Dystopian Short Story
I. Now
My head hurts. My stomach clenches in agony. My muscles are leaden and my bones brittle, when I move they scream in torment. My body is wracked with tremors and shivers, yet in the hot air I still sweat. My mind races and my heart pounds in my tightened chest, yet I feel so tired.
This is the beginning. This is how it started with Her and then Him. This is what happened to the man next door and the woman who owned the grocer down the road. This is what I watched take over the woman who read the news every night and what killed the man who was president. This nightmarish world had become a predetermined prophecy for all.
I always knew. I was aware that one day I would run out. I had come to understand the signs and the process intricately. I became conscious that this day would come and I would have to make a deal, one that would warp my soul even beyond the doors of Death. I was acquainted with Death, he and I are on a first name basis now - after taking away the names I once loved best.
I have entered The Withdraw.
II. Genesis
In the beginning there was life. There were incredible cities with houses, buildings and skyscrapers, establishments such as hospitals and schools, parliaments and courts. Further out, past the cities were towns and farms, with crops of food and fields of green - animals of all kinds lazily ate in the mid morning sun. But most importantly there were people. There were people and they were happy, they were bright and they were healthy. They could turn on the tap and drink, they could pick up an apple and eat, they could walk outside and feel safe. The world was a beautiful melody of laughter and tears, all born out of love.
And we saw that this was good. But that was Then and this is Now.
Today, life is merely a forgotten concept. The cities lay in chaos, they are broken. We no longer have use for the schools and the hospitals are razed, ransacked and ruined. What good is a parliament without true leaders and a court without its citizens? The towns and farms are occupied with the ghosts of those before, the crops lay dead and the fields are now brown - animals of all kinds lay in the mid morning sun with their jaws and hearts still. But most importantly there are no people. The streets are lined with bodies. For those who survive they are now dejected, they are desolate and they too are dying. You can longer drink water from the tap, eat an apple or even leave your house without fear of sickness and death. The world is a cacophony of screams and shouts, all born out of fear.
And I saw that this was the end.
We ask ourselves how this came to be, why did we never wake from our nightmares? How did our heaven come to be hell? For humanity has fallen just as Lucifer did, we let pride and sin grow and it cost us everything. We are no longer the sons of morning but rather the damned of night. We slammed the door on Science as though banishing our worst enemy. Then Ignorance took hold of us - we ran into their arms like a child being welcomed into a mother's embrace, enveloped in youthful naieviety. Her embrace tightened until we could no longer breathe.
III. Her
It started out as a mere fad, a trend, a craze - they claimed that it was to protect us, to make us better, stronger, healthier. I remember the posters for the protests, the articles, advertisements, flyers, cartoons and photos plastered everywhere. My mother always ensured that I was up to date, not a year would pass without having my regular checkups and my shots. She worked as a medical scientist with my father, they knew better than anyone else that these rumours were dangerous.
I remember her annoyance so vividly the day my primary school changed its policy on vaccinations. They released a note to take home with us one Friday afternoon, “Dear Sir/Madam, we write to inform you that after much consideration we have decided to revoke our policy mandating compulsory vaccinations. We no longer see this as beneficial or necessary and the growing support of the movement against vaccines has been evidence that our community agrees.” She read the note, promptly screwed it up into a tight ball and threw it at the wastepaper basket like a basketball player in the final seconds of the game. I was seven.
I remember her anger so well when we turned on the news one night to urgent reports of thousands dying from a new strain of the smallpox disease. The newscaster spoke with an epidemiologist who made the inference that perhaps the fall in vaccine rates had caused the disease to revive. The newscaster scoffed at him. Two months later when we switched on the television it was leprosy, after that it was meningitis and then ebola - it was spreading like wildfire across Europe. I was ten.
I remember her rage like it was yesterday when her colleague sent her an email addressing a potential new disease, one that was a mutation of the others. A super disease they called it. They named it ‘mort d'enfer’ which loosely meant ‘death of hell’. It’s horrific said my mother to my father whilst absent mindedly swirling her white wine around the crystal glass. Mort d'enfer was transferred via bodily fluids - we thought it was contained, the parliaments assured us that we were safe. I was thirteen.
I remember her fear clearly when the water supply became contaminated after the sewage system in Paris had been breached. The government said nothing during the first week following the breach, in the hopes that their worst fears had not come true. But they did. Mort d’enfer was in the water and nobody had known. In under a month our crops had been poisoned. In two months, four million people were dead and millions more had the disease. I was fourteen.
I try to forget what came next.
I try to forget how she sounded when I heard her crying in the bedroom after realising she had contracted the disease. I try to forget my father’s face when he told me she was sick, it was the first time I ever saw him cry. I try to forget watching her get worse and worse. I try to forget watching her die. I try to forget the feeling I had in my chest when all of the air left hers. I try to forget that my heart broke that day and then shattered altogether when my father followed her. I try to forget because to remember is to feel every shade of pain in vivid colour. I try to forget because I’m terrified that once the floodgates open, the tsunami of anguish will kill me.
I want to forget.
I need to.
IV. Silver Lining
I am sick.
I ran out and I need more to survive.
I was sixteen when I became infected - a year after They had left me. No one was left to mend the gears and cogs that had kept the wheels of society turning, our engines were silenced and batteries dead. Over two years the government had been thrown into an anarchy with ministers dropping dead left, right and centre. No one could fathom how to lead us out of this dark cavern without torches, no one could imagine a solution to this never ending equation.
Until Silver Linings Medicinal Corporation released Nuage Neuf. A miracle drug they called it. Ironically it was administered through needles, one would last you two weeks at most. It slowed the process of the illness and eliminated the endless pain it caused. But it cost. The corporation had a monopoly on the market and utilized this power to take over the government and political affairs of France. At first they administered the drug as a public service, it was free and accessible. I felt as though God has finally listened to my prayers and blessed us with hope.
We were hooked.
They lured us in like a mouse led to a piece of delicious cheese just to hear the snap of the trap. Like all drugs it’s addictive. I craved the rush, the high, the Bliss. I felt instantaneously better once the needle pierced my skin, pure ecstacy spread throughout my body. But a silver lining doesn’t last forever and soon the sun set, leaving us in the darkness once again. Nuage Neuf was no longer free. Those who ran out suffered from psychotic breaks and turned senile as the symptoms of The Withdrawl and Mort D’enfur mixed together in a poisonous cocktail. I had stock piled two doses previously but they were now drained and gone.
They had created a new regime called Soul Trading. Rumour has it that in order to acquire the drug, in order to survive, you would have to sign over your soul and in doing so sacrifice your humanity. One woman said that you were forced to infect another. One man said you were forced to kill a person of their choosing. A boy of seven years old told me that I would look Satan in the eyes and shake his hand.
I would soon know.
V. Soul
The boy was right.
I did unspeakable things in order to live. I surrendered my humanity with a white flag and watched as the troops trampled over those around me, I turned the gun on my brothers and sisters.
I live yet I have no soul. For what is a soul without it’s humanity?
It is so easy to sell your soul, that to try and keep it would be harder.
You would too.
Comments