By POW

To start at the beginning of this story, click here.

Sam’s transition to wakefulness was slow and gradual, like darkness giving way to day over the course of the hour before sunrise.  His deep, dreamless sleep didn’t end so much as it faded into wakefulness.  The bed was soft, holding his body in perfect comfort at the perfect temperature and as awareness slowly returned the first thing he became conscious of was the lack of stress on his muscles, the absence of the aches caused by lying on a hard floor or lumpy cot.  It was bliss, this pain-free place he was in, and he remained there for an unmeasured amount of time basking in unmoving comfort.

Alas, the next thing he became aware of was his profound hunger.  The sensation came on gradually, but once he became aware of it he could not stop noticing it and return to the state of blissful ignorance he had been in before.  Eventually the feeling grew strong enough that he knew he was going to have to do something about it.

Opening his eyes, he found that the quiet bedroom was now aglow with soft diffuse daylight coming in through the sheer gauzy curtains.  He was alone, a fact which registered before he remembered that there had been someone else in the room when he had fallen asleep.  As such, there was no rush of adrenaline when he recalled the threat that his former companion represented.  In the slow, gauzy haze of waking it was all remote, academic, lacking any visceral demand on his attention.  After all, he had been asleep for no telling how long… another two or three or five minutes of comfort on this Platonic ideal of a pillow wouldn’t change things.

Continue reading Captain Jack and the Race to Redula – Chapter 09: Illusions →