Death Makes Me Stronger -- Chapter 2

Panic flooded my veins like a jolt of pure adrenaline, and I sat up so fast that I hit my head on something hard.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered and reached up to touch the spot on my forehead even though it didn’t actually hurt.

A tarp-like fabric brushed against the back of my knuckles, and the irritation drained out of me in an instant. All I could see was inky blackness like I was in my bedroom with the curtains drawn, but the air was too cold, and the smell reminded me of a hospital. I reached up to run my fingers over the fabric and found a zipper that seemed to run the entire length of whatever I was in.

“Where the hell am I?” I whispered to myself.

Every warning bell went off in the back of my head as I tried to figure out the last thing that I remembered. I’d been on the bridge with that kid and we were so close to the city that we’d practically been able to touch it, but the supers had been fighting above us. A manhole cover flashed in front of my vision, and I reached up to touch my face.

The skin was so sensitive that it was as if I’d gotten a sunburn, but it had been early spring, and the sun had barely been over the horizon. I would’ve had to have laid out on the bridge for hours to get a burn like that, and the cops weren’t that incompetent, especially since they’d been right there. Maybe someone had scrubbed me down with some kind of cleaner, or I got caught in one of Iceara’s freeze rays and was currently defrosting.

“Alright,” I said and forced myself to take a deep breath of the astringent-like air. “Don’t panic. You’re alive. That manhole cover must’ve missed you. I hope the kid is alright. That can wait until later. First, you need to figure out where the hell you are, and why it smells like a hospital.”

I was pretty sure that the fabric was actually a body bag since a lot of Iceara’s victims were taken to a special facility to be defrosted. The process must’ve gone by faster than the technicians expected, and they hadn’t actually removed me yet to fully defrost. Either way, I needed to find a way out and not let fear make me do something stupid like flail around like an idiot.

The zipper didn’t have a metal piece on the inside, so I had to tug at the teeth until the damned thing gave way. My hands flew apart as the bag tore open, and my elbows slammed into the side of whatever holding container I was in.

“Son of a bitch,” I swore and rubbed my elbows.

Every inch of my skin felt like it was on fire, but the sensation was quickly starting to fade, so my theory about being frozen had to be right. Still, I couldn’t get the sight of the manhole cover coming at my face out of my head. It made more sense that Iceara had used one of her freeze rays, because the only other option was that the slab of metal had hit me and that I’d somehow survived.

That was about as likely as me coming back from the dead since none of my family had any super powers, so I decided to stick with the theory about the freeze ray for the moment. I racked my brain for the procedure for Iceara’s victims, but it was all hazy, and hunger washed over me like I hadn’t eaten in days. The only thing I knew for sure was that the frozen people were all taken to a warehouse to be defrosted so that the authorities would know if they were actually dead, or just human icicles that needed to be thawed.

“Alright, John,” I said and swallowed hard. “You’ve got to be in one of the facilities. Someone will probably be on guard. You just have to get out, and then they’ll help you get back to your normally scheduled life. No big deal. You can use a sick day. Your boss will be irritated, but it’s one of the hazards of living in the city. That’s why you save up your sick time.”

I forced my shaking fingers to pull the bag down around my sides until my arms and legs were free. There was still nothing but blackness around me, and it seemed to go on forever, but there were solid metal sides about half a foot away in every direction. I poked the back wall with my foot to make sure and then ran my hands along the cool metal on either side.

It reminded me of a steel coffin, and it took all of my self-control not to start screaming and banging to be released. There had to be a way to get out, especially if I was in one of the thawing facilities. There were too many stories about people coming back to life after one of Iceara’s attacks for them to lock me in a box with no way out.

There was a metal square just beyond my head that felt a lot like a door, but there was no latch for me to undo. I ran my fingers over the seams in search of some way to pry it open and found absolutely nothing. If there was a way out, then I just wasn’t finding it, and it was getting harder to hold in the panic that flooded through my veins.

“It’s fine, John,” I repeated over and over as I tried to figure out what to do next.

