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From the beginning, it was terrifying.
The Medic would tell him, naturally so, that respawn was a horrible experience the first time through, and it was only normal and healthy for him to have nightmares.
He recalled the first time he’d died. An arrow through the eye as he exited the resupply chamber, stupidly unaware of the RED Sniper that sneered at him across the expanse of the battlefield. Scout had been so new, so fresh, so oblivious to the ins and outs of war. When he fell limp to the dusty ground, blood pouring from his face, he was all at once swept up in rays of red and blue.
It was foggy in his memory, but he remembered being somewhere vaguely comforting. Familiar faces passing by like stop motion film, flashes in his vision. A cold glass placed in his placid palm, soothingly filled with a whiskey that remedied his dry throat. A southern accent, so intimate, guiding him through the motions. It was all at once horrifying and cathartic, and the time he spent in stasis stretched on like eons.
When he asked about it, The Medic simply told him that it was only seconds that he had been in respawn. The maximum amount of time he’d seen anyone in there was about twenty seconds.
Red and blue light bathed him where he was now, respawned again, his eyes buzzing in their sockets as he looked around the room. It felt like ooze was dripping out of his ears, the colors and shapes in his vision melting together as he stepped out of the chamber. With a thud, he hit the concrete floor and let out an anguished cry, arms reaching out and curling around the hem of a white coat.
The Medic told him there had been a malfunction with respawn. He told him that no matter how many trials their employers had run, there was still a chance that something would go wrong.
It took a while for him to come to terms with. The slowing of his brain, the way his hands wouldn’t do what he asked them to. The way he couldn’t make his legs go fast anymore, no matter how hard he tried. Moving back in with his mother had brought challenges he hadn’t expected, and even though she did her best to take care of him, he could sense the wear that his condition was having on her.
And since the beginning, the nightmares never ceased. They only became more intense after the respawn malfunction. There was one that he couldn’t get out of his head, no matter how hard he tried.
It was a dream where all of his teeth would fall out, and when he looked down into the sink, it was covered in his own blood.
The Medic said he was probably just worried about something.