Authors: Shay Savage
I wake in a stark, white room.
“Caucasian male, one hundred and eighty-three centimeters, weighing eighty-nine kilograms…”
I turn my head toward the sound of the voice, but I can’t see much from where I am. I shift my shoulders, trying to sit up, but I’m strapped to the bed. I can’t move my arms or my legs. My heart begins to pound in my chest as adrenaline surges through my system.
I fight against the restraints, but they seem to hold me down everywhere—arms, legs, shoulders, and torso. I can’t get enough leverage against any one strap to free myself, and panic rises.
This is wrong. This is dangerous. Move. Get out. Escape.
“Relax.” A woman appears beside me, brushing her fingers over the inside of my arm.
Calm covers me like the waters of a warm bath, soaking into my skin from the point where she’s touched me. I drop my shoulders back to the mattress as I look into her soft green-brown eyes. My heart slows, and my breathing returns to normal.
“Where am I?” I ask. I try to look around the room from my vantage point on my back, but all I can see are tables and carts full of medical equipment. “I don’t remember how I got here.”
“It’s all right,” she says softly. “You’re safe.”
I twist my hand around so it’s palm up, trying to grasp something to hold onto, but there’s nothing there until I feel her hand in mine. I thread my fingers through hers and hold on tightly.
“Not too hard now.” Her quiet voice calms me, and I loosen my grip.
I look her over. She’s tall, athletically built, and dressed in a white lab coat with a medical insignia on the left breast. Her light brown hair is coiled around the back of her head in a simple bun, though there are a few stray wisps around her ears and neck. There’s a tiny white scar behind her right ear, just barely visible under her hair.
“What happened to you?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“That scar on your head.”
“Oh, that.” She touches the spot with her fingertips. “It’s just a childhood injury. I fell out of a tree and conked my head pretty hard. I don’t remember it very clearly.”
I think about her being young, hurt, and afraid. An overwhelming desire to wrap her up in my arms and keep her safe permeates my skin, my muscles, my very being. I stare at her as she takes my vital signs and taps them into a tablet computer.
Her skin looks soft, and I want to raise my hand to stroke the side of her face, but I can’t move. I want to kiss the scar on her head and promise her no more harm will ever come to her.
“I’m sorry you were hurt.”
“It’s all right,” she says, chuckling softly. “Like I said, I barely remember it.”
“I don’t remember anything,” I tell her. “Nothing at all. I don’t know who I am.”
“It’s all right. That’s normal.”
“It is?” I don’t understand how that can possibly be normal under any circumstances. “Normal for what?”
“Considering what you’ve been through.”
“Was I in an accident?” A brief flash in my brain brings forth a series of loud bangs and the scent of something burning. “Was I attacked?”
“No.” She shakes her head and runs her fingers over my arm again. “Nothing like that.”
“What, then?”
“You’re a volunteer for a special project.” She gives me a huge, breathtaking smile that goes straight to my dick. “There are only a few of you who were able to withstand the process, but you’re doing just fine. I’m really happy with your results.”
The throbbing of my cock is distracting, and it takes me a second to comprehend her words.
“Results?”
“I’m sorry,” she says with a shake of her head. “Let me start a little slower.”
She pulls a rolling chair to the side of the bed, sits and leans close to me.
“We live in dangerous times,” she says. “A war that has been fought for decades isn’t going well for our side. You’re a soldier in that war. You volunteered to be a part of a project—a project that has made you faster and stronger than anyone else.”
I consider her words. Something about them fits into my head; round peg, round hole.
“What’s my name?” I ask.
“You are designated number seventy-two of eighty-nine. I thought I’d call you Sten for short. Seven, two, eight, nine—S-T-E-N. Sten. Get it?”
I nod, but I can’t say that I understand it. It feels oddly familiar to me though I have no idea why that would be. Like the idea of being a soldier, the name just seems to fit.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“My name is Doctor Riley Grace,” the beautiful woman says. “You can call me Riley.”
“Riley.” I like her name. I can practically feel the syllables vibrating through my skin. I like how it sounds in my ear and the way it feels on my tongue.
I’d like to feel her on my tongue.
“Relax now,” Riley says. “I’m going to give you an injection.”
I focus on her face as she prepares a hypodermic needle and presses it to the inside of my arm. As she presses down on the plunger, I feel a surge radiating from the injection site through the rest of my body like a low-level electrical pulse.
My body stiffens at the sensation, and Riley discards the needle and strokes the inside of my left arm until I calm. She keeps her hand against my skin, rubbing gently, but the calm in my body doesn’t reflect the turmoil in my head.
I have no memories of my past, yet everything around me feels familiar. The lab, the equipment around me—even the sharp sting as the needle punctures my skin seems like a reoccurring condition. It’s not a comforting feeling but familiar all the same.
This isn’t right. None of this is
right
.
There’s something important in the back of my head. It’s a tiny, annoying prick of sensation that I can’t quite comprehend. It’s definitely there, like an itch I can’t reach, but I can’t retrieve it.
I need to remember something.
Something important.
But I don’t know what it is.
~The End~
It’s a brand new year, and this is my first novel for 2016. I started writing specimen early last year, but I wasn’t sure exactly where it was going. I put it off to the side while I worked on other projects and finally came back to it. I’m really excited about this one, and I hope you all enjoyed it!
My team had a lot to say about whether or not this story ends with a Happily Ever After. I say it’s subjective. Galen and Riley are together. They are, and will always be, in love. They exist in a constant and potentially never-ending cycle of rediscovering one another. In that way, their love is always fresh and new.
I know the questions that are on your mind—is this it? Does Galen ever regain his memories permanently? Have they entered an endless loop for remembering and forgetting? Do they ever truly escape their situation? That’s for you to decide! Will there be more of Galen and Riley? My standard answer for this type of question is “maybe,” and that’s all I have for you now.
I have a lot planned for this year, and I hope you all will join me for it!
With love and devotion to all my readers,
Shay Savage
Surviving the Storm Series:
Evan Arden Series:
Uncockblockable (a Nick Wolfe story)
Stand Alone Works:
Novella Collection:
Caged Trilogy:
Shay Savage lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her family and a variety of household pets. She is an accomplished public speaker and holds the rank of Distinguished Toastmaster from Toastmasters International. When not writing, she enjoys spending her weekends off-roading in her bright yellow jeep, watching science fiction movies, masquerading as a zombie, and participating as a HUGE Star Wars fan and member of the 501st Legion of Stormtroopers. When the geek fun runs out, she also loves soccer in any and all forms - especially the Columbus Crew, Arsenal, and Bayern Munich. Savage holds a degree in psychology, and she brings a lot of that knowledge into the characters within her stories.
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