Just a ghost girl

The Pain

After already accidentally unveiling the location of my body I should have left. Still, I found myself following the rebels. It might have been better to try found our unit and tell them where the rebels were heading. But I would probably be too late anyway and if these were the last minutes I had before just being in a coma, I wanted to at least see how this ended or as far as I could.

The corridors of the medical level were empty. All doors had red dots as a mark that they were locked. Only doctors would be able to move around and they would do that only in an emergency. I intentionally stayed behind so that I wouldn't be revealing the right hallway or the right door. I needed not screw up anymore.

In the middle of the floor, the rebels stopped. My treatment room was there right behind Dylan. Did he already know that this was the right place? I was really interested to know where did he got all of his information. And since he had so much information how was it possible that he hadn't already known where I was treated.

"This is the coma section," Dylan said to his troops, "Everyone, pick a door."

The rebels scattered each on a different door. There were fewer of them so some people were standing in the middle of two doors. I was kind of curious about what would happen next. It didn't seem like they were going to break into every room. They probably knew that breaking a door caused an alarm and then they would have a very short amount of time to get the machine and leave. 

"Anna, I will give you one last chance to tell us which is the right room," Dylan said with a very serious voice. "Otherwise we have to use force."

I wasn't sure whether the threat was real or not and I was kind of curious to know what kind of force they would use. Would they break into every room? There was no way they would have enough time to search all of them before our units were here. My curious mind would probably doom me one day. But not today because I was a hologram these people couldn't hurt me. Or could they? Could there be a machine that could harm me? The hologram was created by the machine that was connected to my head. Didn't it mean that the hologram was somehow connected to my body? If there was a connection as there should be there was probably a way to use it. But they had said it was a new kind of technology, a prototype. So what were the odds that they had something to use against me? 

The more I thought about it the more I wanted to see what they were going to do. If our troops had come now I would have been very disappointed. More than anything after the accident I wanted to see this through. 

"I'm not going to tell," I answered. 

Dylan didn't seem surprised by my answer maybe a little bit disappointed. I didn't know why, it was not like I was on their side. Maybe he was misjudging me still hanging here with them as co-operation. This was just the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. Only a crazy person would miss all of this excitement after a month of boredom. But they didn't know that. No one did. How lonesome and boring it was to be a ghost. So I didn't wonder at all if a ghost were always behaving badly in stories. They were all turned crazy after time had passed.

"I'm really sorry about this, but you're not leaving me a choice," Dylan said. 

I waited. It was probably just one heartbeat-long wait but it felt like an eternity. 

"Ethan," he said, "Does the name Ethan mean anything to you?"

I hadn't even noticed that I had lifted my hands. I let them fall back to my side. What was this? It didn't make any sense. Why would he out of blue ask me if I knew anyone named Ethan? All the excitement I had felt vanished. This was just odd. I didn't know anyone called Ethan...

It was a short flash blond guy whit bright blue eyes smiling widely for me. Then his picture shattered and there was Matteo. My head started to hurt and I felt like I was suffocating. Panic arose in me. This should have been happening. How could I feel so much pain? I was supposed to be safe and yet they had found a way to hurt me. 

It was a pain I had never felt before. My heart was crushing, I couldn't breathe and my head hurt like some had been hitting it. The pain in my chest area was worse. There would probably have been tears if the hologram had been able to do that. If I had felt alone before it was nothing compared to the feeling I had now. I felt like my entire world had been destroyed and I had been left with nothing, all alone. 

While I was suffering I could hear the rebels yelling that they didn't hear anything. I lifted my head to look at Dylan. He did look like he was sorry but more than that he was worried. Some of his plans had gone wrong. I might have laughed if I hadn't been in so much pain. Why didn't it stop? What had he done to me? 

"Make it stop," I pleaded with a weak voice.

There was no strength left in me. I was on the ground on my knees holding myself tightly.  I would probably soon vanish. When I got tired it meant my brain needed some rest and after a while, I could be able to come back as a hologram. Normally it was enough that I "slept" through the night. Although this time it didn't feel the same kind of tiredness. I had once tried how long I could stay awake. It had been a little bit over 48 hours. My experience had been cut short by Nicolas as he had forcefully shut me down. After that Nicolas had told me that there would be an automated shut down if I was awake for more than 36 hours. 

At the end of my experience, I had been disoriented and tired of course. Now I felt more like every drop of energy had been taken from me. It felt like someone had taken every purpose away from me that I had had to live. All I wanted was for it to stop. I wanted everything to be over, go to sleep and wake up the next morning and everything was just a bad dream. None of this had happened, that was what I wished. But there was no one to grant me that wish and I felt hopeless this would continue forever.

For a desperate time, you did desperate things. I had one way to make the pain go away. If they took the machine away the hologram would vanish and this pain would go away. I lifted my hand and pointed to the door behind Dylan. 

"There it is," I said, "The machine is right behind you. Take it. End this."