Chapter Text
Dean is still asleep when a delicate finger peels his eyelid back to shine a light into his cornea. Another hand reaches across his face to check the other one and places a drop of some burning liquid inside the eye. Another hand -rougher than the first two- cut into his forearm and inserts a hard, flat disc. A fourth one places a bandage on the wound. None of the hands feel like they belong to the same body. He regains consciousness just for a moment. Chains on his ankles and wrists keep him tied down to the examination table, the smooth metal cold on his bare skin. No matter how much he thrashes, they won’t budge. He gets injected with something, and soon, all stimulus ends, and Dean is returned to the darkness.
He can’t tell how long it’s been since he opened his eyes last. They don’t burn anymore, but he doesn’t even know what day it was so no clues he finds will help. There are wires and cables coming off his body, connecting him to machines in the wall. Lights flash and blink along the walls, and Dean doesn’t understand any of it. The ceiling has long fluorescent tubes in the fixtures, but they are set to “dusk” mode, and shine a low orange. He can barely see anything, but by all accounts it seems to be a normal hospital room. The curtains are drawn. When he walks too far from the bed and disconnects a wire by accident, a nurse in a clean white suit comes into the room from the hallway. She holds a clipboard.
“Good morning, Patient 112164…Dean, it says here. Is that correct? Birthday, June 10th…oh, happy 17th.” She smiles at him and he nods, his jaw slack. The nurse checks off something on her paper. “Yes, yes, good. The procedure went well, so you’ll be clear to leave as soon as you sign this.” She thrusts the clipboard and pen into his hands and goes over to fix the sheets in the hospital bed. He signs the paper without reading it, whatever in those drops turned him farsighted. Was he already? He couldn’t remember.
“When will my memory return?” He gives the clipboard back to the nurse, who plucks the rest of the wires off of Dean’s body.
“Time will tell. Some patients get their memory back within a day, some take weeks. Just get a lot of rest and stay out of direct sunlight.” She smiles at him and leaves the room.
He finds a pile of clothes on the floor and picks up the shirt and tugs it on over his head. It reeks, but it was his only option. Barefoot and wearing thin hospital trousers, Dean walks out of the room and down the hall. No one turns to look at him, and his vision is dark on the edges like a vignette over his life. He stumbles out of the hospital and the sun outside burns his eyes and burns his skin. All he can see is white. Dean is manhandled by a few sets of hands, placed into a van, and he’s driven away all without knowing who is there or where he’s going. The van driver is a jovial middle-aged man, seemingly ignoring all the strange things that Dean thinks should be brought up but aren’t.
“I remember my first time, you know, kid.” He talks to Dean through the rearview mirror. “It’ll bruise like hell, but you’ll be fine in a few days. You’re going to the compound for configuration.”
For the first time Dean notices his entire forearm is wrapped up in a clean bandage. He picks at the edge but decides to leave it alone. “Configuration? Don’t they do that in the hospital?”
The van driver shrugs. “I’m not a doctor, kid. This is just what they told me to do.”
Several minutes later, they pull up at a resort. The van drives into a chamber where the doors close behind them. He drives forward and another set of doors close behind them, and the van is put in park. The sliding doors open, and Dean gets out. He’s escorted by men in suits and full-face masks, one holding him on either side. Their grips are rough just enough to hold him up without purposefully hurting him. Walking through more air locks, Dean is sprayed, misted, and blow dried several times before being shown to his bedroom.
He gets a whole suite to himself. There is a neatly made queen bed in the center of the wall, and a big TV across from it above a dresser. The TV flashes with the typical news anchors and same old spiel that always plays. Dean tries to mute it, but he can’t find the remote. He tries to peel back the curtains to see where he is, but the outside is darkened. He can only just make out the net that keeps him in. Just as he turns around to get the water on to take a hot bath, there is a knock at the door.