As everyone was hurrying to get John to the doctor in the base, John himself was experiencing something quite bizarre and unnatural!
The moment he heard that melody, he felt like someone pulled the plug. His mind went blank, and when he opened his eyes, he saw himself standing in the middle of blank, white, vast, and boundless space!
"Where am I?!" As if being in a weird futuristic and sci-fi game-like place wasn't enough, he now was standing in such a weird space, "I must be dreaming, right?"
He had a little hope that what he just experienced in the past hour was simply a long dream. Yet when he tried to pinch his arm, he didn't awake as he expected, just felt the pain.
"Ouch, it burns as if I shot myself or something!" He simply pinched his skin, yet the excruciating pain he was feeling was way worse than that. It felt like he got a severe burn or something.
The feeling didn't subside by time, instead it kept increasing and spreading. In a brief moment, his entire body felt like it was burning with flames, and he fell to the ground, twitching in severe pain, unable to tolerate this.
"Doctor, what's happening to John?!" Alfred was standing by John's unconscious body. The doctor just finished saying everything was fine, and he was just in a state of coma, most probably out of exhaustion.
Yet the moment she finished her words, John's body twitched violently as if he was getting electrified! John's friends tried to hold him still, while the doctor started to check the screens that showed different data about John's body situation.
"His heart rate is skyrocketing, at this rate he'll get into a shock and die!" The doctor turned to her assistant, before adding, "bring me the VCS and syringe, fast!"
As the doctor was trying her best to stabilise John's unknown condition, John was feeling like this was it for him. He couldn't tolerate anymore of this torture, and started to feel like he wasn't dreaming, he died and he was going straight down to hell!
"Hold him still!" The doctor took a large syringe from her assistant before turning to find a vein in John's arm. Thanks to his twitching and convulsions, it was hard to find one, but she was a skilled doctor after all!
"Got it!" She found a vein, injected the syringe in, and poured the VCS material into John's body. The VCS was a strong sedative material, acting to relax one's mind and body. What made it special was that it wouldn't make anyone fall asleep, and that made it quite perfect in John's current situation.
The moment the material went into John's body, the pain he was feeling in that weird space started to subside. His convulsions stopped, and he started to slowly catch his breaths normally once again!
"This… What the heck was that?!!" After a few minutes, he was totally fine to even stand up! It felt like the pain he had was gone, as if it never happened in the first place.
"I don't know what's going on with me, but I'm sure something is terribly wrong… I won't pinch myself ever again!"
Just as he was in the middle of his words, he suddenly felt something new. In front of him, and in that white blank space he was in, some sort of black dots appeared out of thin air!
The dots were flashing fast, making him question their presence at first. Then they slowly started to grow, coalesce and unite, ending up forming a black screen in front of him.
"What's going to happen this time?!" As he had a terrible experience from trying to pinch himself awake, he decided not to risk anything this time. But out of the blue, that black screen suddenly flashed once he retreated, instantly smashing into his body!
*Splash!*
It felt like he fell from a cliff into a lake. His body felt the fresh cold sensation of the water, while the shimmering white surface kept moving fast away from him. He was sinking, sinking fast, leaving only a trail of bubbles linking him to the surface!
"Agh!" he tried to swim back to the surface, yet for unknown reason he failed! There was some sort of hidden power, strangling his limbs, sucking his body deep down!
He resisted, summing up every ounce of strength, yet failed! There was nothing in his mind right now except for one thing; survival!
Seconds passed like hours, and slowly his eyes couldn't see any light at all! He couldn't feel his body, and at some point his resistance failed.
"Agh!" he was drowning, yet he wasn't dying. In such a weird state he started to see flashes of lights, like memories. The flashes started fast, he couldn't even make a head or tail about any. Then the images started to show clear in his mind, images of stuff he never recalled before, never experienced before this moment, as if he was watching another life of someone looking exactly like himself!
He saw himself sitting on a hospital bed. His body was a mess, and he got tubes attached to his body, even one into his throat!
He was unconscious, with lots of doctors and nurses standing around him, examining the medical reports and discussing his case. In the middle of all of them, he saw a little head turning towards one direction, away from his body on the bed, and focusing over the direction he was watching all this from.
