Out of My Shell Ch. 01

It's cold. My body is suspended in a thick, almost liquid like fog. I could try swimming in it, but there would be no way of knowing if I was moving. I'm surrounded by an inescapable, all-consuming blackness. Nothing can be seen, not even my hands in front of me. It's quiet, deafeningly so. I try to call out for help, but I can't make a sound.

All I can do is float in this cold dark void.

So, I waited. Waited, deprived of any senses with no concept of time passed. It could have been for minutes; it could have been for a lifetime.

As time went on, a dull warmth began to throb in my chest. Growing stronger and warmer with each second. When suddenly...

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BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP

I'm pulled abruptly from my dream by the familiar sound of the alarm on my phone. I reach for it on my desk by the head of my bed and quickly turn off the obnoxious beeping. It's 8 AM and unfortunately, it is time to start my day.

After a few more minutes of scrolling on Reddit and willing myself to get out of bed, I finally strip myself of my comforter and lift my 6'2 frame onto my feet. I grab a towel and a change of clothes consisting of a pair of jeans and a plain black t shirt and head into the living room.

Crossing through the living room, I pass two of my half-awake roommates, James and Matty, eating breakfast. They along with our fourth roommate Tony, who probably won't be awake until closer to noon, double as my best friends.

We all went to the same kindergarten together, where we met and immediately became inseparable. We then went on to go to the same elementary school then high school and did practically everything together. From joining the same sports teams to staying at each other's houses every weekend, we quickly became more like family than just friends. When it was finally time to graduate from high school, we all decided that it was time to get out of the small town of Greenfield and to move into the city to attend the University of Pittsburgh together. That was about a year and a half ago and we are currently about a month into the fall semester of our Sophomore year.

As I was nearing the door to the bathroom, James finally woke from his daydream and noticed I was up. He called out to me.

"Hey Dan, did you finish the lab for O-Chem yet?"

"Yeah," I replied, "I can grab it for you after I get out of the shower if you want."

"I actually have to head out pretty soon. It's not due until Thursday though, you think you could give it to me during lecture today though?"

"Yeah man, no problem."

With this, I turned and entered the bathroom. After closing the door behind me, I immediately turned on the hot water in the shower and stripped down. Knowing that the water heater in our building took a couple minutes to warm up in the morning, I didn't hop in immediately. I instead stood in front of the sink and observed myself in the mirror. Having to scrunch down a little bit so that the entirety of my 6'2 build was visible in the frame of the mirror, the reflection looking back at me was Daniel Conners. Appearance wise, Id best be described as just another dude. I was tall, which set me apart a bit, but that was really my only feature of note. I didn't really have the most defined muscles, but I wasn't skin and bones either. If anything, I was slightly overweight but still healthy looking. I had brown hair that was messy by nature as well as a little bit of stubble on my jawline. I didn't have a whole lot of body hair, but what I did have was trimmed neat. Even my dick was ordinary. As it was right now, it was only about 4 inches soft. But when I was hard, it grew to be about 6 inches long. Which was not anything to write home about, but I also never really got any complaints about it from any of the few sexual partners I've had either.

It was at this point that I noticed that the corners of the mirror were beginning to fog a little. I took this as my cue to hop in the shower. I stepped into the scalding water and immediately adjusted the temperature to something more comfortable. Much like the mirror, the shower head was positioned for someone with a shorter stature. Instead of hanging above me and showering water down over my head, it sat at about eyelevel and sprayed me in the chest. So, with a little bit of maneuvering, I managed, over the period of the next 15 minutes to duck under the shower head and wash my hair and body. Afterward, I toweled off quickly and put on my change of clothes.

Stepping back out into the living room, it became apparent that James and Matty had both already left for class and that Tony was still fast asleep. So, I ate a quick bowl of cereal and brushed my teeth then left the apartment to enter the chill autumn air of early October.

My apartment was only a 5-minute walk from the edge of campus, and an additional 5 minutes to my first class; Physics.

