Interrogation part 1

'Where am I ?' was the first thought that came to his mind when he woke up. After a few seconds, he reached the conclusion that he was in the university's hospital based on the fact that everything was white wherever he looked.

"Hello?" No one answered. He assumed it was night time but he couldn't be sure about it.

After a few minutes, he recalled what had happened to him and how he ended up here. He couldn't fathom what came upon him. He wasn't sure if it was real or just hallucinations. Probably the latter, but he couldn't be so sure about this neither, after all it felt so real to be just illusions of the mind.

He still felt a bit maigre so he went back to sleep.

***

Next day - Morning

The doctor came to evaluate his situation, but was pleasantly surprised when she found Jade up and doing some push ups.

"Oh, hey doc, I'm glad to see you!" Jade was eager to understand what had happened to him.

"Tell me son, did you notice anything weird before losing consciousness?" Afreda the doctor didn't see any reason to ask about his current condition since she could see it clearly through his actions and movements, so she went straight to the point.

"It was like I couldn't hear anything in my environment except for some far away birds. It was a really weird experience. I felt like I could distinguish the sound made by every bird." Ayoub told her everything that came to his mind.

"Interesting! And you did come to me a while ago about some hearing issues that you faced...

"Well there is good news and bad ones, the former is that I did a full check up and you're as healthy as any human being your age could be, the latter is that the reason behind these symptoms is still a mystery, and to be honest, in all the 35 years that I worked as a doctor I never really saw anything like that before"

"So what do you think I should do now, doc?" Jade begun losing hoping again.

"Right now, young man, I think you should continue your daily life like usual and leave this issue to me. I'll contact some colleagues that might know a thing or two about your symptoms" Afreda patted him in a shoulder while putting on her best fake warm smile she could conjure.

Not having any other option, Ayoub decided to follow her advice and went directly to class. He wanted to check his phone on the way there but the battery was dead. The class has already started half an hour ago, so when he entered everyone stared at him, some with pity, some with carelessness and some with contempt.

He did notice their stares, and he didn't know if it has to do something to do with him loosing consciousness or being late, however he couldn't care any less.

When the class came to an end, he went straight to his dorm room to recharge his phone. In the mean time, he worked a bit on his future app. The reality of things was that he couldn't see the light in the end of the tunnel for this app. It was too complicated to be done just by the free libraries available online, he needed to work with premium modules. Hence, he was seriously starting to think of having sponsors, none the less he still wanted full freedom on developing his app.

"You are finally back! Man you made us worry shitless about you. Don't you ever do this again. Never!" Said Taofik while entering the room in a hurry, he seemed to be looking for something.

"Thanks for what you've done yesterday. I was told you took me all the way to the hospital. If that ain't the definition of "brother from another mother" I don't know what is."

Taofik flinched for a moment, however he quickly changed his expression to that of relief when he found his lost flash driver.

"See you later Jade, I've got a presentation to perform" He said so while running out as fast as he came in with a broad smile in his face.

Jade sighed for a moment and then he turned on his phone only to see numerous calls that he discovered were all coming from his family. His father, mother and sister all called multiple times. He decided to call back everyone of them.

'This must be about what happened yesterday. But how did they figure it out so fast? So that's why Taofik was texting her earlier'

He started a video chat with his mother, when he saw her, at first, she seemed a bit pale but when she saw that her son's face was as bright as the day she brought him to this world her face tensed a bit and she even started watering her eyes with happiness.

"Are you cutting onions or what?" Jade knew he had no comedy sense yet he tried to lighten up the atmosphere.

" I heard you've lost consciousness, but from what I can see you are as rude as ever, so I'll take it you are now in good shape"

The conversation went for hours...

***

In the afternoon, Jade met Taofik before class.

"How was your presentation?"

"Fantastic if I may say so. It was about defining whether in a certain situation -not doing anything- is really a way to avoid getting involved or is it a choice in itself"

"Let me guess, since you went through the trouble of texting my sister about my incident I would say you defended the latter opinion. Am I right or what?"

Taofik felt dumbstruck for a second.

"How did you.. Anya promised not to bring me into this!"

"She didn't, I simply saw you texting her this morning."

"Bullsh*t, I made sure not to be close to you when I texted her"

"Guess you should have gone a little farther then"

Taofik gave up and didn't find any viable argument to offer.

***

While Jade was at class, as usual he was daydreaming about the day he becomes a millionaire when suddenly he heard the principle announce on the speakers.

"Ars Jade to the principle's office, please."

'That doesn't sound like a good news announcement' it's been a while since jade gulped as hard as he did right now.