Part 4 - The Awakening
Henrik wakes up with a pounding headache, feeling dizzy and disoriented.
Carefully rubbing his eyelid with his palms, trying to open up his eyes a little bit more, with a blurred vision he sees that he is sitting in a quite small room, on a white couch, in front of him is a fruit bowl filled with apples, bananas and something that looks like a giant peanut, but it is green and he thinks it looks soft.
”What happened?...where am I?...I have to get up on my feet”
The ceiling light is faded, but Henrik can see that the walls are smooth and white, the skirting and what could be a door is framed with a narrow strip that slightly shines in green, the room is very clean and on the other side of the room, he sees a young woman sitting on a chair in front of a desk, with her back against him, wearing a white leather jacket, a pair of dark pants and her hair is set in a long dark ponytail.
"H..Hi.." Henrik said with a trembling voice.
No answer.
"Hi, do you hear me?...Who are you?"
The woman doesn’t react.
She is wearing headphones and focuses on a big screen filled with line after line of unrecognizable symbols that is scrolling down while the woman tediously to go through the content.
Henrik slowly rises, feels how his feet finds new balance on the floor, he takes small unstable steps forward towards the woman who has not moved from her chair.
Suddenly the strength of his legs vanishes and Henrik collapses on the floor with a hard thump right beside her.
The woman jumps out of her chair and calls for help.
"Dad! he is awake, come quickly "
Bjorn who is just outside the room, opens the door and runs in to see his friend on the floor.
"I am so sorry, I listened to music and went through the control system datasheet when he suddenly fell on the floor behind me" she said.
Henrik's vision begins to darken and before he falls into unconsciousness again he sees Bjorn and the woman, he feels them lifting him up onto the coach again thinking “Bjorn has a daughter?”
Henrik wakes up a few hours later, his head is in pain and it feels awfully heavy, this time both Bjorn and the woman are in the room, Henrik has a saline drip attached to his arm, his legs still feels a little weird but he manages to sit up.
"See who has woken up, you can relax Henrik, we're friends and you're safe” Bjorn said with his greatest smile ever and continues.
"This young woman next to me is called Sofia, she is my daughter"
Sofia smiles kindly to Henrik, he sees the similarities between them now, they have the same smile and the same trustworthy face.
"Hello Henrik, good to see that you are awake again, we became a little worried when you fell, my name is Sofia, nice to meet you"
She continues, still with a big smile on her lips.
"You have to relax for a few hours now, usually it’s a bit rough to wake up after the anesthesia, but you managed to hit your head quite hard when you fell so you need even more rest ... and water, water is vital"
Sofia hands over a glass of cold water to Henrik, he takes it and drinks half of the glass in one go.
"What day is it? I have to call my wife, she must be worried…" was one of his thoughts in his head while he drank the water.
"Do you remember that I said that this is the beginning of your real life?" Bjorn kindly asks.
Henrik nods and tries to sit more upright in the coach, his head is starting to calm down.
“Are you sitting comfortably? Do you need anything before I continue?” said Bjorn
Henrik nods again and manages to say.
“Is Joanna alright?...I have to call her”
Bjorn understands his concern and tries to reassure Henrik.
“Do not worry Henrik, she is alright, we have an agent that protects her if our green coated friends dares to show up…we will pick her up as soon as you feel a little better my friend, anything else?”
Henrik finds his words comforting and says.
“No I’m good...I didn’t know that you had a daughter Bjorn, she looks like you, continue”
"Good, I kept it a secret for you for reasons that will be obvious for you later on, what I’m now about to tell you is something you can’t prepare yourself for, it will probably sound too unbelievable to be true, but believe me, it's something positive"
Bjorn puts an extra pillow behind Henrik
"Are you ready, Henrik?" silly question to ask, how could you be ready for this? "
Henrik answers with a more confident voice then before.
"Yes, I think I'm ready for what you've got to say Bjorn...come on, just tell me now"
"What would you say if I said you were not born on this planet? ... that you're not even from this galaxy?"
Both of Henrik’s eyebrow raises and with a very skeptical expression in his face he says.
"I would probably ask you where the cameras are hidden..."
Bjorn gives him a short exhalation of amusement, a short laugh through his nose.
"You haven’t forgotten your sense of humor anyway ...but it’s true, I will let you process the idea in your head, meanwhile, do you have the cube that stood on your table?"
"Yes, I have it in my pocket," Henrik replies.
"Good, Take it out and ask for information about the planet Zuood"
Henrik picks up the cube, it is cold.
"How do I start it up?"
"Hold the cube with a firm grip in one hand, you can use the other for support if it feels better, then you just visualize your desire for what you want the cube to do, the first time you activated it, it scanned your brain structure, to be able to integrate correctly with you and simultaneously downloaded information about your position and updated its database, so it took some time ... now it should go more or less directly "
Henrik tries to visualize the word Zuood and a round planet.
At first nothing happens, one second later, Henrik stands on a hill filled with burgundy grass, the clouds moves unnaturally fast in the sky, like a fast-forward on a movie, in front of him he sees something that could resemble giant seagulls flashes past him in circles around a giant blue tree, looking more like an hurricane then a flock of birds
Henrik can’t move, his feet are planted in the ground, he tries to understand what has gone wrong. Bjorn suddenly shows up next to Henrik.
"Hmm, somethings wrong with the time perception setting, everything moves a little faster than normal so to say, let me change it"
Bjorn disappears again, and Henrik feels how he manipulates the cube in his hand, it is a somewhat unpleasant feeling, small vibrations in his palm, but after a minute, the clouds and the seagulls begins to calm down.
Henrik can now see that the birds that he thought was seagulls from far away, is in fact artificial and act more like drones in the sky, hovering around and gather some kind of fruit from the trees.
"Let’s see, yes, this looks much better," says Bjorn when he returns beside Henrik.
To the right of his field of view, a small information box appears with the text.
"Planet Zuood.
Residents: 285 billion.
Area: Doova, lakevalley
End of information, waiting for instruction "
End of part 4
Next part
Part 5, Kionidoo!
Prevoius parts:
Synopsis
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Thank you for reading this, hope that you find my story interesting and exciting.
Going to release this novel on Steemit, in parts with a few days between each part, need to work on translating the next part before I post it. I have been writing on it for a few years but never getting it out before, originally written in Swedish.
Dedicated to my lovely wife who gives me inspiration to write.
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