A new sound intruded on my silence: the hiss of a hydraulic lock unsealing itself. I opened my eyes, turning my head to see a small panel slide open above the door, revealing a single red light. The hissing continued, and the door, at long last, swung inward, revealing a skinny, nervous-looking man in a long white lab coat. He was holding his clipboard against his chest like he thought it afforded him some sort of protection, and his eyes were wide behind the lenses of his glasses.

“Miss Mason? If you’d like to come with me, I’d be happy to escort you to the restroom.”

“Thank you.” I unfolded my legs, ignoring the protest of pins and needles in my calves, and walked toward the man in the doorway. He didn’t quite cringe as I approached, but he definitely shied back, looking more profoundly uneasy with every step I took in his direction. Interesting.

“We do apologize for making you wait,” he said. His words had the distinct cadence of something recited by rote, like telephone tech support asking for your ID and computer serial number. “There were just a few things that had to be taken care of before we could proceed.”

“Let’s worry about that after I get to the bathroom, okay?” I sidestepped around him, out into the hall, and stopped as I found myself looking at three hospital orderlies in blue scrubs, each of them pointing a pistol in my direction. I put my hands up, palms outward. “Okay, okay, I get it. I can wait for my escort.”

“That’s probably for the best, Miss Mason,” said the nervous man, whose voice I now recognized from the intercom. It just took me a moment, without the filtering speakers between us. “We’re all a bit jumpy right now. I’m sure you understand.”

“Yeah. Sure.” I lowered my hands as I fell into step behind the nervous man. The orderlies followed us down the hall, their aim never wavering. I did my best not to make any sudden moves. Having just returned to the land of the living, I was in no mood to exit it again before I had a few answers about what, exactly, was happening. “Am I ever going to get something I can call you?”

“Ah…” His mouth worked for a moment without a sound escaping before he said, “I’m Dr. Thomas. I’ve been one of your attending physicians since you first arrived at this facility. I’m not surprised that you don’t remember me. You’ve been sleeping for some time.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” The hall we were walking along was built along the model I’ve come to expect from CDC facilities, with nothing breaking the sterile white of the walls but the occasional door and the associated one-way mirrors that looked into patient-holding rooms. All of them were empty.

“You’re walking well.”