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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Roger" data-source="post: 3098850" data-attributes="member: 17420">Cardinal Sinsby Roger CarbolShane Edwards awoke to familiar sounds:  the steady beep of a heart monitor, the quiet hum of air filtration, distant footsteps on a tile floor.The door to his room opened.  A woman walked in, wearing a white lab coat and some sort of magnifier glasses.{2}  A doctor or a lab technician, he thought."Mister Edwards, you're awake.  Good.  My name is Doctor Shelby.  You're in a hospital," she said, looking at him over her glasses."Yeah, I kinda figured that out on my own.  Why am I here?" he asked."We're hoping you could tell us.  There are some unusual substances in your blood.  Why don't you tell us what happened, from the beginning?" she asked, taking a seat.The beginning, Shane thought.It all began with Bill, of course.  But I suppose I should back up a bit further.  There's three of us, as I'm sure you're already aware.  Linda, Bill, and myself.  About a year ago we decided to experience as much of life as we could, and for us, that meant doing as much and as many drugs as we could lay our hands on.Bill was a dentist who got zapped by some sort of equipment malfunction.  Ate enough x-rays to make him glow in the dark.  So he had about a year left before the cancers got him. I've got a tumour in my brain the size of a tennis ball -- it should all be there on my chart.  Probably won't kill me for a while, but I won't be doing much more than drooling.Linda found us.  Daughter of some Canadian tobacco tycoon.  Billionaire.  She's just in it for the kicks.  But she pays all the bills and makes all our legal problems go away, so we're happy to have her.Anyway, it was fun for a while.  Funny how fast you can get jaded to this sort of thing, though.  Pretty soon we were off smoking cacti in Sedona, licking toads in New Zealand, whatever we could get our hands on.  Old Bill's the man -- he's got a list as long as his arm of stuff we haven't tried yet.This one was different, though.  Bill's eyes just light up when he's really excited about something.  Redbird, he called it.  Some crazy mushroom found on only one tiny island in Bermuda.  Old native tales about it letting you talk to gods and demons, he said.That was enough for us.  We flew into Bermuda the next day.  Spent a week or so just bumming around, seeing the sights.  We were in a rush because we're dying, see, but we weren't in a rush.  Bill was scoping out boat rentals, keeping an eye on the weather, that sort of thing.  Linda hit the beach and got a horrible sunburn.  Hadn't quite figured out that those bronzing creams didn't actually do anything other than dye your skin orange.Then we set off.  Nonsuch Island, Bill called it.  Some big wildlife sanctuary, off-limits to the public.  With Linda around we had figured out that nothing's off-limits if you have enough money to drop on the right people.  We took the Zodiac around to the north side, found a nice looking beach, and pulled in.The beach was deserted -- I'm talking totally pristine.{3}  We pulled the boat up above the tide line and unpacked.  Linda got a fire going -- handy with a flare gun, she is -- and Bill and I set off to find the redbird.Bill knew what he was looking for better than I did: damp rotting vegetation in the shade, that sort of thing.  He was in a talkative mood.  Said the Europeans introduced cardinals -- the birds, not the priests -- to Bermuda back a couple hundred years ago.  Natives generally called them redbirds.  These particular mushrooms had red spots on them -- cardinal red, is where he was going with it.  I just kept looking.After a couple hours of strolling around tropical paradise, we hit gold.  Big patch of them, poking out of some rotting leaves.{4}  Bill didn't really have a good grip on what the effective dose would be, so we carried away all we could.The fire was good and hot by the time we got back, and the sun was starting to set.  Good time to get stoned, right around sunset.  Tends to bring on a nice trip.  We got settled in, beer and snacks close to hand, and Bill figured that one shroom each was probably a good start.Tasted like burning, they did, but nothing worse than licking a toad.  We started to get pretty mellow.  The waves crashing on the beach became a heartbeat, like we were sitting on the chest of the entire world.I could feel the trip starting to sour, the way they do sometimes.  Nothing you can do about it, of course, but I could feel it turning ugly inside my chest.  Linda's sunburn started to glow like a neon sign, and pretty soon she was a devil.  The cartoon sort, with red horns and a pitchfork.  I think she was saying something, but the words turned into red birds that flew from her mouth.{1}  After that things started to get really strange.  I think.  It's all a bit blurry now.  Bill and Linda might be able to fill in the blanks, though.  They've got a better memory for this sort of thing than I do.  I blame the tumour, but maybe I've always been this way.  Hard to remember if you're forgetful, know what I mean?  Anyway, that's pretty much the way it went down.The doctor stopped taking notes.  Shane hadn't noticed her start, but she must have been writing for some time.  She stood."I'm afraid we can't do that, Mister Edwards.  We estimate you were on that island for at least a month -- maybe two.  All we found of your friends were some gnawed bones.  We're still waiting on the DNA matches."  Shane closed his eyes.  Two months?  It wasn't possible."I'm with the United States Navy, Mister Edwards.  I'm afraid we'll be holding you indefinitely, at least until we can figure out what happened on the island and what happened to you," the doctor said, walking towards to door.Shane laughed, but it became a cough halfway through.  "So?  You can't threaten me.  I'll be dead, or close enough, in two months.  I don't mind spending them in a hospital bed," he replied."We examined you thoroughly, Mister Edwards.  There's nothing at all wrong with your brain.  Not anymore," she said, as she closed the door behind her.THE END* * *Ceramic DM -- Fall 2006 -- Round 2c (Roger vs Linderel)Written 29-30 September, 2006. Word Count: 1110.Illustrations:[1] <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=26105" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=26105</a>[2] <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=26106" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=26106</a>[3] <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=26107" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=26107</a>[4] <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=26108" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=26108</a></blockquote>

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