Today’s effort is based on suggestions by the extremely lovely Tamara - as before, the prompts themselves will be listed at the end.
Resurrected
INITIALISING…
LOAD DEEP.MEM
LOAD USER.PERS
CHECK USERSYS
SYSTEM STATUS OK
START USE.UPL/AUD
- Welcome back, _*Tony Mulvern*_
"Who the hell are you, and where the hell is this?"
- This environment is referred to as the Waiting Room. Research has shown that new returnees respond best to a gradual integration back into the world. If you need to, you may call me "Buddy". My role, on behalf of New Broom Corp, is to ensure that your revivification runs smoothly.
“I can't see. Why can't I see? Oh my God, am I blind??”
- In order to reduce potential trauma and risk of overload, your senses are being reintroduced one at a time. At the moment, only your auditory sense has been activated. Please remain calm, _*Tony Mulvern*_
“What’s going on? I don’t… I don’t understand.”
- Confusion is natural for a returnee but please remain calm. All is well. You have been through a process to return you from a state of unbeing to one of regular corporeal health. Congratulations!
“A state of unbeing? Did I… am I dead?”
- I am happy to be able to report that, while that was briefly a condition you suffered from, this is no longer the case thanks to the tireless and dedicated work of our New Broom employees. Welcome back!
“I’m so confused. How is this possible?”
- Unfortunately, _*Tony Mulvern*_
“I just… I just want to go home. Can I go home now?”
- In all likelihood, the domicile you refer you to as “home” is no longer allocated to you due to your recent cessation of living status. However, all such queries will be handled by the New Life Care Team once I have completed your phased revivification. I will shortly be activating your visual sense. Please remain calm. All is well.
--------
The New Life Care Team had been pleasant enough in a vaguely professional way but Tony didn’t really feel much the wiser. There had a been a number of words that Tony had a vague sense about - “post-life cortical retrieval”; “reintegration shock syndrome”; “staggered familial contact” - but their blandly soothing tones combined with Tony’s general confusion to create a sort of mental white noise. What Tony had managed to gather was the following:- resurrection was par for the course these days; everyone currently alive had some of resurrection plan with one of the main relife companies; some companies were now going through and resurrecting people from the past. Tony, apparently, fell into that last category.
He stood on the street in his New Broom provided clothing, clutching the Returnee Care Pack they had provided to him and tried his best to take everything in. Sights, souds, smells. None of it was familiar. There also seemed to be so much of everything. People, buildings, screens - everything was crammed in and bright and noisy and strange and shocking and…
Tony shrank back against the New Broom building and slumped to the floor. This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be real, could it? Maybe it was a joke. One of those reality shows. Did they even have reality shows anymore? Did they even have shows? Was TV even a thing anymore?
What about Marie and the kids? Seventy four years, they said. Would they even be around? If not, had they been brought back? OK, thought Tony, he’d have to find out. Find them and try to make sense of this insane place. That would anchor him, that would bring him back, give him something to hold on to.
Do they still have cabs, Tony thought to himself, as he stepped out towards what he imagined to be the curb. Unfortunately, what he had stepped out onto was not the curb at all but was in fact the incoming matter transport pad, as he discovered when his body was mingled at a molecular level with that of a young woman on her way to visit her newly revived grandmother. Oh, thought Tony as their bodies dissolved into a formless sludge, was that it?
-------
INITIALISING…
LOAD DEEP.MEM
LOAD USER.PERS
CHECK USERSYS
SYSTEM STATUS OK
START USE.UPL/AUD
- Welcome back, _*Tony Mulvern*_ . Please remain calm. All is well. You may experience some disorientation at this moment in time. That is a perfectly natural reaction. Please remain calm. All is well.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
The Prompt
Here is what I had to work with courtesy of Tamara:-
Title: Resurrected
Character: Tony Mulvern
Object: Broom
Line Of Dialogue: "Who the hell are you, and where the hell is this?"
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