Redacted — The Shadowboxer Files action adventure thriller

The room was still without being silent.

There was a machine that kept his heart beating, pumping out beats in beeps that were slow and steady.

Another machine kept him breathing, rising up and falling down in another rhythmic contraction that was just out of time with the first machine.

He was fed through a tube connected to his stomach and eliminated into two other tubes, small sacks of yellow dribble and brown goo that would be collected by a nurse and replaced with fresh sacks to repeat a weird cycle ritual the next day.

He had six tubes running from various bags hanging from poles beside the bed, three to an arm.

Medicine to keep him pain free, saline to keep him hydrated, different medicine or fluid or clear bags of hopes and dreams that would wash into his system and out into the waste.

He didn’t open his eyes when the nurse led Brill in.

Didn’t move, except for the machines doing all of the work.

“He hasn’t been awake,” said the nurse.

She was small and lean, all muscle with tiny bags under her eyes from a long night shift coming to an end. A badge on a lanyard around her neck told him her name was Becky, and she looked like it fit.

Like her eyes would be bright and cheery, but for the nights and the death that surrounded her.

“I can only give you a few minutes,” said Becky as she checked a tablet hooked to the end of the bed.

Brill wasn’t sure she would let him in at first, ready to present her with excuses as to why he should be allowed to go in before visiting hours.

But the tired and the sympathy and perhaps the fact that the man in the bed had yet to have any visitors made Becky let her guard down and saved him from sneaking past her.

She said yes and led him into the room.

“I’ll be back,” she said.

“That’s the world’s worst terminator impression,” he quipped.

It sounded flat and forced, and he was just trying for a joke, anything to get her pursed tight lips to relax into a smile.