I arrive at the classroom with about 5 minutes until class starts. I walk into the room and it looked like the stereotypical college lecture hall that you would see in a movie. The room looked like it could sit about 150 students with theater style seating. There were two blocks of seating, left and right, with a staircase separating the two blocks.

About 4 or 5 rows up on the right side sat Lindsay Allen. She had long dirty blonde hair that extended down to her shoulder blades. She had a cute button nose that had just a little bit of an upturn. Her eyes were a beautiful shade of blue and were framed nicely by her black thick rimmed glasses              . On this particular day, She was wearing a pair of tight jeans that covered her slender legs and a loose fitting navy hoody with the signature "Pitt" script across the chest which obscured what I had known to be her perky B-cupped breasts that accentuated her dainty 5'2 frame.

As I walked up the stairs, her head was buried in her phone and she was mumbling under her breath what I assumed to be the lyrics of whatever she was listening on her headphones. She didn't notice me until I was shuffling past her to sit in the open seat by her side. She immediately fished out the headphones from her ears in time for me to offer her a "Good morning!" with probably more energy than I intended. She replied with a simple "Morning!" and a smile that melted my heart. To say that I had a crush on her would be an understatement.

We met the first semester of college. We are both STEM majors and therefore were taking a lot of the same classes. We didn't really talk a whole lot, but we recognized and knew each other's names. By the time the spring semester rolled around, we were once again taking a lot of the same courses. And being a familiar face in a lecture hall where it wasn't uncommon to have 150-200 students in a class, we started sitting together. We hit it off after that. She was smart and kind and had the ability to brighten my day with her presence. I never asked her out though. And it wasn't because she was seeing someone either. In fact, we have talked about our personal life quite a bit and she never mentioned a boyfriend or a guy that she was interested in.

I'm not what you would consider to be experienced in dating. I had just one girlfriend through high school. It lasted the better part of our four years there, but just one none the less. And since coming to college, apart from one drunken hookup, it has been a dry spell. And quite frankly, I'm just too scared she will say no.

It wasn't long after we said our hellos that the professor arrived, and class began. We were learning about applied forces on an inclined plane. And although it wasn't exactly an easy concept by any definition, it was this sort of mathematical puzzle solving line of thinking that I had always excelled at. Lindsay on the other hand, looked like she was being tortured. If it were anything more based in science like a biology or a chemistry, she would understand it brilliantly. But, for some reason, when any kind of number was introduced, she just couldn't wrap her head around it. So, she sat there with her brows furrowed as she bit down lightly on her bottom lip. Trying desperately to understand what the professor was explaining. This continued until the professor finished his lesson plan and let us go.

We then quickly packed our stuff back into our bookbags and followed the crowd as we funneled out the door. It wasn't until we left the building that we had enough space to stand side by side and talk. We both had O-Chem next and had to be there in 10 minutes.

"I swear to God, this class is going to be the end of me." Lindsay stated as I finally drew even with her.

"Yeah, you seemed to be struggling more than usual today." I returned at her with a smile.

"Yeah, don't remind me. I have no idea what he was talking about for the last hour. Do you think you could help me with the problem set again?"

"Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to grab lunch after class and work on it then?"

"Sounds good to me." As she was talking, I noticed that all the cars on the street were in a stand still and that you couldn't see the end of traffic up or down the street.

"Hey, what do you think is up with all of this traffic?" I ask her.

She looks up and down the road seemingly having just noticed the deadlock.

"I don't know, maybe there was an accident down the road or something?" she replies.

We continue the commute to our next class chatting leisurely as we walk. Before long we arrive at the Chemistry building and make our way to the classroom. This room is much smaller than the lecture hall we were just in, with a capacity of approximately 50 people. It was near to beginning of class and students were still filtering in through both the doorway in the front of the room and the one in the back. Waiting for us in the front row is James. We walk over to him and I slip into the seat next to him and Lindsay does the same in the seat on the other side of me. Once I sit down, I start fumbling around in my bookbag and pull out the lab report that James had asked me for this morning and hand it over to him.

"Thanks man." He offers me when he receives the papers.

