BLOODLINE Episode 5 by Ironkurtain

BLOODLINE Episode 5 by Ironkurtain

Eric opened his eyes slowly and found himself lying on a bed, partly covered with a blanket. The bed was quite comfortable and his cloths felt the same. His cloths can’t feel that comfortable in bed, he thought and immediately raised the blanket and saw that he was wearing a hospital patient wear. He’s in a hospital room.

“Did you sleep well?”.

Eric looked at the direction the voice came from and saw Nina. She was sitting on a chair next to the bed he laid. There was also a tall hefty looking man in the room and standing near the door behind her as if guarding it. He wore a dark shades and looked scary with an expressionless look on his face.

Eric made an attempt to sit up but felt too weak to do so. And Nina prevented him by placing her hand on his shoulder.

“Eric relax……..”, Nina began, patting him on his shoulder. “You are still weak and need alot of rest”.

“What is the meaning of this?”, Eric asked. “What have you done to me?”.

“Nothing…you already know what’s in that syringe”, Nina replied as she slided her hand away from his shoulder. “I underestimated you. Next time i won’t deal with amateurs”.

Eric thought for a while and looked at her. “You sent those guys?”, he asked. “So all that movie production facade and wanting me to be a stuntman was just a ploy to have me kidnapped”.

“Kidnapped?………nobody is being kidnapped here”.

“So what do you call this?”, Eric demanded. “Besides how did i get into these?”, he gestured at his hospital wear. “What happened to my cloths and my bag?, where is my phone?”, he asked.

“Everything is safe”, Nina assured. “When you will get them depends on the outcome of our discussions”, she continued.

“Discussions?,…….discussions about what?”

“About why you were brought here and if you are willing to co-operate”.

“What do you want from me?”.

“I want you to do something………some kind of job here in this city”, Nina began and relaxed on her seat. “And i want you to……….”

“Okay i have heard. So can i get all my things”, Eric interrupted her. “Please do hurry because i have a bus to catch”,

“You don’t want to hear what am about to say?”, Nina asked.

“You said that you have some kind of a job you want me to do, right?. Well am not interested”, Eric answered. “So whatever else you want to say is invalid”, he said and then looked at Nina. “Can i have my things so that i can go back to Metro city”,

“You want to go back to Metro city?”, Nina asked

“Yeah….. and now”.

“Okay then”.

Then Nina opened her handbag and brought out a voice recorder.

“I know you love your mother alot”, she began and placed it on the bed. “And she loves you alot too. Infact the last time i was with her, she told me that you were her everything”, then she pressed the play button.

“Hello Eric……”, Eric recognized the voice coming out from the speakers. It was that of Esther, his mother. “I hope you are okay. If you are hearing this, then you are with Mrs Nina. I know by now you hate her like i do but you have to listen to her and do exactly what she says. She has given me the assurance that nothing is going to happen to you. Anyway for my own sake and for that or yours, please do as she says. I love you son and i dont want to lose you. Take care my baby”,

The recording ended and Eric stared at Nina. He was dumbfounded, with rage slowly building up inside him.

“What have you done to my mother?”, he asked, trying to control his anger as he sat up.

“Nothing, she is okay”, Nina answered. “If you go back to Metro city u will see her but i want you to hear this before you make that decision”.

“All those things she said…….what does it mean?…….why would she say she doesnt want lose me”, Eric demanded.

“Let’s just say your mother did something a longtime ago. Something that could get her into trouble with the law if they…….well……somehow find out”, Nina said with a smirk. “Having a bad record is not a good thing for a senior nurse, especially in this country. But that is the least of her worries. She might spend time in jail”.

“So you are using it to blackmail her?”.

“I won’t call it blackmail. I will call it my leverage”.

Then Nina put the voice recorder back inside her handbag and looked at Eric.

“So…….do u still want to go back to Metro city?”, she asked intently

Eric said nothing. He remained silent. Thinking, perhaps weighing his options in a situation where there seems to be none. Nina on the other hand waited patiently, giving him enough time to think over what she had just said before he makes his decision. And hoped it won’t be the initial one he had made because it will be a foolish decision.

