Suits - Prologue
#1 of Suits
Justin woke up on an unfamiliar, too hard bed in a position that wasn't really sitting, and wasn't really lying down. There was no blanket above him, and his ankles and wrists hurt. The air reeked of chemical sanitizers. A little light from the city outside the window showed the room to be white, sterile, cold and lifeless. His face itched, and he couldn't seem to move his hand up to scratch. The sounds of voices and footsteps came muffled from outside the door.
What the hell? he thought. Where am I? How did I end up here?
His mind was dulled from medication. His thoughts moved with all the speed of cold tar. Looking to his left, he saw an IV bag hanging, mostly empty. He squinted, trying to read the name of whatever they had pumped into his body, but he couldn't perceive through the thickness in his mind, and he was soon interrupted.
"Hi!"
The high-pitched, squeaky voice came from the corner of the room to the right of his feet.
"I said, 'Hi,'" the voice said again, slightly less squeakily this time.
Justin looked toward the corner. Standing there was a 5 foot, 9 inch creature that seemed to resemble an otter, but standing on two legs and wearing a pair of faded jeans and a green tee-shirt. The part that seemed to bother Justin the most, though, was how little the sight of this creature fazed him, even though he felt quite sure he'd never seen anything like it before.
"Not very talkative tonight, are you? Normally I can't get you to shut up," the otter said, "What's wrong? Don't remember me?"
Justin shook his head. He knew the creature looked somehow familiar, but he wasn't sure why.
"It's alright, you will soon, I'm sure." The otter approached the bed and paused for a moment, looking over everything. "For now, let's get you out of here, and quickly. The nurse will probably be back to check on that IV bag soon."
Justin finally looked at his right wrist. It was strapped to the bed rail. He looked at the left. Same thing. His ankles were strapped to the bed frame too.
Great, I somehow landed myself in the loonie bin, and now I have hallucinations of a talking otter. How the hell did this happen? On the bright side, at least my delusions are trying to spring me loose. I guess things could be worse.
"Are you really here, or am I just crazy?" Justin asked the otter.
"Sweetie," he replied, forming his small muzzle into the best approximation of a grin as he could. "You're in a mental ward, under restraint, and asking a talking otter if you're crazy," he explained, matter-of-factly. Then, yelling maniacally, "what do you think, genius? That this is perfectly normal?" The otter giggled, and continued in a low monotone, "you're bat-fucking-shit insane, but that's not really news, babe." The otter scratched the dark brown fur between the ears on top of his head with his right paw. "You've kinda been crazy since the day I met you." He tugged one of Justin's ears, gently. "It's actually one of your more endearing qualities." Then, in a chipper tone, he stated, "anyway, I'm gonna unstrap your right arm, and I want you to try to get your left while I get your feet. Okay?"
_You're not really crazy if you can admit it. That's what they say, right? Well, I admit it. In the words of the thing standing by my bed, I'm "bat-fucking-shit insane," I must be. _
Funny, that didn't make me feel any more sane.
"Okay," Justin replied as the otter undid the strap on his right arm.
Justin's left arm proved to be a little too difficult for the still medicine-fogged man to release one handed, but fortunately the otter worked his way quickly around all the straps and in no time Justin's arms and legs were freed. Then the otter scurried back to the corner of the room.
"You can stand up, right?" the otter asked, bending over to pick something up from the corner of the room.
"Yeah," Justin replied, struggling to his feet. Finally standing, and free of the restraints, Justin reached up with his right hand, looking at the thin, almost scrawny, arm and scratched the itch on his face that had been bothering him the whole time. He looked down to the floor, and ran his fingers through his light brown hair.
I still gotta lose that thing, he thought as he regarded his gut.
"Good. Also, put these on." The otter tossed a bright blue duffle bag at Justin, startling him. The man looked up, feebly deflected the flying bag with his right hand and watched as it fell to the floor in front of his feet, thankful that it didn't disturb the IV still in his left arm. "As much as I love looking at your ass, we definitely can't have you running around the city in that hospital gown. I mean, seriously. Baby blue stripes? Definitely not your best look."
Justin stood there staring at the chocolate brown furred creature for a moment, confused.
The otter looked at Justin, dropped his little round ears down in annoyance and sighed. "Wow babe, you really fail at the simplest things sometimes." He walked back up to Justin, and his ears perked back up. He reached toward Justin's left arm with his webbed right paw, and pulled the IV catheter out. He let the blood drip to the floor for a couple moments as he rifled through the bag, and pulled out a bandage. He quickly dressed the hole left in Justin's arm by the catheter. "Ok, now get dressed. Seriously, we don't have a lot of time here." The otter reached out again, and ripped Justin's hospital gown off. The otter took a moment leering at the man's body.
"You know, you really did look better like this," he said, rubbing the top of his head between his ears. "I still don't know why you did it..."
Justin wondered for just a moment what the creature could have possibly meant by that, but was quickly snapped out of it when a calm, matronly voice spoke over the hospital loudspeakers: "Doctor Armstrong to room 1035. Doctor Armstrong to room 1035 please."
"Shit! That's your room! They just called security! We don't have time for this, get the pants on, grab the shirt and come with me!" The otter reached into the bag and grabbed a rope, then bolted toward the window, stopping by the bed to tie off one end of the rope while Justin worked his way into the black cargos from the bag.
A few good kicks from the otter's bare, webbed foot were enough to force the window lock to release. A few more kicks and the bars fell away into the street below.
"Come on, Big Head! Get over here!" the otter shouted as he tossed the other end of the rope out the window.
Justin moved toward the window, tentatively.
"Big Head," why is that so damn familiar?
"Alright," he said, moving toward the window more quickly, "thanks for springing me loose. Let's go."