The memory of the manhole cover washed over me again, and I remembered with a jolt that it had actually slammed right into my face. I reached up to run a hand over my eyes, nose, and mouth as if they would be misshapen, but everything was perfectly normal.

Admiral Freedom must’ve grabbed it right before it killed me, but I still got knocked out. That would make sense, though the superhero wasn’t exactly known for his speed. Still, it was the only logical explanation for how I could’ve survived a giant slab of metal rocketing towards me at full speed. Unless the kid had some kind of superpower that he used at the last minute.

None of that explained my current location, but it was at least something to work with. If they’d thought that the manhole cover had actually killed me, then I wouldn’t be at one of the freezing facilities. They’d bring me to where they usually keep the dead people.

The morgue.

“Nope, no, absolutely the fuck not,” I muttered and started to push against the walls. “There’s no way that they brought me to the morgue. The cops and EMTs would’ve checked my pulse. If I wasn’t frozen, then they would’ve found it. There’s absolutely no fucking way that they thought that I was dead and brought me to the morgue. No.”

I ran a hand over my chest to make sure that no one had cut into me and didn’t find anything but soft flesh. The fact that I was naked did nothing to help calm my racing heart, but at least they hadn’t tried to perform an autopsy on me yet. I just needed to get out of there before they started it, and there had to be someone on duty like a medical examiner, or maybe even a lab tech, that could open the door.

The list of ways that I didn’t want to die didn’t have being autopsied alive on it, but that was now number two, right after drowning. Although, being buried alive was a very close second as I realized that there was probably only a limited amount of air in the sealed morgue wall. I forced myself to take a deep breath and slowly let it out in one of the calming techniques that they taught us to use when talking to particularly nasty callers, but it did nothing but reinforce the fact that I’d been zipped into a bodybag and stuffed into a drawer so that someone could cut me up.

“Fuck it,” I said and started to kick and pound on the metal walls

The scream that burst out of my lungs reverberated back to almost deafen me, but that was the least of my concerns at the moment. The insurance company had amazing health insurance, so I could buy some hearing aids if it came to it. My main priority was to survive and get someone’s attention so that they could let me out, and if I had to scream like a madman, then that was what I’d do.

My metal coffin clanged with every strike, but the pain that I expected to wash over me never came. The burning sensation in my skin was completely gone, and I knew that I’d hit the sides of the drawer as hard as possible, but it still didn’t hurt. Some part of my mind wondered if that was because oxygen deprivation had already started to take its toll on my brain, but I shoved that below the swirling tide of fear that had washed over me.

“Let me out!” I shouted as loud as my now hoarse voice would allow. “I’m not dead. Let me out of here before I run out of air. I swear that I’m not dead!”

The constant clang of my feet and fists on the metal drawer made it impossible to hear anything on the outside, so I forced myself to still so that I could listen. There had to be someone on duty, no matter what time of day it was, and the echoes of my screams were definitely loud enough to grab their attention. I used every ounce of my self-control not to bang on the walls again, but it paid off when I heard the sound of footsteps.

“Yo, I’m in here,” I said in as calm a tone as possible. “I’m not dead. There’s been a mistake.”

I punched above my head to hit the door when the sound of the footsteps suddenly stopped and hoped that whoever it was would realize that I was there. They had to be able to hear me, but that didn’t mean that they’d open the drawer. I was sure that the place had to have enough ghosts to make all of the employees a little jumpy, although the existence of specters was one thing that hadn’t been proven yet.

It felt like an eternity before someone finally unlatched the doors, and my head had started to swim from a lack of oxygen. Bright white light poured in as a petite figure pulled open the metal slab and yanked the drawer out, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the sudden change.

The air tasted like cleaner, but it was cold and refreshing, and I drank it in like it was life. It was amazing to be free of the tiny box, and I stretched as I sat up to look around the morgue. The dizziness from the lack of oxygen finally faded, and my vision cleared enough to see the petite woman next to me.

