Free Endurance by T. J. Blake Page A

her pocket.
She knelt down, plunged the syringe into his neck, and injected the
liquid.
     
    11

    Tom lay in
bed, unconscious. Three men stood around him. The two men on either
side of the bed wore white and blue uniforms; the bald man at the
end of the bed wore a brown suit.
    ‘ He’s a very
sick man. I thought he was getting better, but obviously not; we’re
back to stage one,’ the suited man said.
    ‘ Should we
keep him sedated?’ asked one of the other men.
    ‘ No, we’ll
keep him tied down for now. I suppose we should have expected this;
good days and bad days. I’ll speak to him when he comes
round.’
    The other two
men departed, leaving the suited man and Tom alone.
    ‘ Mr.
Williams.’
    Tom heard the
voice echo throughout his head.
    ‘ Mr.
Williams, if you can hear me, I need you to try and focus. We need
to have a chat about this situation and remind you why you are
here.’
    Tom tried to
wake up. The voice continued to echo through his head. ‘Get up,
Tom!’
    Tom jerked
awake and sat up. He tried to move his hands but they were secured
in brown leather cuffs to either side of the bed.
    ‘ Good. Mr.
Williams are you listening carefully?’
    ‘ Where am
I?’
    ‘ Right.
Listen to me. You’re not well, you’ve been here a long time now, we
made progress but you have now reverted.’
    ‘ Where the
fuck am I?’
    ‘ Mr.
Williams, occasionally you have memory lapses when your illness
worsens. I’ll remind you. You’re in a mental institution. We’ve
made progress with you, but now you seem to have reverted back to
this stage.’
    ‘ Mental
institution? You must have the wrong guy. I’m completely sane. Let
me out of here.’ Tom struggled weakly as he tried to break the
cuffs. ‘Let me out right now!’
    ‘ Mr. Williams
I need you to calm down and listen to me.’ The man leaned toward
Tom and asked, ‘What is my name?’
    ‘ I don’t
fucking know who you are, I’ve never seen you before.’
    ‘ Mr.
Williams, this is very disappointing. You’ve been here for more
than a year and you don’t know who I am.’
    ‘ I have not
been here more than a year.’
    ‘ Yes, you
have. Do you want me to show you all the records and tests? You
have been here more than a year after you decided to kill thousands
of people. You killed parents, grandparents and children. Do you
even remember what building it was? Sorry to sound harsh, Mr.
Williams, but you obviously do not remember the drastic actions you
decided to take.’
    ‘ What? No I
didn’t do that! I was in…’
    ‘ Let me
guess. You were in a lab. Your dad was there, Anna’s and Stewart’s
corpses were hung upside down; you killed your dad and made the
building self-destruct by pressing a red button. Does that sound
about right?’
    Tom paused
and stared at the man.
    ‘ What?
How?’
    ‘ We know each
other better than you think. I would shake your hand but… obviously
your hands are tied. I’m Doctor Miller. I have been fully involved
in your recovery. I’ve helped you.’
    ‘ I don’t know
what’s going on, just please let me go.’
    ‘ I’m afraid
that’s never going to be possible. You, Mr. Williams, have been
deemed by the courts a danger to the public. Although, I would love
to get you back out there working and earning a living.’
    ‘ If all this
is true, how do you explain Anna’s, Stewart’s, Danni’s, and my
father’s deaths?’
    ‘ They never
existed. Well, not how you imagine them. You killed your father in
the blast. Anna is still alive, but the last time you saw her, you
refused to believe it was her. Stewart was an old school friend as
were as Dan and Lucy; you haven’t seen them for years.’
    ‘ Lucy works
here! I saw her, she injected me with…’
    ‘ That is a
woman named Lucy, yes, but she only works here. She isn’t your old
school friend.’
    ‘ Well how did
I recognize her from here if I’m thinking about someone
else?’
    ‘ You are
altering your reality to fit your fantasy. Since a woman