Extracted - Chapter 3 – Scotty, Engage Warp Engines

 

Extracted

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 3 – Scotty, Engage Warp Engines

 

Nancy’s mouth felt like it was filled with cotton…or wool.  Horrible.  But worse, her head was spinning around and around.  She felt absolutely miserable, even asleep, where she just wanted to go back to.  Moaning miserably, she opened her eyes.  The room around her was swimming, which only made her feel sicker than she had felt before.  She quickly closed her eyes again.

“Steve!” a woman’s voice exclaimed.

It was a moment before Nancy could open her eyes again.  Her head was spinning so badly that nothing was making sense, especially the strange woman hovering over her.

“Steve.  You’re awake!” the woman said.

Nancy closed her eyes again, not knowing or realizing what the woman was talking about.  Everything about her just felt and seemed all wrong.  Nothing felt right.  Her head wasn’t even together enough for her to wonder what had happened to her.

“Steve.  Come on, wake up honey,” the woman’s voice came again.  “Open your eyes for me.  Come on Steve.”

Who was Steve?  Nancy didn’t know and didn’t care.  She just wanted the woman to go away and leave her alone so she could go back to sleep, where maybe, hopefully, her head wouldn’t be spinning so much and she would feel better.  She felt someone grab her hand.  Ugh!

“Come on Steve.  Come on honey.  You can do it.  Wake up Steve.  Wake up!”

Steve?  Wanting to keep her eyes closed and go back to sleep, Nancy had no choice but to open her eyes again.

“Steve!  Stay with us.  Stay with us honey.  We’ve got you.  You’re alright now.  You’re just fine.  Everything is just fine.”

Nancy had a different opinion about that.  Who the hell was Steve?

“Steve!”  A man’s voice this time.  “Come on son.  Stay awake.  Can you talk to us?  Say something.  Say anything at all.  Steve!  Steve!”

Her bleary eyes showed her a man now hovering over her next to the woman.  She had no clue who they were.  She had no clue about anything.  All she knew was that her head was spinning horribly…and it made her want to puke.

“Steve, son.  Are you with us?” the woman asked desperately.

Nancy’s eyes closed as she tried to get her mouth to form the biggest question she had.  “Who’s…Steve?” she barely managed to whisper through her woolly tasting and dry mouth.

“Steve?” the man said.

But Nancy’s poor rattled and drug infested brain couldn’t cope with anything else.  She passed out again.

“You saw it Henry,” Agatha Marsh exclaimed.  “He was awake.  He spoke to us.”

“Yeah,” Henry agreed.  “He was awake.  Barely, but he was there.  But now it looks like he’s gone again.”

“But he talked!” Agatha said.

“Yeah.  Obviously though, the drugs have him confused.”

“Yes,” his wife agreed.  “But still, it’s a good sign.”

“It’s a great sign,” Henry Marsh agreed.  “I’d just feel better if he would wake up again.  Soon!”

“Me too,” Agatha agreed.  “Come on Steve.  Wake up honey.  Wake up!”

 

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Several hours away, in a New York hospital, Stephen’s head was spinning so badly he didn’t know what to do.  He didn’t want to wake up, but somehow he knew he had to.  He just needed to find the strength and willpower to open his eyes.  But finding those muscles to open his eyes wasn’t easy.  It took him several head spinning moments before he managed it.  The light assaulting his eyeballs hurt, so did the sight of the badly spinning room that he saw.  Nothing was making sense.  Nothing was helping him figure things out.  Not even how to move any part of his body.

“Nance!” a woman’s voice exclaimed from right next to him.

For the first time, Stephen now felt that someone was gripping his hand.  That grip grew much more firm as that person stood up over him.  The sight of some woman over him, spinning all around like the rest of the room, nearly made him black out again, but something made him struggle to hold on.  He was a tough kid.  He knew that.  He could do it.  He just didn’t feel so tough just then.