"Yeah no problem man." I reply, "Hey, did you see all of the traffic outside? do you know what that's all about?" I ask him.

"Oh, yeah, I guess someone left and unmarked package on the street just off campus. They shut the whole street down and are calling in the bomb squad just to be safe."

"Shit really? That's crazy" I reply.

It is at that moment that Dr. Ivy walks in. She is about 5'5 with long blond hair and looks to be approximately 50 years old. She is wearing a gray pantsuit and is carrying some kind of cardboard carton filled with her lecture notes. She very quickly lays them out for personal reference and begins her lecture.

She begins talking about carbon rings and their relative stability. Even drawing rings with different numbers of carbons to highlight how it effects their bond angles. But, as she always does, she somehow got off topic and began rambling about something completely unrelated. Dr. Ivy would best be described as scatterbrained. She is very knowledgeable and always willing to help, but she often goes on these tangents. I think she is trying to relate these concepts to real life so that we can better understand them, but more often than not, she forgets the point she was trying to make in the first place. So, recently, when she goes off script like this, I find my mind start to wonder.

I've been spaced out for probably a minute or two and have no idea what Dr. Ivy is talking about, but no one has started taking notes yet, so I assume I'm still alright. I glance over at the clock hanging over the doorway at the front of the room when something in the corner of my eye stopped my heart. The door has a thin 4-inch window that runs about half of the length of the door that allows you to peak into the room. In the window staring right at me was a human face cloaked with a black ski mask.

What the fuck?

I didn't have time for my brain to process what I was seeing because as soon as our eyes met, he and another man burst through the door. There was a brief pause the moment that they came in where no one truly understood what was happening. Dr. Ivy, who was in the middle of her story, turned to them.

"Hey, who are y-," she started to say.

She was cut off by the ear piercing "crack" of the first intruder firing a gun I had yet to notice into the air. My ears were ringing, being in the front row, I was just a few feet from the intruder with nothing but the tabletop between us. I don't know if it was that the initial shock was wearing off or if my fight or flight instinct had kicked in, but my brain was finally able to make sense of what I was seeing.

First things first, both men were wearing all black and every inch of their skin was covered aside from their mouths and eyes. The first man, the one that I saw through the window and fired his gun was roughly 6-feet tall. He has an athletic build and judging by the skin around his eyes and mouth he was white. I'm not really a gun expert but I've played enough "Call of Duty" to know that it looked to be a shotgun. He was now standing in front of the room forcing Dr. Ivy to take one of the empty seats and seemed to be the one on crowd control. The other man was stationed by the door making sure no one got in or out. He was roughly the same height, maybe a little shorter and definitely more round in shape. He had darker skin, black I presume, and held the same kind of gun that the first had.

As I was examining the two intruders, I had noticed a white chalky substance that was dispersed in the air and was falling on the table in front of me. I looked up in search of the cause and saw that the ceiling above me had been ripped to shreds. There was significant scatter in the shot, which indicated that it was a shotgun and that they were using live ammo. Fuck.

"The back door!" I suddenly thought. I turned quickly to see if there was any way we could use it to escape. It was too far to begin with and as if that wasn't enough, there was a third intruder back there armed and covered in black. Double Fuck.

The man on crowd control began giving instructions, "Alright now y'all," he spoke in a southern drawl, almost Matthew McConaughey-esque, "we aren't here to hurt any of you. Think of me as the new sheriff. Just do what I say, and I'll get you through this Lickety Split."

Still in search of an escape, I look to my left at Lindsay. She's trembling, her eyes are filled with tears and she is obviously panicked. I turn to my right and James is different. He is still obviously afraid, but he is calm. I'm trying to understand why when I see a light sitting on his lap. It's his phone. He has 911 dialed and the call timer is almost at a minute. Holy shit. It was genius in its simplicity. A small wave of relief washed over me. There was help on the way, all we had to do was sit and wait and try not to get caught. It was dangerous but we had a plan.

Lindsay, on the other hand, was only getting worse. In an attempt to comfort her I laid my hand on her thigh.

