as he scans the room. Giving the tan blonde man a nod he waves a little clip board at me, gesturing for me to follow as he begins to plod off down the hallways and out of sight.
I quickly and rather easily catch up to the man, his shorter stride not really helping him in this race. His blue eyes scan over his little chart, his lips moving a little as he reads the important information while we pass closed door after closed door.
"Alight..." the man states, looking back at me as his eyes shift over my taller frame. "We're going to need to strip you down for transport first and foremost, then we can get you sent out to Westhaven to get you rebuilt as..."
"Transport?" I mutter, cutting the man off as he gives me a bit of a scowl. I open my mouth to ask a question, only for the man click his tongue loudly before he cuts me off.
"Yes, transport Mr Hughes" he states dryly, rubbing a little at the corner of his eye. "Total immersion, it's one of the selling points of a Swap-Cation. That mean you don't know where Westhaven is, you'll just... be there with a new life for the week."
As I go to ask another question the man takes a sudden turn, barrelling in through the doorway as he rushes into a little office. At the back of the room stands what appears to be a disassembled Swap Clinic Device, the usual pod or chamber instead sitting as a splayed out series of tubes and wires across the whole back wall. Two large metal plates remain however, one on the floor and one on the ceiling with the bottom plate siting with a little 'X' painted on it in black.
"Stand there" the man huffs, pulling up a chair as he sits down in front of a small little desktop and behind a large thick screen.
"Is that..." I begin to ask, blinking in confusion as I stare at the seemingly wreaked machine. "I mean does it..."
"Work?" the man grumbles, obviously just trying to get me sorted as soon as possible so he can get back to scheduled appointments instead. "Yes, better than before actually. We've removed the limiting hardware from models like this, the open design also helps keep it cool when processing more intensive operations."
"I'm just..." I begin to mutter, stepping a little closer as I lean over the plate. However, the moment I enter between the two metal slabs I feel something latch around my skull. I yelp in pain as I try to pull back out, the sound of typing soon filling the room as the man hastily begins to itemize my traits for 'storage.
"You've got some interesting traits here..." the man mutters, my eye twitching as my neck is soon dragged into the field holding me in place before my chest soon follows. "You know, you could make some good money selling off some of this. You might even be able to replace it with some half decent..."
Suddenly, the sound of the mans voice becomes distant and muddled, the ears shrinking back into my skull and the small holes sealing over with skin as only the most immediate sounds manage to pierce through. I go to shout for help, my mouth aching as I try to open it only to find a patch of skin binding my lips closed.
My hands quickly begin to spasm, the bones snapping and shrinking into nothing as the fingers retract into my palms. Before long my hands as a whole vanish up into my wrists, my feet quickly following suit as the strange field holds me aloft. With a series of shudder inducing crunches and snaps, my arms and legs twist into all sorts of violently strange shapes as the loose skin is sucked up into my torso.
As my hips disintegrate inside me I feel my lower intestines tie themselves into knots as they too begin to melt into the vague fleshly mass beneath me. I scream through my nose as I feel the airway push back into my face and seal over with pale flesh, my eyelids finally snapping closed for go with a errant blink. The changes rapidly progress as I feel the air in my lungs begin to rapidly run out, my waist sucking up into my as my heart shifts up and up until it slips past my shrinking jaw and vanishing teeth.
With a wet plop I drop to the floor, my tiny pale form sagging and pooling out slightly as a thick shiny slime begins to coat my skin. I feel a set of massive hands grab me, the last few bones inside me flexing under the pressure as they strain to hold me in some kind of shape. My brain rattles around into a fluid filled sack, the pounding of my heart right beneath it leaving my constantly jostling slightly in a distracting manner.
"There we go Mr Hughes..." the muffled voice of the older man huffs as he races somewhere with my fleshy cube shaped form in tow. "We'll just package you up for transportation and then we'll..." he begins to explain, the sentence falling out of earshot as I suddenly feel myself plunge into a vaguely warm liquid.
My mind slowly sharpens as I submerge, my blood re-oxygenating as the liquid passes over my skin. As time passes, the sounds from outside being more muffled than ever but for those carrying the most bass, I soon begin to calm down.
"This HAS to be right..." I think to myself, my whole body just functioning on autonomic nervous system functions. "I just need to wait... I hope..."
The world suddenly lurches around me as I feel myself being lifted up, a set of gloved hands gripping my oozing sides just a little too tightly.
"We've got..." mutters a soft and delicate voice, her light and airy words barely reaching me through my sealed ear canals. "Mr... Hughes" she finally states, reading over something as I'm carried off. My head begins to ache as I'm walked off to parts unknown, my body slowly becoming starved of air as my skin quickly uses up the last of the oxygen rich liquid I had been floating in.
I quiver slightly as I feel myself get placed down on something cold and hard, the chilly sheet of metal beneath me waking me slightly as I realize just what I am sitting on. However, after a few moments of sitting on the metal plate nothing seems to happen.
"Carl?" calls the young woman, her shout coming through loud and clear as she stand over me. "Yeah... Yeah I've got the list... But I... Yeah...
No comments:
Post a Comment