“What do you want from me?”, Eric finally asked. He had decided to play along. For now.

“Good…….”, Nina began and dipped her hand inside the handbag. “……….before we begin i want you to look at these”, she handed Eric some photographs.

Eric was reluctant to know what it was. But what he saw made him to hold them close to his face as he stared at the pictures. The face in the pictures was his. But he was not sure if he had ever taken such pictures.

“Where did you get these?”, he asked curiously, holding the picture away from his face. “I have never had such picture taken……..”. Then he brought it close to his face again. “……….definitely because these are not my type of cloths.

“You are right”, Nina said with a smile. “The person in those pictures is not you”.

Eric was really puzzled. “Then who is this?”, he asked

“Who he is, is not important but what we want you to do”, Nina replied.

“And what is that?”,

“This is what we want you to do……”, Nina leaned closer with one elbow resting on the bed. “……..someone or some people, infact a family will walk through that door. When they see you, they might smile, hug or even give u kisses. You know the family reunion kind of stuff. Or they might not. But they will think u are him”. Nina pointed at the pictures

“So……….”

“So you have to be who they think you are. Answer the name they call you, eat the food they feed you, infact do everything this person is known to do, even if he gives his own sister a mouth to mouth kiss”.

“Wait…….what?”, Eric interrupted. “I hope he is not some kind of sick human being”, he asked.

“Nina smiled at what Eric said and continue. “All am saying is you have to do everything he is being known to do. You have to live his own life”.

“What makes you think i can be able to do all that?”, Eric asked.

“Of course you can. And for the ones you can’t do, you have to find a way to do it”, Nina answered.

Then Eric looked at the pictures again. He just cant believe what he is seeing in front of him. He is staring at these pictures that has his own face in it and he is being told that it is not. How is that even possible and who the hell is this person?. Perhaps the person must have undergone a plastic surgery operation and ended up looking like him. That is the only possibility.

“So who is this person to you?”, Eric asked Nina

“Just a client”, she replied.

Nina dipped her hand inside the bag again and brought out a smart phone that isnt Eric’s own.

“This is his phone and yours for now”, she said and handed it to Eric. “There is a document and an image files in it. It is about the family. I want you to go through them, study the pictures, memorize the names and know who they are. There is also a list of the social networking sites he is using, his email addresses and their password”.

Then Nina took the pictures and put them back inside her handbag.

“So in……..”, she looked at her gold wrist watch. “……….thirty minutes the family will be coming through that door, so i suggest you start getting ready”.

“Wait…….you want me to do all these things you just said in thirty minutes?”, Eric seem perplexed. “How is that even possible?”.

“Of course it is possible”, Nina said. “Especially for someone with an I.Q that is above 150”. Eric heard that and gazed at Nina. “I have been doing my investigations for the past two months after i met you”, she continue as she fold her arms and gazed back at him. “My findings really amazes me. But what i don’t understand is why aren’t you in one of those institutions for the highly intelligent people?. After two years of graduating from high school, you are yet to go to the university.

“Money of course”, Eric said. “Why do you think i agreed to take an acting role for a movie that i just found out is fake”.

“Haven’t you heard of scholarships?”.

“Was also thinking about that till you came with your bullshits”.

“Anyway there is also a G.P.S software installed in that phone. It will help you in your navigation around the city. You can’t be this person if you don’t know your way around this city. Though you will be diagnosed of suffering a minor memory loss by the doctor as a precaution”

“Oh i also have a mental problem?……..this just keep getting better”, Eric murmured. “Anyway is there any other thing i need to know about this your client?”, he asked.

“Like what?”, Nina asked.

“Well…..like other things……..confidential stuffs that you wouldn’t want to talk about, especially in front of that king kong standing at the door”, Eric said and point at the big man who frowned at what Eric called him.

“Everything is in that phone i gave you”, Nina answered.

“And how long am i suppose to live this new life”, he asked again.

“One month”

“One month?”

