Defunct Engine

I was man.

I woke up to find myself healed from injury, the phenomenon occurred beforehand was unknown, in an underwater hospital. I breathed into the water, feeling the familiar sense of comfort in my lost element. I was comfortable to have been placed in a setting. It was clean, the room was just filled with the bed as I sense with indifference. Sitting, I saw an aquarium by the side before me and beside the white door. Two fishes were swimming in it, fishes of orange with long bodies almost like an eel only with dancing white laces around their entirety. At first, they were blameless, until they were suddenly angry. I saw them looking straight at me, swam out of their territory preparing to attack me.

The pain was unbearable. The impact was not extreme; nonetheless, it sickens me. Their long lacy bodies trying to pry on my wound, but I never breathed faster. I unfolded the wide fabric covering my body towards their charge and grabbed a hold of them. They were profusely bending, trying to get out. I left them in their gradual diffusion.

As the white door opened, the hospital, it seemed, was empty. The ceiling was beyond sight, I created no bubbles of air. There was neither internal logic nor coherence. Outside my chamber, it looked like a mega-structured steampunk in clean slate. The eerie was there, but non-existent. I was all alone.

I ran towards the left, ascending to the stairs. It wasn't long, I proceeded faster and faster until I reached the top. It was the exit. Outside, the lights were frightening and the greens were around the background. It was dull and cold. I breathed air, the underwater nil, then I started to pant in my outrageous escape. I saw a woman as she escorted other beings in panic, running like madmen inside the hospital and everywhere. I did not know what happened. I remembered a dream. I asked her permission if I could leave. She looked at me, but did not answer.