Hi guys, I'm back, still alive.
I'd somehow managed to fall asleep in my husband's arms, cuddled next to him, in his ICU bed. After a comfortable few hours of much needed rest, I awoke to the sound of rattling, knocking, only it wasn't coming from the locked door.
"Knock, bang, clank, bang," the noise was coming from the opposite wall. "Screech." The large frosted window appeared to be welded shut. But someone or something was trying to get in.
From where my body rested, I could see a figure. It was a slender, humanoid with long dark blond hair. The light of the new morning was too bright to allow me to make out features, but he appeared to be wearing jeans and a white t-shirt.
"Hey!" shouted a male voice as he banged on the thick glass pane. The sound was loud, somewhat metallic as if he was hitting the window with something other than his fist. The voice sounded young, possibly a teenager. "Can you hear me, Barbie girl? I'm coming in." He sounded happy, friendly; almost like this was all some kind of prank.
How the hell did he know my name? I regressed from a grown woman to a little girl and did the only thing I could think to do; I pulled the blankets over my head and held on to my husband's body like he was an emotional support plushie.
I could hear the window open, with an audible crack, followed by the crash of glass and possibly chunks of drywall falling to the ground. The stranger was in the room.
I couldn't help but sob. Why was he here? Where was hospital security? Was he hospital security? The man's footsteps sounded like combat boots; firm, strong, and more than a little terrifying.
"Barbie?" His voice was innocent, sweet."Barbara-Ann?" He cleared his throat like a nervous teen addressing a teacher. "Mrs. Mercer? I know you must be hungry. You have a life growing inside you." With the last sentence, a hint of an American southern accent started to slip through.
I turned my head just enough to catch a view of his face. What stood before me was a young man with my husband's blue eyes, blonde hair, distinctive nose, and jawline. The man was definitely older than eighteen. If I had to guess I'd say he was in his twenties, maybe a college student. But more then anything, he looked like he could be my husband's kid brother. Except Kenneth didn't have a brother. "Who are you?"
The man smiled, his blue eyes catching my gaze. "I would say you can call me Kenny or Ken, but I'm sure you're not going to be okay with that, given the circumstances." He took a step closer and motioned to my husband's sleeping face. "Just to be respectful, how about you call me K?"
K still sounded too much like Kenneth for my liking. "How about if I call you Kai?" It was the only other male 'K' name I could think of. I'd heard it from a videogame, and the fact that is rhymed with 'pie' made me slightly less uncomfortable.
"I like it." Kai reached into his jean pocket and pulled out a king-sized Snickers bar, the kind with two in the package.
"Wow." I'd only ever seen them, back home in America. And I was in fact very hungry.
"Here, Barbie, you need to eat," he said offering me the whole package. "If not for you then do it for the baby. You're what, two months along?"
I kept my hands where they were. Thoughts of food positioning, drugging or worse raced through my mind; this was a setup, this was how I was going to die. But I needed to stay calm, Kai was acting friendly because I was acting friendly. "I'm three months pregnant, but how do you know that?"
"I only know what I've been access to. But it's more than enough." He opened the package, pulling out a bar. He broke off a piece, squishing the chocolate and caramel between his fingers. "I know all about you, Barbie, I want to be with you."
My eyes bulged in shock, as my lips hung open, unable to speak or even breathe.
Kai apparently took that as in invitation to put his finger in my mouth."Here, see, it's just a regular Snicker's bar."
I closed my mouth forcing myself to swallow the bite if only to appease him. It tasted fine. And If I was wrong, hopefully, I wouldn't suffer too badly. "Are you a clone?"
Kai laughed and shook his head, the way that Kenneth always did. "I'm more of a compilation album."
"Like, the best of...?" My eyes motioned to my husband, while my body remained paralyzed with fear.
"More like I'm what's left of him," Kai muttered. For a moment his voice changed; his southern accent disappeared, revealing something that sounded Eastern-European.
But he caught himself, just as quickly.
"Look, Miss Mercer, can I call you Barbie?" he asked, as he tried to finger feed me another piece of candy, like a lamb at a petting zoo.
You've been calling me Barbie for the last ten minutes. "Missus Mercer will be fine," I replied through gritted teeth.
Kai ate the remainder of the piece of chocolate, sucking his own fingers as he spoke. "The fact is, Ma'am, Master Sergeant Kenneth Mercer is not waking up. They've been harvesting him for months, he's been lucky to last as long as he did."
And now everything he owns (everything he was) belongs to you? No, I had a more pressing question. "Who's 'they'?"
Kai only chuckled. "I think you already know the answer to that."
I couldn't look away. His smile was familiar yet alien, terrifying, yet soothing. "Did they send you?"
Kai shook his head. He was glancing at his hands with a cocky grin. "Do I look like a product of the military, to you?"
"No, you look like some kind of genetic experiment," I said unintentionally out loud.
"Do you want this candy or not? If you're willing to leave with me I can get you someplace safe." He walked his fingers down my face, to my jaw. "A place with food, water, and a nice bed."
I wasn't leaving, not without Kenneth. But if I couldn't wake him up, I was in a bit of a bind. "Will you stay with me?"
"Sure," Kai said, as he ran his fingers through his hair like a slacker-surfer. "I mean, I already went through the trouble of breaking in."
"Yeah, you did," I replied with a fake smile, to hopefully look more innocent and trustworthy.
Kai pulled up a chair, by the bed, facing me at eye level as he stroked my cheek. "Totally worth it."
I locked eyes with him, taking a moment to fully take in his demeanor. "Will you take your clothes off?" I asked in a surgery sweet whisper. Sure, Kai was handsome, but in truth, I needed to know what exactly I was dealing with. Was he a robot, a human or something else entirely?
"Will you get out of bed and eat candy with me?"
"Of course." I took a breath, gathering the courage to release my husband's body and sit up on my own. I could see Kai's arms, they were bruised and scared. But his skin tone was rather strange. Large sections of his skin were discolored. Some places looked like tan-lines while others look like surgical scars. I moved my hands under his shirt, expecting to feel six-pack abs and a toned chest.
But instead, my hands were met with something leathery, dry and held together with sutures of various sizes. It was what I imagined Frankenstein's monster must have felt like.
Kai held my hand, guiding me to remove his t-shirt. His body was a mess of scars; tissue that had been grafted, rejected and replaced. "Don't worry, Barbie-girl, it's just a touch of cancer."
I jerked my hand back. "You are a clone."
Kai growled in frustration. "I really don't care for that word." He somehow managed to hold on to his southern accent, even as his eyes filled with rage.