Extracted - Chapter 4 – Increasing Warp Speed – Part 2 of 2

 

Extracted

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 4 – Increasing Warp Speed – Part 2 of 2

 

Late in the afternoon, Nancy was alone with her mother in the New York hospital room.  Her sister had gotten bored and gone home for a while and her father, as usual, was out in the hallway somewhere talking on his phone.  Since Nancy was trying to get some rest, her mother was sitting and reading a book.

Nancy laid in her hospital bed with her eyes closed, but she wasn’t sleeping.  At least she didn’t think she was sleeping.  Instead, all the weird thoughts kept going through her head.  Thoughts that seemed like memories, except they weren’t her memories…but they sure seemed like her memories.  Why was she thinking so much about playing football?  She didn’t even like football.  It was the most stupid, idiotic game on the planet!  But she was remembering not only loving the game, but playing linebacker on a high school team.  She didn’t even know what a linebacker was, but thoughts that she was one filled her head.  She remembered the football being…snapped?…and the sudden intense crashing of bodies as she and the opposite team members literally battled for supremacy.  A battle she…he?…usually won.

But football wasn’t the only memories running through her mind.  There were easier, more normal memories.  Memories of family.  Memories of friends…that she didn’t know.  Memories of school, and classes that were far beyond what she had ever taken, yet her head seemed to know what they were all about.  Why?  How?  She didn’t understand any of it.

With all those strange memories coursing through her head, she forgot all about being Nancy again and relaxed into being Steve.  Everything was much more normal now.  It all made sense to her…as long as she…he…was Steve.  And she was Steve.  Stephen Marsh.  Linebacker for the high school football team in Philadelphia where he lived.  Was it his imagination, or did his head spinning get a little bit better again?  He wasn’t sure, but he hoped so.

With the room still quiet, he fell asleep fully, the most relaxed since he had woken up in the hospital the first time.  He dreamed.  He dreamed of playing football…and decimating the opposing team.  In his dream, he was the team hero, and his girlfriend, Melody, not only loved him, but she would do anything for him.  Absolutely anything!  Including sex.

It was a few hours later before Steve woke up.  When he did, he noticed the woman sleeping in the chair.  The woman who kept insisting she was his mother, except she wasn’t.  Where was the man who insisted he was his father?  His real father spent most of his time on the phone.  This other man seemed to do the same thing.  Was he out talking on his phone somewhere?  Who knew?  Who cared.  As long as they all stayed away from him and left him alone.

How long were they going to keep him here in the hospital?  Football camp started next week, and he needed to be there.  The team had a big season coming up soon and there was a lot of work to be done.  He wasn’t going to miss it for anything!

Tired of sleeping, he moved himself up on the bed so that he was sitting.  As he did, something pulled at his head.  Once sitting, he couldn’t bend his head forward because something had it stuck where it was.  He moved his body a bit and his head came free.  He grabbed at what was holding him down and found…hair.  He remembered the hair problem from earlier.  Now it was back again.  Why did he have such long hair?  It not only made no sense, it was annoying.  Very annoying.  How could he play football with all that hair?

Where was his mother and father?  Why was this other woman in the room with him?  She wasn’t his real mother.  Why did she have to insist that she was?

The feeling hit him then.  The need.  The need that everyone had.  The need that everyone had to deal with.  He had to pee.  Not wanting to wake the woman in the chair, He quietly moved the covers aside and slipped his legs over the side of the bed…and stopped.  His legs.  His legs were small and positively skinny.  His feet were tiny!  His arms and hands were tiny.  His body was tiny!  What kind of nightmare was this?  Tiny feet.  Tiny hands.  Tiny body.  And long hair.  What kind of psycho drugs had they given him?

Panic filled him, along with his need to pee.  He would just have to deal with the weird psycho stuff after he went to the bathroom.  On too small bare feet, he made his way to the bathroom in the room and closed the door.  He stood over the toilet and pulled up the hem of his hospital gown…and had another fit.  Where was his cock?  Where was his penis?  He didn’t appear to have one at all.  His sexual area looked just like…a damn girl’s!  What the hell was going on?  What was he supposed to do?