Red contacts glared in my direction from eye-level as if it was offensive that I wasn’t a corpse. The woman had long black braided ponytails that draped to her small waist, and a pristine white lab coat did nothing to cover the leather pants and torn black shirt she wore. Gothic makeup lined her eyes, and perfect black lipstick covered her bow shaped lips.

“They warned me that you guys liked to pull pranks, but this is going above and beyond,” she snapped.

I swung my legs over the edge of the drawer and hopped down to the cold tile floor. Goosebumps erupted all over my naked body, and I immediately started towards one of the lab coats hung up near the door. I had no idea what the woman was talking about, but whatever it was could wait until after I had some kind of clothing.

It barely fit around my shoulders, and probably belonged to the petite woman, especially since it seemed longer than it should have been, like it was meant to offset the four-inch black platform boots she had on. I shrugged a few times until it settled enough to be somewhat comfortable and then looked around for something that would cover up my junk. There was a stack of fresh sheets on a tray next to the door, so I unfurled it and wrapped it around my waist.

“The dead should be respected,” the woman huffed. “It is our job in the morgue to find out what brought them to the other side and to give peace to those of us that have to remain in the land of the living. Even if the other medical examiners allow these sorts of pranks, they are not allowed when I am present. You will learn to respect those whom we are bound to protect and keep, or I will ensure that you do not set foot in this morgue again.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said and sighed with relief at the sight of an unopened bottle of water.

The cool liquid was the best drink that I’d ever had as it washed over my dried throat. A headache had started to form as the dizziness abandoned me, but it was chased away as soon as the dehydration had been attacked. The water bottle was drained in just a few seconds, and I tossed it into the trash near the door.

“Pranks,” the goth woman said and stomped her foot. “You’re not allowed to pull pranks in my morgue. If you’re going to work the night shift, then you will not climb into these drawers. Not only is it offensive to those who have already crossed over into the great beyond, but you might join them yourself, and then you will have to answer for your mockery of their current state. Those drawers do not allow air to enter. It keeps our charges from decaying into dust before their families can come to claim them and put them to rest. If I hadn’t come back in when I did, then you would’ve suffocated to death.”

“I’m aware,” I said and ran a hand through my hair. “Why do you think I was freaking out?”

The woman narrowed her bright red eyes, and the look she gave me reminded me of a vampire that couldn’t decide if it wanted to attack or not. The existence of blood suckers was relegated to movies and fairy tales, and was right up there with ghosts, but I was starting to rethink my position on that at the moment. She hadn’t had fangs when she yelled at me, but that didn’t mean the tiny creature couldn’t rip out my jugular, especially with how angry she was.

“You wouldn’t have to freak out if you weren’t stupid enough to lock yourself in a drawer,” she said and then looked me up and down. “And why are you naked? Is it part of your commitment to the gag? Because I can give you an autopsy if you’d like.”

“Hard pass,” I said and put my hands up. “Look, I don’t know what happened, but I promise that I didn’t put myself in that drawer.”

She flipped one long black braided ponytail over her shoulder and studied me for a few seconds.

“You look familiar, what’s your name?” she demanded.

“John Harris,” I said.

“And how long have you worked with the delivery service?” she asked.

“I don’t,” I shrugged and looked around. “I just woke up and found myself in one of those drawers. I work at an insurance company. Are you one of the coroners?”

“Assistant medical examiner,” the petite woman said and stomped past me to the computer. “My name is Raven Lalune. You should remember it, because if you’re lying to me, then I’m going to make sure that you’re fired.”

“That’s fair,” I said and started to pace. “I’d say that it’s nice to meet you, but this has been one of the worst days of my life. I knew that I shouldn’t have stayed at my buddy’s house, but our game night wrapped up so late that I was too tired to drive back. I’m definitely putting my foot down about having game nights on the weekends from here on out.”

The only sound in the morgue was the slap of my bare feet on the tile and the clicking of the keyboard as Raven searched the computer. I saw her click through a database of what looked like city employees, but my name obviously didn’t pop up. The quiet was so deafening that I almost started talking again just to fill it, but that probably had more to do with how freaked out I was about almost being autopsied while I was still alive.

