Subject #1

Awakening

His head was exploding, every nerve in his body was screaming out to him with pain, but he could do nothing about it. Nothing else was real to him at this moment; he didn't know his own name, where he was from, who his parents were, or who his first crush was. Only the pain existed. Then it lifted.

"Ok Mr Black I think that's enough for today don't you?" the voice came from above him and around him. His vision went white then slowly patches of colour appeared until they made recognisable shapes, until finally he could see again.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice sounded alien to him.

"You went under for a few minutes, do you remember anything from it?" asked the old man looking down at him.

"A woman's face, but it seemed distorted, like she wasn't quite whole"

The old man went over to the computer screen next to him and typed in a few commands then came back.

"Well I can't see any discrepancies in the data; perhaps it was your own perception of the memory that distorted her"

"Maybe it was. One more thing, is it supposed to give me a huge headache after using it?" The old man frowned at that and then his face was a mask of serenity again.

"Well we're still working out the kinks in the programming; your next session should be a much smoother one. For now though, you may go back to your quarters Mr Black."

"For the seventh time doc, my name is Michael, you can call me that"

"Ok Michael." And without another word he walked out of the big sliding doors at the other end of the room, leaving Michael by himself.

He thought about what he had experienced while inside of this miracle machine. The memories from the past lives he expected when they had briefed him about it but what he hadn't expected was the emotions that came with it.

All the love, hate, jealousy and innumerable amounts of other combinations of emotions had almost overwhelmed him, then came the moment of clarity when he was just looking at that woman's face, the only emotion he felt was a deep and unconditional love for this woman. Not the kind one has for a wife or lover, but for a sister or mother. Putting it out of his mind got up of the science fiction looking table he was sitting on and went to go have a shower.

One thing that still bugged him was the way the woman had been looking at him just before the connection was severed. He had only seen it once before in his life and he had no desire to see it again. The look she had given him was that of fear, a fear that goes down your spine, into your marrow and makes your soul want to run and hide from everything.

That night he got no sleep as he lay on top of his bed covers, thinking about what could possibly make a person be that afraid of anything.