Extensis Vitae by Gregory Mattix Page B

back to the med bay for a little while to patch up one of the workers that got injured outside the reactor chamber. I would invite you to tag along, but it might make people nervous. You’re welcome to stay here, though, and I’ll be back when I can, or you can return to your chambers, if you prefer.”
    Reznik stifled a yawn. “I think I’ll turn in for the night. I have some thinking to do since my whole world has been pretty much turned upside down in the last couple of days.”

Chapter 5

    R eznik woke up at Walter Reed Army Medical Center after eight months in a coma. The doctors told him they thought the only reason he survived was that he had fallen from the chopper an instant before it had crashed and exploded into the mountainside. ‘Survived’ was about all they could say about his condition. He was paralyzed from the waist down due to the shrapnel that had severed his spinal cord. It had been necessary to amputate his left arm just above the elbow, since it had nearly been torn off and had been hanging from a shred of flesh. He had been blinded in his right eye; an ugly scar stretched from his eye socket back to where his right ear had been sheared off. Severe burns covered about sixty percent of his body. He later found out that all his comrades were dead and buried.
    Amanda eventually showed up to visit him after he was awake. He could see the pity in her eyes as they spoke awkwardly for a short time. After about a half hour or so, she told him that she had moved on with her life since she hadn’t known how long it would take or if he would ever come out of the coma. He knew that it was more than her uncertainty about the coma. It was more about him being just a ruined shell of the man he had once been. At least she had the decency to not mention that part of it.
    “I’m so sorry, Michael,” she had said before fleeing the hospital room, her blue eyes filled with tears. That was the last time he ever saw her.
    They fitted him with a prosthetic arm, but it was fairly crude and awkward. He had been placed on the waiting list for one of the more advanced models.
    During the tough months of recovery and physical therapy that followed, he tried to find a reason to stay positive. More often than not though, he found himself wishing he had died with his comrades in the crash. Why should I be spared? he wondered. What kind of life is this? This is more of a curse than anything .
    Besides the fresh pain from the breakup with Amanda, he was always haunted by memory of the face of his longtime friend Nash as he pitched out the door of the Black Hawk, his eyes wide and his hand reaching out. He knew that it wouldn’t have made a difference if he had been able to haul his friend back in the chopper —they had all been doomed, anyway. But that truth never prevented the recurring nightmares of that fatal day, along with the horrible, powerless feeling that he had let his friend die.
    His serious injuries combined with the loss of his friend and his breakup with Amanda all propelled him into a deep depression. He was put on Prozac to help with the depression, but the cocktail of drugs he was on made him physically ill most of the time. On a good day, he would simply feel numb to the world.
    After several months of rehab, Reznik was waiting to go down to lunch on one of his good days, when a knock sounded at his door. He turned his wheelchair and called out for the visitor to enter.
    The door opened and a well-dressed man in an expensive suit entered. He was clean-shaven with his hair combed back. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses was perched on his nose. The face, however, was familiar to Reznik.
    “Mr. Reznik! I was so sorry to hear the news about you and your team. Such brave young men—what a tragedy. Truly our nation’s finest. I will never forget the day that you saved my life in Afghanistan.”
    “Mr. Black, was it?” Reznik asked.
    “Ah, yes…it was Black, but I’m Mr. White now.” He grinned.