His hand reached down and felt for his cock.  He closed his eyes and searched, hoping the problem was some kind of visual thing, but his hand found nothing at all.  His need to pee was growing worse, not knowing any other way, he sat down on the toilet like a girl and spread his legs.  The pee simply gushed out of him, fortunately into the toilet.  It was all over faster than he imagined.  He stood up and once again felt for his cock, but his hand met nothing at all.  First the drugs were giving him hallucinations that he had a girl’s body, now they were making him think he had to pee like a girl too.  Not just weird, but maddening!

Stunned, he made his way out of the bathroom and back to the bed where he covered his stupid hallucinogenic body.  What kind of drugs had they given him?

 

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In Philadelphia, Steve’s doctor was very concerned about the continued head spinning problem.  He ordered a CAT scan to be done.  After the scan, he would have been much happier if the scan had actually found something, but unfortunately, the scan didn’t show any kind of problem at all.  He was at his wit’s end to diagnose what was going on.  The only consolation he could grab onto was that at least the problem appeared to be getting better.  It was a very gradual improvement, but Steve did report each time that it was improving.

In the hospital room, Steve’s father excused himself and went out into the hallway to take another phone call, leaving Steve in the room with just his mother.

“I’ve got to get out of here!” Steve told her.  “We’ve got football camp next week and I need to be there.”

“Nothing would make us happier,” his mother replied.  “We’ve just got to get you well first.”

“It’s taking too long!” Steve complained.

“I agree,” his mother said.  “But you keep complaining about everything spinning around.  Is it still doing it?”

“Yeah, of course,” Steve replied, somewhat frustrated with it.  “I really wish it would all just get better.”

“Me and your father too,” his mother replied.  “Believe me!”

“Yeah,” Steve said, as visions of another girl swam though his head.  His sister?  Emily?  Something inside him suddenly yearned for Emily, and it wasn’t in the way he usually yearned for a girl, like his girlfriend Melody.

“Do you think you’re going to be well enough for football camp?” his mother asked.

“I’ll be there!” Steve insisted.  “One way or another!”

His mother laughed.  “I’m sure you will.  Let’s hope this all goes away fast.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed.  He laid there wondering though why he was so concerned about it.  He didn’t even like football.  It was a dumb, stupid sport for boys.  Why should she care about going to some football camp?  She didn’t care.  She certainly didn’t want to go.  Why were they even talking about it? 

“Is Melody still coming to the hospital later?” his mother asked.

Something slipped back into place inside his head.  “She said she was,” Steve replied, remembering the phone call he had with her earlier in the day.  “I’m looking forward to seeing her.”

“I’m sure you are,” his mother said, knowing full well that her son had a thing for pretty girls.  And Melody was certainly pretty.

But it wasn’t Melody that Steve wanted to see, it was Emily.  He wasn’t interested in the least in seeing Melody, except that she might be interesting for her to talk to.  An older girl, like her sister.  Maybe Melody would have some new makeup tricks that Emily didn’t know.  That would be fun!  Nancy grabbed unconsciously for her hair, and couldn’t find it.  Where?  What?  And then it hit her again, she was Steve, not Nancy.  She was a dumb stupid boy, not a pretty girl.  This woman who thought she was her mother kept talking, but Nancy had tuned her out and didn’t know what she was talking about, and she didn’t care.  She just wanted her real mother and her sister, or even her stupid workaholic father.  Any of them would be great instead of…oh yeah.  She wasn’t Nancy.  She was Steve, and this was his real mother.  Why couldn’t he keep things straight?  It was so annoying…just like not being able to find her long hair.

Everything was all mixed up.  He couldn’t wait to go to football camp, but she hated football.  He couldn’t wait to see his girlfriend Melody, but she couldn’t care less, other than maybe for some cool new makeup things she might try, if Emily or her mother let her have some more makeup to play with that is.  These were his parents, but they weren’t her parents.  He was Steve.  She was Nancy.  Was he both?

All he knew for sure was that his head was still spinning, and that he wanted to scream his head off…and cry like the little girl she was.