"Hey, it's gonna be Ok, Alright?" I spoke in a voice just barely over a whisper.

She looked me in the eye and managed to muster some ease. Nodding in affirmation.

"Just take some deep breaths, I'm sure help is coming." I reaffirmed.

"Help is commin' eh?" a familiar southern drawl boomed over my shoulder. Somehow the Sheriff managed to creep up on me without my knowing. "And just how do you know that?"

I turned to face him. He is standing right in front of me just on the other side of the table. Whatever sense of relief or ease that I was able to conjure immediately dissipated. I was staring down the barrel of a gun and had nowhere to run. I made a conscious effort not to look towards James and risk tipping him off.

"I, Uh-", I stammered trying desperately to think of something, "I just figured, this building is full of people, you know? One of them was bound to have heard the gunshot and called the cops, right?" I responded, astonished at how believable that seemed.

He gave a knowing smirk, "You sure it's not because your friend here called the cops?" He said, turning first his gaze then his gun towards James. "Phone on the table boy." He ordered.

James complied and laid his phone face up on the table, revealing the ongoing phone call. The Sheriff quickly tapped the "end call" button and turned the gun back on me. I broke into a cold-sweat and felt the color fade from my face.

"Y'see, we knew that we couldn't keep the cops from being called. That's why we backed up the street outside with a bomb scare. We just needed a little bit of time to get in and make our get away. Now put your hands on the table boy." He ordered me as he began fishing in his pocket for something.

I did as he said, not having much of a choice, putting my hands on the table with my palms facing downward, feeling the sweat pooling beneath them.

"I mean, I was telling the truth too when I said that we didn't want to hurt nobody. You could say that all we wanted to do was to run a quick experiment. Y'all can understand that. right? I mean this is a chemistry class after all." he asked rhetorically. He then swiftly pulled his hand from his pocket and stabbed me in the left forearm with a device similar to an EpiPen and injected me with a mysterious liquid. "I guess you're gonna have to be our test subject, since you lied and all." He directed at me while taking a step back and keeping his gun trained on me.

I sat there in shock for a few seconds then turned to James and Lindsay for comfort. They both just sat there with their eyes wide open and mouth agape with the same expression that I couldn't quite place. Was it shock? Terror? Pity? I didn't have time to contemplate it. My heart started pounding as though it was going to jump right out my chest. My head was getting dizzy and my eyes were losing focus. Is this the end for me? Am I going to die? I don't want to die, fuck, Fuck, FUCK. The pounding in my chest mirrored itself in my head now. The pounding kept building and building and building until...

Blackness.

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I'm once again floating in the pitch black cold. How long has it been? A week? A month? There is no way of knowing. I waited and waited and waited until a familiar warmth began to throb in my chest.

The warmth began to throb warmer and stronger with each passing moment. Warmer and Stronger, Stronger and Warmer, building constantly and consistently until it reached a fever pitch. Finally, the throbbing was too strong, and a crack formed over my heart. A crack that emanated a bright blinding light. The throbbing continued and the crack spread, radiating and spider webbing all over my body. Once the crack covered me in my entirety, the broken pieces began to fall off, allowing the light and the warmth to shine through.

It was no longer cold, but comfortably warm. I was no longer surrounded by impenetrable darkness, but instead vivid color. I had broken out of my shell and left the void behind.

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A bright light was bleeding through my eyelids. They slowly crept open to reveal the source, a light fixture equipped with harsh fluorescent lights. The kind that you see in a high school or a hospital. Where am I? I try to move my head, craning my neck trying to see the room I'm in and piece together where I'm at.

The first thing I noticed is that my neck is incredibly stiff, like unbelievably stiff. Like passed out on a pile of rocks for 12 hours kind of stiff. The second thing is that I'm lying on one of those hospital beds that prop up your upper half, but a really big one. My legs are covered with a blanket, but I can see that my feet are nowhere near the edge of the bed even though I'm well over 6 feet tall. Just beyond my feet, sitting in the corner of the room was a middle-aged couple that I immediately recognized as my parents.