“Yeah one month”, Nina said and zipped her handbag close. “And you cannot contact your mother or anybody you know in Metro city, especially your mother. Though i have made sure of that but don’t in anyway try to get in contact with her till we are done”, she warned sternly.

Then Nina straightened her suit jacket and fold her arms. She stared at Eric with a faint smile on her face with head tilted a bit to the side. She had the look of a mother watching her baby making it’s first step.

“What now?”, Eric asked after about ten seconds of being stared at by her.

Without saying a word, Nina got up and head towards the door. The big man opened the door for her and glanced at Eric as he followed her and left, closing the door.

Eric stared at the door and wondered what was that all about. He looked at his new present, the phone Nina gave him. It looked kind of new and was switched off. He relaxed on the bed and pressed the power button.

The doctor switched on his medical penlight and performed a pupil gauge on Eric. After he was done, he put on the ear-tips of the stethoscope and listened to Eric’s heart and lung sound. Nodding his head, the doctor glanced at the woman standing beside him.

“So how are you feeling now”, the small statured mousy looking man asked Eric.

“I feel okay”, he replied.

“Are you experiencing anything unusual like mild irritations or a frequent need to use the bathroom?”, the doctor asked again.

“No sir……..none of that”, Eric said and looked at the woman beside the doctor. She’s his new mother or the woman he will have to be calling ‘mom’.

Her name is Agnes philips. A plus size woman with a hard and an unfriendly look on her face. Eric had earlier gone through the pictures in the phone and she look worse than she looked in her picture. When she walked into the room with two young girls who were her daughters, exactly 30 minutes after Nina and her big man had left, Eric had expected her to throw her arms around her “missing” son or perhaps ask frantic questions about his state of health; things that mothers usually do in such kind of a situation.

But she didnt. She just stood and stared at him while the doctor told her how her son was found lying in some corner and brought to the hospital by a good Samaritan. Even her bodily expressions showed emotions of contempt. And all Eric could think of was how his day just keep getting better and better.

“So can we take him home now?”, Agnes asked the doctor who had been saying something that she was very unwilling to listen to.

“Oh yes madam……….”, he answered timidly. The timidness in his voice amused Eric. But he didn’t show it. “But if he happens to start………”, the doctor continued.

“Don’t worry our family doctor can handle that”, Agnes rudely interrupted. “Alex……get whatever things u have here and meet us outside”, she said to Eric without looking at him and gestured at both girls. The older one was about 17 years of age and too busy with her cell phone to even look at Eric while the younger one who looked 13, was staring at him without saying a word. Both of them followed their mother behind and they left the room.

“Alex……..the dudes name is Alex”, Eric thought as he slowly got out of the bed while staring at the door. “Where is my cloths”, he asked and looked at the doctor.

The doctor who was busy going through a file and writing something in it said “I think it is inside there”, and pointed at the wardrobe beside the bed.

Eric opened it and stared at what he saw in the wardrobe with a furrowed eyebrow.

“What the hell is this?”, he asked.

“What do u mean?”.

“Don’t tell me am suppose to wear this”.

The doctor craned his neck at the wardrobe and saw a white and brown school uniform with a brown jacket.

“Well………” he began as he continued going through the file. “They said it’s yours.

“So am i suppose to be in school or what?”

“If that is what it means”,

“Well it means one thing to me…………horse crap”.

“Now look here young man……….” , the doctor retorted irritatedly. “…….my work with you is done, so please put on your cloths and leave”,

Eric smirked at the man’s newly found courage and felt like strangling him with his stethoscope tubing. Perhaps start killing his way to the truth about this situation he is in. Starting from this hospital. But he decided against the idea and started taking off the hospital patient cloths.

“So how much did she pay you to put up that performance?”, he asked as he put on the uniform and button up the white shirt. “Or is there any dirt she got on you?, perhaps threatened to send that gorilla to separate some limbs if you don’t co-operate?”, he keep asking intently.

The doctor ignored the questions and head towards the door. Eric watch him leave as he put on the jacket. It fits perfectly.

BLOODLINE Episode 5
#OpraDre