There would be a nightmare about that in the future, but for the moment I forced myself to take those deep breaths in until my pulse returned to a slightly more normal speed. I still couldn’t believe that the EMTs, cops, and Admiral Freedom hadn’t realized that I was still alive. If I hadn’t woken up in time, then Raven would’ve sliced into me like a ham, and my mom would probably have me cremated despite how many times that I’d told her to just bury me.

Although, that was a request that might need to be reevaluated too. It had been terrifying enough to wake up in one of those drawers, but it would be so much worse if I woke up six feet under with no one to hear my screams. That was probably why so many people used to be buried with bells back when people used to slip into a coma.

“You said your name was John Harris, right?” Raven asked and sat back in her chair.

The goth girl crossed one leather clad leg over the other and stared at the computer screen like it had to be wrong. Light glinted off of the metal venom piercings on either side of her lips and the industrial bar through her left ear. The assistant medical examiner looked more like one of those people that went to the vampire clubs to pretend like she was immortal instead of being in the morgue, but that might be what she did after work, and that would at least explain the get up she had on.

“That’s me,” I said and tried not to fidget. “Did you find me on the computer yet? The last thing that I remember was the fight between Admiral Freedom and Iceara. There was a manhole cover coming right at me and this kid that I’d been talking to on the bridge. I remember knocking him out of the way, but I figure that Admiral Freedom had to get there to catch it before it actually killed me, right? And then everyone just assumed that I died?”

“Nope,” she said and stood, pulled open the lab coat I was wearing, and then studied my abdomen.

There was still a little bit of pudge around my middle from the last couple years of fast food and convenience store sandwiches that I grabbed from work, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been a few weeks ago before I’d forced myself to start working out again. Still, I felt like a specimen under a microscope as the assistant medical examiner bent over to run cold fingers over my abdomen like she was looking for something. I tensed and tried not to pull away, especially when she stood and was so close that I could see the rim of her bright red contacts.

“What?” I asked. “What happened?”

“You died,” she shrugged and then turned her study to my face. “Your entire head was caved in when you arrived. That’s why I didn’t recognize you. And you don’t have the y-incision from when I autopsied you.”

“I’m sorry…” I shook my head and reached for the nearby autopsy table for support. “You-you autopsied… me?”

“Did it myself,” the goth woman said and walked over to grab a file from a cabinet. “Your internal organs were in remarkable condition for someone who sat at a desk for forty hours a week. Honestly, the office workers we get in here are usually much worse off. I did note that you’d recently gained more muscle.”

“How could you possibly know that?” I asked.

“It was in the x-rays,” she said. “There were hairline fractures to your shins that had only recently healed. It means that your body is newly used to going on long jogs. I commend your effort to be healthy. But, I have to admit that my main curiosity lies with what you saw when you were in the great beyond.”

“The what?” I asked as I tried to wrap my head around everything that she was saying. “The great beyond?”

“The afterlife,” she said with a vague wave of her hand. “You know… that which we all seek. You’ve been there and came back. What did you see? Were there any gods that you recognized? Was it the Ferry Man? Or the Great Wolf? I’ve always liked both of those as gods of the dead.”

I shifted and hopped up onto the autopsy table before my legs gave out entirely. Raven’s questions swam around in my head, but there was nothing for me to say. I hadn’t seen anything at all. At least, nothing that I could remember, and my brain was a little too overwhelmed to completely keep up with her excited ramblings.

“You’re sure that you have the right John Harris?” I asked as the goth woman continued her flurry of questions.

“Of course,” she said with an expression like I’d offended her. “I know how to do my job. You died on the bridge into New Liberty yesterday morning from a manhole cover to the face. The kid that you saved survived with only a sprained ankle, and the distraction was what Admiral Freedom needed to put Iceara down. She’s back in custody, and you came to the morgue. There was a lot going on yesterday, so I was the one who did the autopsy at the start of my shift. Which is almost over, actually. I only put you back in the drawer about five hours ago, but your entire body is healed. It’s the most amazing thing that I’ve ever seen.”

