Wakening (Second person)

You awake from a long slumber. You feel heavy, numb and disoriented. Before you is only darkness. Pure and perfect blackness with nothing to see. Your first moves are slow, sluggish and almost painful. The very first thing you hear is a distant voice, distorted and echoing into your ears. With it comes a loud whistling noise, something to drive you crazy.

You try to move, to turn your head where you believe the voice comes from and as seconds passes, it becomes more and more obvious your attempts are useless. In time, while you hear the constant talking of what now seems to be a man, the whistling diminishes in pair with the echo. It mustn't have been five minutes and already you can understand what the elderly man is saying to you.

As it turns out, his voice was not for you to hear. It becomes obvious he is talking to other people, perhaps someone on the phone as it doesn't feel like there are more than the two of you in the room. His steps are not followed by any others and it is overall very quiet, aside from his monologue.

"...should awake any minute now. I have to admit i was concerned for a moment but the process is successful and wi...."

You're suddenly hit by illness, making it far too difficult to keep track of his words. You stop your movements and give up on the man. You remain still and silent. Should you need to speak, you feel it would be a tremendous work and decide to just let go, for now. It takes a few more seconds and you fall right back to sleep.

You awake again, feeling much better, refreshed. It feels like only a few minutes ago a man was talking in what seemed to be a small empty room though it takes you no longer than a second to realize things have changed around you. You still can not see and don't even bother moving, though you can hear something close to you. Something is either pulling or pushing but whichever is putting a lot of stress on something metallic. You can hear the definite sound of metal stressing, whining, groaning.

The sound is obvious but faint, telling you that whatever is making the noise is rather small. You eventually hear an other sound, something more humanly and unlike before, it gives you the impression it's a woman. As seconds pass you can't help but notice she seems in distress, as if she was fighting something. It takes you some more time and you link the two sounds, what if she was pulling or pushing the metallic object?

You're suddenly confused and interested at the same time and soon, you are trying to move. You find your limbs responsive and light, as they should be but something is preventing them from moving. It seems as if, you're binded in place and already you give up, finding no use to futile struggles.

"H-hello? Is someone there?"

Asks the now obvious woman, calming down from her own struggles. You are tempted to answer her but find yourself unable to. Your mouth won't open. Even more so, you can't feel it. You can't feel your tongue licking your teeth, can't feel your teeth rubbing against your tongue, you can't feel a thing.

This lights a bulb in your head and you notice you also cannot feel the rest of your body. Should you be upside down, on your back or bent in two, you wouldn't notice and that thought alone scares you enough to grant you extra desire to free yourself. As you futilely try to fight free, the voice adds up.

"Please, if there's anybody here, come to me, help me! I can't see!"

It's pretty obvious your forced companion shares your fate, and the reason why is nowhere to be found. However this time you were able to notice something, that her voice didn't seem natural. You find it hard to place exactly but something was off in her tone. Sadly, the questions pile up at an alarming rate and there are no answers to be found until you hear yet an other person speak up, this one clearly through a speaker phone.

"Calm down, both of you. You will get the answers you're looking for but you must be patient. The procedure takes time to follow and the system is just as slow. There is no need to rush anything, you are safe. No harm will come to you and if you can wait just a bit more, you will gain your sight back."

As if on cue, the blackness is instantly switched to a pure white screen. It is literally blindening but after a few seconds, it fades out into what is the environment around you and more importantly, the person before your very eyes.

Her mechanicality is striking and you instantly realize why her voice was so strange to you some time ago. You're flushed with awe and fear as your strip her down with your very eyes. Not only is her face, no her head mechanical but so is her entire body! As you focus on her entire self, you notice the back of her metallic skull is open and wires run from the ceiling and into her. You doubt she ever was human an that's when you notice her eyes, locked onto you like yours on her.

It strikes you down like thunder and you immediately look down at yourself to find with great fear that you are much like her. You are a being of components. Metals, plastics and composites. More to that, you're strapped almost vertically to a table, just like the woman, no female in front of you. You feel nauseated and ill once more and just as you are about to pass out, you hear a distinct clicking and turn your eyes to the one you can see.

It happens to her as it happens to you and it makes you feel even more... Inhuman. You see her head being slightly forced down as the cables behind her are pulling upward. It feels like something is scratching, no, rubbing against your very bones, almost grinding them as the wires are being mechanically pulled out of you. The next instant, her head closes and so does yours and you both are able to look around yourselves. You are now free to look around but your eyes are locked on her because you know if anything is to happen to her, it'll happen to you. She is just as focused on you.

Moments passes and you calm down, just as you do, you find your bindings slowly loosing up.

"What ar-" begins asking the woman in a mixture of curiosity and fear before being cut off by the stranger on the speaker.

"It's almost done. Please, take it easy and take some time to get used to your new body. We have much to discuss but you will need to reach me first. One of you can talk, what about the other? I do hope everything is going fine for the both of you. Now please, when you're ready, come find me."

As the silence comes back into the room, a door to your right lifts up, disappearing into the wall. You're finally touching the ground, just like your companion but you both remain immobile, staring at the other.