"Papa?!!" hearing his daughter's voice rocked his entire world! John wanted to scream at her, wanted to grab and hold her for the last time in his life, but the memory faded and another appeared.
In this one, he was on a bed, not cozy and comfy like the one in the hospital. This one was cold, made out of black iron, without mattresses or anything on it. But that wasn't the problem; his body was!
His body wasn't… Human! He had many pieces replaced with metallic rods and sticks, joints and wires. To him, it looked as if his body was replaced by some sort of a machine! And before he'd make anything out of this bizarre scene, he heard a harsh monotonous voice, as if it came from a machine, speaking to him out loud!
"... The black beacon will give you the signal. Once given, you'll activate your hidden side, do your mission, and kill the Paragons closest to you…"
John didn't recognise any of this, and yet for a reason he felt as if he heard such words somewhere before. This memory was short, started in the middle of it, and ended abruptly! It was… Bizarre!
Yet the next one was far weirder! He saw the alien robotic body getting grabbed by a claw, lifted and put into some sort of a life pod. He couldn't see well as the memory shifted fast. The next memory was for his screams, followed by him waking up on the cold floor by the sergeant!
"Agh!" Whenever that memory appeared, a flash of light came from it. Light ate the darkness, pushing away everything. John felt his world blank once more, and when he felt something, it was a bright flashing light that hit his eyes.
"Ouch!" he felt pain like needles penetrating through his eyes, "turn that flash away! It hurts!" He tried to push the flashlight himself but for some reason he couldn't move his arms. And when the lights went off, the pain subsided.
"..."
He found himself sleeping over a bed, in a room that felt similar to the one he saw in his memories. Yet this one was much simpler, and his body didn't have any tube attached to it.
"I'm… Alive?!!" His voice was hoarse, as if he never spoke for a long time or something. He was genuinely asking, as he still couldn't tell if he was into that weird white space or he was dying and watching another memory.
"Don't scare me again like this," just before anyone would answer him, John felt a heavy slap of a hand over his shoulder, "John, I swear to god, next time you pull such tricks I'll kill you myself!"
It was Alfred, and even with his harsh words, the worry was clear over his face. John didn't know the man, but he could tell he and the owner of his body were friends.
"You are alive soldier John," just when he wanted to respond to Alfred, say anything to not arouse more suspicions around him, a soft voice came from his side, distracting him for a long moment.
"You… It's you…" John's face twitched when his eyes landed over the owner of the voice. His eyes widened as if he was seeing the most shocking scene in the world, or the most beautiful one, or perhaps both!
"Yes, it's me, doctor Sophie," the doctor corrected the thin glasses over her nasal bridge, before adding, "I will keep you under my observation for a few hours. If nothing comes up, you can leave and return to your unit."
"Sophie… Sophie…" As if John got back into his previous weird state, he kept muttering the name of the doctor a few times.
"Hey soldier, get a better hold on yourself," what stopped him was a firm grip, coming from no one else but the sergeant, "Doc, can you run drug tests for me on this lad?" the sergeant didn't move his eyes from John, before leaning over and whispered, "I swear if your tests proved positive that you'll hate the day you were born, soldier John Mirage!"
For a reason John didn't get, his body stiffened when he heard these threatening words. The sergeant didn't stay in the room any longer, and grabbed Alfred who gave his friend a farewell look, as if John's fate was sealed!
Yet John didn't care about any of that! Even the unbelievable unexplained mysterious experience he just lived through didn't matter; that doctor instead did!
"You don't know anyone going by the name Elly," he tried to clear his throat and make his voice as decent and calm as ever, but he failed! His voice came harsh, and it was crystal clear he was nervous, "Elly Green?"
"Stop it!" Sophie sighed, while not even turning to look at him. Such a sigh gave John some hope, which soon shattered when she added, "if you think getting to be nice to me will save you from the drug tests, then you are wrong!"
She didn't give him any chance, walked fast while throwing a serious warning look over him, then got out of the room and closed the door.
"What the f*ck is going on with me?! Like… Seriously!!!" John wanted to shout out of anger, out of frustration, yet all he did was to shout silently before catching his breaths.
"I need to calm down, figure out what's happening to me…" John took a deep breath, "I need to get out of here and return to my room… But… A drug test? Seriously?!"