“Nance!  Nancy!” the woman said.

But all Stephan could do was watch the woman and the room beyond her spinning in circles.  Come on head.  Stop that.  Settle down.  Please!

“Nancy darling.  Please look at me.  Please say something.”

It wasn’t until then that something in what she said reached through to him.  Nancy?  But it was just one more thing on top of everything else that didn’t seem to be working.  Especially his eyes.  He closed them again, hoping the spinning would go away, so maybe, maybe, he could start to make sense of everything else.

“Nancy!  No.  Don’t go back to sleep darling.  Stay with me.  Nancy!  Nancy!”

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

The spinning inside Nancy’s head was finally beginning to slow down.  Slow down, but not stop.  She could feel someone holding her hand, but that’s all she could tell.  She just wanted her spinning head to stop.  Hoping it would help, she chanced opening her eyes again.

“Steve?” a man’s voice said.  “Steve?  Are you awake again?  Stay with us Steve.  Please stay with us.”

Steve?  A faint memory of the last time she opened her eyes somehow came back to her.  But it made no sense at all.  Steve?  With a huge effort, she managed to somehow focus her eyesight on the man hovering over her.  And then a woman joined him.  Who were they?  She had no idea.

“Steve,” the woman said.  “Are you alright?”

It was hard to speak, but she tried.  “Who?” she managed to get out.  Her voice sounded weird.  Probably because of the way her mouth tasted.

“Steve,” the woman said desperately.  “It’s me.  Mom.  Steve, do you remember?”

Mom?  But an image of a different mother swam shakily in her head…before it was lost again.

“Who?” Nancy managed to say again, annoyed that her voice wasn’t any better.

“Steve!” the man’s voice said.  “She’s your mother.  And I’m your father.  Remember?  Please remember?”

Remember?  She couldn’t even think…at all!  Nothing was making sense, and with everything spinning around so much, she didn’t even care if it made sense.  But with the continued sight of the man and woman hovering over her, urging her on and calling her Steve, something within her finally snapped into place.  They were calling her Steve because she was Steve.  But that wasn’t right, she was Nancy.  No, she was Steve.  She was so confused, and the room was still going around making her feel worse than she was.

“Steve, say something,” the man urged again.

The memories locked a bit firmer into place.  He was Steve, not Nancy, even though Nancy felt right as well.  And those people were….  “Mom?  Dad?” he said, finally recognizing them for who they were.

The relief both Henry and Agatha felt was huge.  “Steve,” Henry said.  “You’re alright.  You’re alright,” he repeated gratefully.  “For a moment there we didn’t know if you’d remember anything.  How do you feel?”

“Awful.  The room won’t stop spinning.  And it’s bad.  Real bad.”

“It’s the drugs in your system,” his father explained.

“I’ll find a doctor,” his mother told him.  She leaned over and hugged him.  “I’m so glad you’re back.  We were so worried!”  With that, she left and hurried out of the room.

Henry Marsh had been Philadelphia’s District Attorney for some time now, and old habits died hard.  “Do you remember what happened?” he asked his son.

Remember?  Remembering was too difficult  Nothing was making sense.  He knew these people were his parents.  He knew his name was Steve, but at the same time, they weren’t his parents, and he wasn’t Steve.  Everything was just too confusing.

“Steve, do you remember what happened to you?”

Steve shook his head.  “I can’t remember anything.  Nothing is making sense.”

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

In the New York hospital, Stephen was aware that his head was still spinning horribly.  He opened his eyes again and the room spinning like his head only made things worse.

“Nancy!”  That woman’s voice again.  He felt her grip on his hand tighten and she stood over him.  Who the hell was she?

“Nance!”  The man’s voice.  Stephen didn’t know him either.  He closed his eyes because the spinning room was simply too much for him to keep looking at.

“Nance!  Stay with us.  Wake up!” the man’s voice said firmly.  “Stay with us!”

“Wake up darling,” the woman begged.

