Twisted Fate by Summer Cooper
17
Logan
Logan didn’t usually spend his Saturdays at the office, but he needed to be there to accept a package that should have come the day before, when his PA could have taken control of it. He got some work done until the package came. He decided to go and inspect the factory in the building next door before he left since it had been a while since he’d walked through there.
He noted a few safety hazards that he’d leave a note about and saw the weekend crew were having problems with one of the machines. He called in the repair crew and spent the rest of the day helping to get the machine up and running again. He wasn’t above getting dirty with his employees and it felt good to do something with his hands again.
It was getting late, well after 7 pm, when Logan found himself deep in the guts of a machine that made the plastic parts for a small, but very useful, taser disguised as a phone case. The material they used in the injection molding machine was stuck in a roller that had malfunctioned and Logan was trying to lift one of the rollers with a crowbar while one of his employees fished around to retrieve the material. He’d learned long ago that the unbelievable happened when it came to large-scale production and today was one of those days.
His arms were straining as the load of the huge roller pulled at his muscles, and Logan wanted to tell Will, his employee, to get a move on, but he knew this had to be done right or they’d have to do it all again when they started the machine back up. Logan moved as the load became heavier, his grip on the crowbar slipping when his hands started to sweat and burn against the crowbar’s pull on his skin.
“Will, watch out!” Logan cried as he felt his grip slip completely, the crowbar pulling right out of his hands.
Will darted backward, knocking right into Logan as he did so. Logan felt time slow to an impossible crawl as he teetered backward, reached for the guard rail that surrounded the huge machine, but missed it. The world narrowed down to little more than the ceiling of his factory as he fell over the guard rails, the shouting voices of his employees a mumble of sound that made no sense. He knew what was coming next - impact - but he didn’t think about that in the milliseconds before he hit the concrete floor, he thought of Keily and their girls.
Pain exploded in his left leg, his left hip, along his right shoulder, and finally in his head. He felt the bones splinter in his leg and was certain he heard the loudest sound he’d ever heard as his skull cracked when his head bounced on the floor. That’s when the world went instantly black for Logan.
* * *
“Start an IV drip…you got his leg stabilized? Right, let’s move him.” Logan heard female voices from somewhere in the darkness he now inhabited. He perceived movement but had no idea where he was going or how he was getting there.
“Keily…” He mumbled, reaching for her, but she wasn’t there.
The world went dark and silent again.
“What’s wrong with him, why won’t he wake up?” He heard Keily’s voice demand, and he wondered who she was talking about and why she sounded so panicked and angry.
The world faded away again.
“We’ve repaired the damage to his leg.” He heard someone say but he couldn’t ask whose leg was damaged or why they were telling him about the guy’s leg. It wasn’t any of his business, but he couldn’t move his lips or make his throat work.
What was going on? Why couldn’t he speak? Or move?
The darkness tugged at him again, invited him to escape this strange place and he accepted, for now.
Time passed slowly, too quickly, in uncountable seconds for Logan. There were moments of near awareness when he caught snippets of sentences, a flash of sunlight, the smell of food, but he could not seem to pull himself out of the darkness. Was this what Keily felt after her surgery, something she’d tried to explain to him a few times? He felt as if he was drowning in the darkness, trapped there and unable to escape. He clawed at the darkness, looking for a foothold, for a way to tear himself free or climb out of this black hell, but nothing happened. He remained alone, without the woman he…loved.
The thought, all thoughts, floated away and he knew nothing for a while.
A streak of sunlight seared the crack in his eyelids before it disappeared. Too bright, too painful. Go back to the dark.
At other times there was pain, but it only lasted for a few moments before it flowed away into a black river that blended into the world he now inhabited. Logan floated there, suspended in nothing, his thoughts coming to life every now and then, bringing him back to something like reality, if reality was a black echoing cave.
He had no concept of time, had no idea how long he’d been in that strange world, but he knew he wanted to escape it. He wanted to be at home with his girls, with Keily. His family. The only real thing that mattered to him.
Maybe he’d lost his chance, maybe this was really Hell and he’d never escape, he worried, on the occasions when he could think of anything at all. What if this was it? What if he’d…died?
This couldn’t be it, though. Life had been so cruel to him until he stopped waiting for the world to be nice to him and took his fate into his own hands. He’d made something for himself and when the chance came to have far more than he’d ever hoped to have, he’d taken it. Hadn’t he?
