Short Story: The Exoskeleton
Quite far into the future, mankind has learned to rehabilitate the handicapped and produce special mechanism-like exo-skeletons made out of metal to support the injured or the old. Not only this, but there have also been creations of the hoverchairs, both normal and for said handicapped. Much of the world has learned to start living off the ground, though most do so anyway with hovering platforms and cities floating in the air. New hope has been instilled into the handicapped and the elderly by means of this new technology via the exoskeleton frame and the hover chairs, meaning that they no longer have to give up on their hopes and dreams as soon as they do today in the event of, say, bodily paralysis.
Jim is a wealthy business man who suffered a traumatic accident, resulting in him becoming paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life... He was a vegetable, and he was only a child at the time of the accident, and he could clearly remember it too. Sitting up in bed, the man awoke from his slumber and stretched, the visible exoskeleton lit on occasion by some small, blue lights. Digging into the skin were some artificial and small black-like circuits covered in a veiled rubber layer, making their way deep down into the nervous system. Thanks to this, he no longer felt paralysis and could control his body, living the life that he had been nearly taken from him.
The exoskeleton, he could remember, took time to get used to – it wasn't easy, but he knew it was the only way. He struggled through most of it as he could recall, and it felt like he had to relearn how to crawl... and then to kneel... and then to walk and gain balance. But even before that, he had been confined to a wheelchair, limp as a noodle. What a miserable way to go, not even being able to use his hands as he was paralyzed from the lower neck down. Life, as he knew it, was over... He was almost begging to die. He had wished that the accident had outright killed him instead. As his mother always told him though, he shouldn't give up hope. He truly did look up to her and considered her one of the few things that kept him from breaking down into a total mess, despite what he was now.
It paid off a few months later, when an institution professor came knocking at their door, and revealed a new light in the darkness of his paralysis – a chance. A small chance at that, and highly risky – but a chance nonetheless! They were experimenting with the lame in an attempt to unlay them and grant them hope, but the project was still in early stages. It was ready for some testing though, and Jim never thought he'd ever be so happy to hear of a chance, regardless of how dangerous it was, to go for it. While his mother feared for the risk of no recovery of just how close to the core of the nervous system the procedure to get it on was, Jim and the professor convinced her that it was better than this dreary life of being useless. No matter how badly it may go, it was better to try and fail than to not try at all.
The concensus was made and Jim was prepared, feeling more excited than he ever did in his entire life before. Finally, a shred of hope to cling to: either to be able to live again like his old self, even if it proved to be less effective than his normality, or to finally be released completely and let his soul sail away from such a decrepit and pitiful waste of flesh. Three days later, the institution returned and took him off to the laboratory, a most impressive hospital of an institution at that. Upon being set up to be sedated, he couldn't help but happily know that he will gladly endure the pain. It would be better than nothing...
He remembered waking up afterwards, and while he had gone to sleep knowing that he was to wake up to unimaginable pain, it hit him in a way that he didn't expect. The doctors had to give him some of the strongest painkillers in order to let him sleep at night or even hold a proper conversation with anyone, as the suit attached to his backside was working to install itself upon his nervous system. The process was very slow, with nano machines working non-stop to hook his circuitry up, starting from his back and spinal chord and working out to each of his limbs at once. Soon, he found himself able to better control his back and stomach/chest muscles... and it slowly made the pain all the more worth it. It was only a matter of time before it happened.
The nanites worked tirelessly, and the pain was most noticeable in the areas they worked upon. It felt like someone was taking a knife, stabbing it into him slowly, then proceeding to twirl the knife around the wound with the sharp blades up against the walls of the stab – like multiple knifes were skimming the surface of the inner wound. Still, he had no choice but to bear it, and even if he did, he would put up with it anyway. It was proving to work after all, and it wouldn't be much longer before it finally was finished. The doctors and engineers had him practice sitting up and lying back down, adjusting the spine of the machine to deeper wedge itself into his structure to speed up the process. The pain resurfaced each time, but it did make it proceed noticeably faster from then on out each time. Soon, he was able to shrug and clench his buttocks. Following this, he could start raising his elbows and legs, followed by his further legs and arms so all that was left was to make his hands and feet work again.
All throughout this trial of pain, he slowly grew a seed of happiness that outweighed his pain, refusing to succumb while his mind was upon it. At long last, it flourished when he was introduced to a large number of others who had just undergone the same thing, and together they all worked to try and figure out how best to utilize the skeleton.
The ramifications, however, were clear... What they did say about some not surviving had come to pass for the surgery. It took months to get used to the exoskeleton bound to the back of his body, and quite often was it painful. He would sometimes fall over mid-stride and struggle to get back on his feet, most often when he was least experienced with it. Sometimes the battery died, but an emergency backup battery reactivated him and sent a distress signal to the paramedics. However, Jim's happiness could not be snuffed out. The fire from the seed eradicated the inner emotional negativity at the sheer fact he could walk again. He could express himself, he could run, walk, ride a bicycle, swim and exercise!
Over the years from his childhood skeleton implant, Jim grew up to a man. He had to visit the institution several times to make adjustments as he grew taller, granting some much needed relief from the contracted sizes of the pre-scaled lengths, and before he knew it, he saw others starting to walk around with the same type of device attached to the back of their necks, indicating they too had a skeleton on them. Some of them didn't even have the full skeletons either, such as those who were only paralyzed in the legs. But in the end, looking back upon his childhood, and all the pain he went through... He knew full well that it was completely worth it.
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