Oakes found himself in a pitch-black world. Or perhaps the world itself was not entirely black—he simply could not see anything right now.
Suddenly, a dim red glow appeared above his head. When he looked up, he saw one enormous eye, followed by two eyes and a blurry face.
He heard a woman's sigh. He was not sure whether he had also heard those faint murmurs of complaint, but he could clearly see a giant woman's face above him. It seemed he had been placed inside a box resting in her palm.
Then a man's voice appeared, sounding very familiar. The two spoke for a while. The woman sounded extremely impatient, but in the end, he was moved anyway, handed over to the man, and taken off into an unknown distance.
After several more exchanges, he arrived in a place filled with light. It felt as if he were soaking in warm water, like being inside his mother's womb.
A blinding flash lit up the room. Oakes abruptly sat upright and found that he was still lying in bed. Had that just been a dream?
But he quickly froze, because he saw blood at the head of the bed, dripping from the pillowcase onto the sheets. It was the blood he had left there earlier.
Oakes instinctively touched his neck, only to find nothing there. Yet the blood was real. When he turned his head, he saw Schiller bent over, writing in a medical chart.
Oakes cleared his throat, only to find his voice unusually clear. In fact, ever since his health had deteriorated, his voice had always been hoarse. He himself knew that it might have been a side effect of excessive medication, like an addict.
Then he touched himself again and squeezed the muscles in his arms hard.