-----
A loud knock sounded from the door. I rubbed my eyes. My vision blurred. I blinked several times. White pain filled my eyelids momentarily. Heavy drums beat a rhythms side my skull. I breathed several shallow breathes, my chest heaving. I pulled my arms close. I tried to stand, my legs refusing to hold. I landed inches from my desk. My head hit the tile with a heavy thud. More pain. I groaned and squirmed. My useless arms were cradled between my stomach and legs.
The knock sounded again. Yelling and the sound of an opening door. I heaved, retching warm air. My legs acted on their own, kicking out and cracking the wooden leg of my desk. I sucked in a lungful of air and slowly exhaled. My muscles relaxed slightly. The terrible beating in my head continued.
Sweaty hands snatched at my arms and felt my head. Muffled voices grew stronger. They picked me up, carrying me from my room. I twisted savagely and screamed. I felt a bone cracking as my eyesight dimmed.
-----
Continuous drums steadily beat once more. Dreaded awareness overcame me. Fear filled my throat. A weight pressed against my chest. I punch at the air and connect with something hard. I arch my back and scream again, shoving at the heavy object. I tried to roll, my arms flailing. A fist struck my mouth. Vertigo hit me. The weight was gone and I was falling backward. I tucked my head and fell onto my back, rolling to my knees. I opened my eyes, feeling dizzy. I stumbled forward pulling my legs beneath a me. I swayed slightly. White blocks surrounded me, rising into the air.
Some were small, littering the ground with white cubes. The larger ones were like walls and rose up around me. A crash echoed from within the whiteness. A cube stood, waving it's narrow arms. Eyes watched me from the white cubes. My foot slid my supporting cube tumbled away, standing several feet away indignantly. Giant cubes stood, white lines shifting in the distance. Grey sky blurred with stark white walls, the inconsistency burning my vision.
Crashing echoed in my hearing, as walls continued to move. My dizziness increased as I leaned against a nearby cube. It shifted, my balance compromised, I fell back to the ground. The white walls crumbled. Dust rained over my head, misting the surreal landscape. Grey turned to white and white to black. My vision burned once more and the light faded.
-----
Ringing filled my ears. Sharp tones of static filtered around my head. Voices sprang up in the static and pain returned.
"The super-bug, it hits everyone the same way."
"What do you think he saw?"
"Couldn't have been that different... Most see the same variant of events."
"I'm not sure, he acted like he was feeling pain."
"He acted pretty bent up when we took him."
"His eyes are moving, and his heart rate is up. Check his blood..."
"Wish we got him earlier, he's pretty far..."
"They've gotta choose it..."
My ears were ringing again. Restraints held my body, my arms rubbing raw against the straps. I felt my pain overwhelm my senses and sank into haunted sleep.
-----
The cubes returned. White blocks rose out of the dust, clinging together into solid matter. They towered high above, and littered the white floor. Then they started tumbling. Blocks cut my legs and impaled my skin. I half fell, half ran out from under a white wall as it crashed down into whirling floor.
Cubes raced past me at eye level, dark edges thudding into silent walls. They twisted around the air, circling me. Rushing walls surrounded me, silent deadly. Then the crashing started. Just as before, I could see the rushing squares in the distance. They grew larger, rushing toward my little circle of solitude. I tried to run. Pain crushed my arms when I pushed at the spinning cubes. The tornado closed in tighter, silently spinning faster.
Just as the walls reached me, I screamed. The fear and pain rushed to my throat in a crescendo. Than the blocks turned once more to dust. The spinning shapes imploded silently. Surreal dust held suspended midair for moments. I looked around.
For the first time in the white and grey landscape, pain was a memory. The suspended dust showed no signs of falling. Then the floor shifted. I fell sideways. The ringing of a bell shot through the air and I hit the floor.
-----
The restraints pulled at my arms again. An erratic beeping filled my ears. I twisted painfully, trying to get away from my tiny prison. My eyes opened to darkness. I took deep breathes and calmed my nerves. The butterflies in my stomach relaxed and my muscles throbbed painfully. The beeping settled into a predictable rhythm. I waited for several minutes, just glad that the cubes hadn't crushed me to death.
Slowly, the lights turned back on. I found myself in a stark white hospital room. Gleaming metal and dull plastic decorated the vicinity. Human figures blurred around, shifting back and forth. Voices rose to a crescendo, and faded away. The humans quit moving, staring through the blurry haze.
My eyes focused. Men and women in lab suits stood around the foot of my bed. One held onto a plastic box with a death grip. Another clutched at the IV’s and was looking at the ground. The others stared at something above my head. I tried to remember. My memories rolled away, slipping past my mental fingers just as I would reach them. I finally gripped something important, and brought it to the surface.
Disease and death. Cures. Expensive. Millions of dollars. Only the rich could afford it. I frowned. I had it. The disease, the death bug. It had killed thousands before the cure. And I could afford it, when others just died. What was I? A monster, maybe. A condemner of those who couldn't buy their life. I had put a price on life. Oh yes. I was the president of the United States.
I deserved life. Only the smartest survive, right?
No, who was I to defy death when others could not. Nothing more than a thief. My family had the cure. So did the others on my board. And these doctors and nurses. We were all sealed from the outside. From the suffering and violent death we had sentenced the poor of the world to endure.
I snapped.
I arched my back and screamed again, the unfairness of what I had done hitting me violently. I couldn’t bear the weight of sentencing millions to death. A belt snapped. I pulled harder.
The rich could survive when offered a cure from a canadian genius. Another restraint snapped. Then another, and another. The physicians let me stand. I trembled, my legs barely holding my weight. Anger filled my heart and soul. Those whom I had strove to protect were dead or dying.
“What you saw...” One of the doctors said, “It wasn’t normal. No one else saw cubes.”
The tests and the cure. How our brains reacted to the serum would tell them how much to administer. Most saw circles of sunlight, or a desolate sandy plain. I saw white cubes. I was killed by them.
“Our results say remorse. No one else felt remorse, only relief at living. Being among the few who will survive the week.”
I coughed, slipping on the sleek floor. Strong hands caught me before I hit the floor, sitting me up. Sorrow and guilty expressions covered their faces. Some looked away from my sad and angry gaze. I felt a spasm coming. My muscles tensed. I felt them push me back onto the tray and hold me down.
“You’re mind rejected the serum. Everyone has accepted it. Only a few will survive. We all understood that this was our last chance. But even in your dream, you wouldn't accept your reality. Instead, you destroyed it. Twice.”
“Sir, you aren't cured. You can’t be. We've tried. And you haven’t accepted it. I’m sorry... There’s nothing we can do.”
I was going to die anyway, because my mind knew that this was wrong. I struggled with one last attempt at freedom. My vision darkened. Killed by my love for my country and people. Fitting...
No comments:
Post a Comment