DOVE (Sequel to VIRUS)

Jennifer lead me to a bathroom door.

"What are we doing here?"

"Your regular clothes are where you left them in the locker room along with whatever other personal items you may have left."

"What if I don't remember where I put them?"

"I'm sure you'll find them somewhere."

I pushed the door open and headed inside. It was for all purposes a regular locker room complete with benches in the middle, about six shower stalls, and the walls were lined with red lockers. A mirror stood at the far end and I was shocked as I looked at my reflection.

Gone was the person I had known from the virtual world. I almost didn't recognize myself. I still had my dark brown hair but that was about the only thing that was the same. My hair was extremely messy and my clothes were tattered and filled with holes. I could only imagine as to what had gone on inside the VR machine to cause this.

My eyes were bloodshot and my entire body was very thin and pale. I was taken aback by the sight of myself. I hadn't had a chance to fully see myself until now and I was almost thankful that I hadn't. I looked awful. Then I noticed the stench. I guess spending nearly a month inside of a machine doesn't exactly give you any sweating or moving room.

I was very thankful that there were showers here and I looked forward to getting myself all nice and clean again. Now the only problem was to find whatever stuff I had left here before I had gone into the machine. Just think, where would I leave my stuff?

Suddenly pain shot across my head like a bullet and the world around me faded away. It was replaced by another world. A two story cream coloured house out in the country. The house was in the middle of the woods and everything about it was very familiar. I somehow knew that this was a memory and a real one.

The pain in my head faded away and I could hear birds chirping in the trees. It was like I was actually standing there in the grass. I looked down and my feet were resting on the grass. I held out my hand and was surprised to see a fly buzz around it for a while and then land on my hand. I could feel it crawling across. This was some memory.

I turned my attention back to the strangely familiar house. It was a ways away, I was standing at the end of the gravel driveway. Faint voices in the distance drew me closer to the house. An heated argument was going on.

I could see through the window into the living room. It was empty and the voices seemed to be coming from a different room. From what I could see, the living room looked quaint. A large blue couch sat across from two blue rocking chairs. A small TV sat in the corner and a bronze lamp protruded from the wall.

I was now close enough to hear what they were arguing about. A man and a woman were shouting at each other.

"You know he's special."

"Yes but that gives you no right to think that he should be in the program!"

"You know what he could do."

"I don't want him in it!"

"But-"

"You know what they would do!"

"He could do great things!"

"There's no way I could let him go through that."

"What will the facility do if they find out that we've been hiding him from them?"

"I'll never let them take my baby away."

"We can't hide him forever."

"We can try."