“Right,” I nodded and ran a hand over my face.

“Do you have supers in your family?” Raven asked as sat back in the computer chair.

“No,” I shook my head.

The assistant medical examiner pulled out a notebook and started to jot things down as if this was just another day, and I was just another experiment. I hopped down from the table and started to pace again. It was a good way to keep myself from freaking all the way out, and the movement helped me to focus on a few thoughts. Raven continued to write as I walked back and forth between the drawers and where she sat, and each time she looked up at me I felt like a lab rat.

“Have you died before?” she finally asked.

“No,” I shook my head. “This is my first experience.”

“And what about the afterlife? You didn’t answer my questions about the great beyond,” she pressed and flashed an encouraging smile.

I paused for a moment to try and think back, to see anything other than the inky blackness that I’d woken up to, but there was nothing. My last memory was the manhole cover and the kid, but then it just skipped ahead to me waking up and hitting my head on the top of the drawer. If I’d seen some kind of god of death, then they’d clearly wiped the experience from my brain before they sent me back.

“It was just like a dreamless sleep,” I said with an apologetic shrug. “Sorry.”

“Interesting,” Raven said and scribbled more in her notebook. “I wonder if they didn’t make themselves known to you because it wasn’t your destiny to stay in the realm of the dead yet. And you’re sure that you haven’t died yet? Or that your family has any superpowers?”

“No one that I know of,” I said. “And if I died before, then I don’t remember it, and my entire family has kept me in the dark about it.”

I thought back to my childhood for any signs that I’d died and come back to life, but there was nothing. My favorite activities had been pretty boring in the grand scheme of things, and none of them were dangerous enough to get me killed. I didn’t remember anything that set my parents into an overly protective mode, and none of my siblings were ever cautious about anything.

“Interesting,” she said again.

“You really need to stop saying that,” I huffed. “It makes me feel like I’m a lab rat and this is some giant experiment.”

“I do not play about death,” Raven said and clicked her pen shut, put it in the notebook, and then set it on the desk. “The dead are the most noble among us. They don’t lie, cheat, or steal. They have used up what little time they were given on this planet and have passed into the great unknown.”

“Right,” I said and took a deep breath. “And you’re absolutely sure that I was dead.”

“I weighed your heart like the Great Wolf,” she said and stood.

I started to pace again and then tore off the too small lab coat. It felt too constricting as panic started to flood through my veins again. I still had the sheet around my hips, but that apparently wouldn’t matter too much to the assistant medical examiner since she’d taken my organs out to weigh and then put them back.

“This is insane,” I said and turned to face the pale goth woman. “This can’t be happening. My family doesn’t have supers. We’re ordinary people. I work in an insurance call center for crying out loud! The most exciting thing about me is the ability to tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue.”

“That is impressive,” she said with a shrug. “But clearly, there’s more to you than those cute freckles across your nose and a talented tongue, because you were dead, and now you’re not. Have you come across any amulets or talismans in the last few months? Or maybe someone that called into your workplace and then cursed, or blessed, you with immortality?”

“No,” I sighed. “I got a box of almond wedding cookies from a couple once, but that was years ago, and most of my coworkers ate them. There’s absolutely no reason that I should be alive right now. It’s just… it’s just impossible.”

I walked the length of the room and then around the autopsy tables and back. It felt like every synapse in my brain was firing all at once like the kid who’d taken too many drugs at one of the college parties that I’d been to. I needed to process everything and then figure out exactly what the hell had happened.

There definitely wasn’t any kind of talisman or any magical item that could’ve brought me back from the dead. No gods or supernatural creatures had approached me with a deal to serve them for immortality. The only reasonable explanation for me not being dead was that I was a super and didn’t know it because it had never come up before.

I took a deep breath and nodded my head.

That had to be it.

I was actually a super.

And my power was coming back to life.