He opened his eyes.  Who did they think they were talking to?  And why the hell did they keep calling him Nancy?  Was this some kind of joke?

“Go…away,” he managed to get out of his mouth.  But the act of speaking had been weird.  Not just the sound that came out, but the entire process felt all wrong.

“Nance!” the man exclaimed.

“Nancy, darling,” the woman said desperately.  “We’re here for you baby.  Right here.  Please wake up.”

Steve did his best to focus his eyes on the weird people.  “Why are you….”  And then it was like something inside his head broke free and things seemed to align themselves a bit better.  He wasn’t Steve, she was Nancy!  “Mom!  Dad!” she finally recognized them.  “What happened?”

“Don’t you remember?” her father asked.

“Uh-uh,” she managed to say, closing her eyes again to the spinning world around her.  “Everything is going around, inside my head and the room.  It…hurts.”

“Must be the drugs,” her father said.  “I’m sure it will pass soon.”

Nancy had a feeling it wouldn’t though.  And why, why, why did she still think that her name was really Stephen, and that these weren’t her parents?  Why?  Nothing was right.  Nothing was making sense.  If only the room would stop spinning, maybe then she could think.

 

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The Nature of Souls

 

Whether or not you believe in souls is entirely up to you.  I’m not here to argue the point one way or another.  But the truth is that all living creatures have some kind of soul.  There is one subject about souls however that is generally ignored when anyone discusses the point, and that is the subject of memory.  And the strange truth is that souls have a memory.

The first thing we need to consider here is the strange subject of ghosts.  What are ghosts but the remains of poor living souls who for some reason or another have needs that keep them tied to this earth.  Needs so strong that they can’t move on from it.  This has been documented by ghost hunters around the world for many years.  The ghosts seem to remember things from their past living existence, and they are so affected by those things that they can’t leave after their bodies have died.  Memory.  Ghosts also tend to stay in one particular area that they find to be the most meaningful to them, never really leaving to travel or do anything but stay in that comfortable place that they remember.  They remember, because those souls contain their past living memories.

The other thing we need to consider is the subject of instinct.  The way so many creatures, from the moment they are born, have the knowledge of how to do things.  Horses and cattle know how to stand and walk within moments of being born.  Birds know how to flap their wings and as soon as they have sufficient feathers, fly.  Geese know their migrating routes automatically, even though it was their forebearers who last flew it.  Other creatures have other traits that seem to be inborn in them from the moment they are born.

It is entirely possible that each of those traits that are pre-embedded into their brains comes from a soul that enters into each of their bodies while still inside the womb.  Once there, the information that is needed is simply written from the soul into the physical aspects of the brain, ready for the creature to use the moment it is born.  It is this effect that is the most important here.

From the moment that both Stephen and Nancy received their new souls, the memories residing in those souls began to slowly work their way into the physical brains of each of them, overwriting the memories and personality traits that already existed.  The process is slow because humans have many memories and much information stored in the crevices of their brains.  The older a person is, the more memories they have that need to be overwritten, so the process takes longer.  But still, the soul takes precedence, and little by little the old information is destroyed and replaced with the new, making a hard copy in the brain of what the soul had stored.

No matter what, the soul wins out.  The brain and the soul must exist in harmony as one, and both the brain and soul strive to achieve that point as quickly as possible.  Until that point is reached, confusion reigns supreme within the living person, because otherwise the body and brain have to contend with being two people at the same time instead of only one.

For Nancy and Steve, being kept unconscious for an entire day while their bodies were returned to where they could be found gave the process a head start in overwriting each of their memories, but when they each woke up, the process was far from complete.  As mentioned, the human brain contains a lot of memories.  It would eventually take days for the process to fully complete itself, with Steve taking slightly longer than Nancy because he was older.  No matter what though, it's out with the old, and in with the new.

Like it, or not, the soul is the person, not the brain.

The soul always wins.