Reversion--Part II

The second part of my science fiction short story unfolds here.  Josh moves from the backyard to his house, and begins to receive more vivid memories of his past.  This is where things begin to get creepy for our newly awakened protagonist.

 

Josh refused to turn his eyes to the sun, but his eyes adjusted fully and he could perceive it on the border of his vision.  Its warmth soaked into his skin, and he felt grateful for the strength he had mustered in leaving the dark tomb.  He looked to the right, across the glistening grass and bland concrete, and saw the back of his house.  It was a two-storied house, shaded grey, and unmarked save for two windows somewhat below the brown, brick roof and a sliding glass door beside a fingerprint scanner.  On the concrete near the grass sat a small handful of uncushioned lounge chairs and a table, four chairs tucked securely beneath the latter.  Josh, feeling suddenly invigorated by this small taste of nature, walked more calmly and manageably toward the sliding glass door, for while the outdoors alleviated him, he faintly remembered living with someone.  No, there were two housemates, two male friends of his age.  But what was his age?  Thirty, if his memory was accurate.  He had no way of gauging this accuracy without speaking to someone.

As he approached the door, he leapt at the sight of his ghostly reflection in the glass.  Dark brown hair fell messily across his scalp like scattered reeds, about as unkempt as the grass of his yard.  It partially covered his eyes like a wispy curtain, yet his irises—golden-brown orbs that pierced him even through the poor reflection—burned brightly from beneath.   A short and frazzled beard filled much of his face, and this feature surprised him, for he could hardly recall having the ability to grow much hair.  Furthermore, he could recollect a dark skin tone, but what he now viewed could be branded as a vague tan; he was near in hue to the skin of a white man.  Possibly the most terrifying aspect of this visual, however, was the hospital gown donned about him.  He had noticed it from the corner of his eye earlier, but it had not registered as something to fear.  It fell over his gaunt shoulders and hung like a dress past his knees.  What had forced him into that cold bed, beside the chanting EKG monitor?  What malady had sequestered him to the gloomy hut, prepared for the treatment of the sick?  What illness begged the use of this foul gown?  He felt his back between the opening in his dress.  This was wonderful.  Luckily, his likely pale backside was concealed from view by the mountain of a fence bordering the yard.

Although the fingerprint scanner seemed ethereal to him (for he felt that a great span of time had separated him from his last encounter with one), a natural inclination urged his thumb against the unit on the wall.  He waited for a moment, peering into the glass door, and the scanner chimed a jubilant ring of acceptance, a din that broke the silence and caused him to blanch.  “Josh Eya,” a highly seductive female voice announced from the unit.  “Welcome home, big boy.”  The door then slid open mechanically and ponderously, permitting him passage.  He entered guardedly, feeling as if he were stepping out of a net of safety and onto a dark, foreign planet.

As he planted his feet onto a glossy and dim wooden floor, the door shut behind him with little sound.  His vision was still illumined by the blinding glow of the sun, and nothing but walls strewn with unclear photos were visible to him initially; then the darkness of the house shoved the light from his eyes, and he found himself in a familiar hall.  Bronze-colored walls loomed on either side of him, decked with three pictures and otherwise blank.  He walked to one picture on his right and noticed a smiling family of four standing on two tiers of bleachers; on the lowest tier were a boy and a girl, and on the tier above them were a man and a woman, their hands on the shoulders of the children below them.  Josh observed the boy closely.  It was one of his housemates, now a young man by the name of Simon; this picture of him and his family was taken when he was in his early teens.  Josh moved to a more recent photo quite near the first, and noted the face of his second housemate, a relatively plump but lively man.  He was sitting on what appeared to be the front porch of this house, his arm around a blond, attractive girl who sat beside him.  The final picture, on his left, was of Josh himself, clean-shaven and in daily attire, holding a certificate that read “#1 Gamer: The Fall of Rome©.”

The name of that game sparked a flood of random images in his mind.  Again his mother’s face appeared before him, seeming more furious than before.  He recalled making a significant life decision and notifying his parents, but only the wrath and tears of his mother stood out.  He remembered thinking that resisting the desire of his mother was the most difficult thing that he ever had to do.  There is something about a mother’s heartfelt pain for her son’s missteps that, when revealed to her son, almost irresistibly leads him down the path of repentance and conformity to her idea of purity.  He felt that decades had passed since the day of her outrage at his decision, whatever that decision was.  He received an image of sitting on a stool in his own cubicle in a broad building, a game controller held in his hands, and a monitor on a desk before him.  Other gamers were walled off from him, each in their own cubicles, and there was no interaction amongst the perhaps one hundred men and women.  Each person was immersed in his own world, and although he battled against other gamers in an attempt to attain the highest rank, their relationship was nothing more than this; they were in that building purely to prove that they alone reigned in The Fall of Rome©.

Josh began to stride down the hallway, toward the living room.  He momentarily noted some stairs to his right, before the end of the hall, and recalled that his room lay upstairs.  The large space opened before him, floored with the same wood as that of the hall.  Far ahead of him, on the other end of the room, the front door of the house stood between a solitary tiled counter littered with papers on its right, and a wall festooned with a small mirror on its left.  To the right of the counter was a plain, large window that looked out into the unpopulated street.  Across the center of the room was spread an expansive carpet, woven with black and brown intricate designs.  Centered at the bottom of the large wall to his right was a black projector, a small tube with stands that held it at the desired angle; from a single circular glass in this tube a light shone forth, projecting into the air a highly realistic picture, similar but superior to some of the old-fashioned television sets.  Josh realized that Simon was sitting on the left side of a couch on the dark carpet, holding a game controller, his eyes wholly focused on the immaterial screen. On the right side of the couch, on the floor, his other housemate was prone and quite pale.