The Cure

THE CURE

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come”- Rabindranath Tagore
Everything in the room is white and it damages my eyes to glance at it for too long. My bed, meager and compact, sits in the left-hand corner against a wall. The sheets are white; the white floors are stony and frighteningly cold. Every step sends the chill to every appendage of my body. There is no warmth in this place. None at all. They keep the lights on constantly; a blinding white light that resembles the sun, but in many ways, it is nothing like it. Windows do not exist in this place for fear of prisoners escaping, but there is no reason why someone should be a prisoner in a place of science. Though I am not just someone, I am everyone. The lives of many depend on me, and I must die. But I am used to the idea of it. That is why I can write on this tablet, altogether confident in my purpose. That is why I must tell others my story, even though I am not entirely convinced that this will ever be released to anyone except my executioner.
Yet, an overwhelming anxiety is dispersing throughout my chest, almost suffocating. It spreads just as the virus did several years ago; my entire purpose for being here. I remember standing lonesome in a room watching my loved ones drop dead. One by one like leaves on a dying tree they fell. That night was the loneliest of my life for, I had company, but not company worth having. Simply a room full of blackened, dead bodies. The virus initiates in the skin, pigmenting it nearly black, and then it spreads throughout the body. The eyeballs whiten, being forced into the back of the skull, and the muscle contractions go on and off for an hour, leaving no evidence of life except for a bubbling, discolored stream spilling from the mouth.
When the authorities arrived at my home that evening to collect the bodies, it took them all of twenty minutes to clear the space. My husband, son, and two daughters were virtually unrecognizable by the time the burial had come, and after that, it was impossible to gain a moment of sleep. The nightmares haunted me, as they have since the changes. I sat in a room bordered by death. I began to fear it, for it took everything I loved away from me, and it did so very quickly. It was only a few days ago when I was seeing my youngest off to school for the first day. However, that night only worsened. When they began to drag away the last body, an officer entered my home, flashing his badge in my face along with a warrant for my arrest.
Years ago, it seems, the government gained far too much power over the people, leaving us in a conflicted world of dictatorship and rebellion. The people rebel, logically giving the government more reason to be unrelenting, but since logic is not always morally correct, I came to understand that we were heading downward on an endless decline. That night was not at all random. Years before the virus began to multiply and spread, people knew it was coming. No one knew when it was coming or why it was coming, but people played it off as some sort of apocalyptic plague heading our way. Apparently, there are cracks in the system because the word spread fast.
“Ma’am,” he said. “We have a warrant to kill you under suspicion of abusing top secret governmental information.”
It was the I.A. (International Authorities), and they were very serious about catching me. I refused to go without some sort of fight, so I fought them off until one of them, shot me. Blackness.
The bullet did not kill me. They could not kill me. They needed me and they made this clear by not suffocating me, as they did with anyone who fought back, guilty or innocent. There was something in me that they needed. A confession, I thought. It was not likely that it was a confession, or anything nearly that simple. However, when I woke from my dreamlike state, I was in this room. My wound was bandaged. The bullet grazed my shoulder, not damaging muscle, bone, or any major veins or arteries, which I am fully thankful for. However, my giving thanks does not mean much now.
When my vision began to clear, I sat up in the bed. I had no inkling of the time or how long I had been sedated. I did not know the date, the day of the week, or even the month. All sense of time dies away when you are kept here. The only hint of time I gathered was when a man in a suit walked into the room. His watch read 1:32, afternoon or night. I did not care; it did not matter to me. He slowly walked over to a white chair next to the bed. His footsteps went slower that the beat of my heart, which was deadened from the drugs they injected in me. He sat. I stared at him; his eyes were strikingly green; the only bit of color that had any hint of life in this white room. His face was young; also full of life, but at the same time full of grief. He had a furrow in his brow, and he bit his bottom lip. His eyes wandered around the room.
“Miss, your family was killed by the virus?” he asked me. I nodded yes. My memories came back in a rush that made me remember suddenly. I did not want to forget, yet I still did not want remember it.
“You are the only person to ever have direct exposure and come out completely unharmed. You have some sort of antivirus. Something that could stop it. Would you be willing to do some tests?” he asked. His look was sincere.
“First tell me where I am,” I demanded.
“You are in a testing ground.”
“Which one?” I asked him.
“You would be far better off not asking questions. It will only get you in more trouble, but then again, you could not possibly be in more trouble.” My heart dropped and sank deeper into the cavity of my chest. What was he talking about?
“Why am I in trouble?”
“Look Miss, if the laboratory has their way, they will test you without your consent. The only difference is that you get credit for the cure if you give your consent. I suggest that you give it.” He looked straight into my eyes, as if he had something else to say. There was a tension in our stare.
“Who are you?” I asked him.
“I’m Penn Ramsey. Please take my advice.” He held out his hand, and drew it back after realizing that a handshake was an awkward gesture for such a situation.
At that moment, two large and burly figures stood at the door. In very thick foreign accents, the guards told the young man he had to leave. They escorted him out of the room, and locked it behind him. I was ready to begin searching for a way out, when I saw a note on the white chair. I rushed over to it on my hands and knees and opened it feverishly. It was from Penn. In spidery handwriting it simply read,
If you do not give your full and utter consent, you will die. Choose wisely.
At that moment, I came to a sudden realization. No matter which one I chose, I was going to die. It was a matter of how I wanted to die. I could die with my name on the cure, or I could die as an infinitesimal specimen in a laboratory.
A few weeks after I gave my consent, the testing grounds proceeded to do daily tests on me, all physically demanding in every sense. I would enter my cell at what I thought was night, extremely exhausted, only to be awakened the next hour for more blood drawings and around the clock surveillance. Some days I could not take the torture, and just for a break, I rejected everything they had given me. I had fits and fought off the guards, and in return, I received injections of the sedatives. There was nothing I could do after I signed the papers of consent. I eventually realized that fighting it was getting me nowhere, and I felt that it was only appropriate to stop. Now, with all of the life slowly draining from my fatigued body, I laid in bed, unable to move. It was not so much that I was unable to move; it was more that I was unwilling to conjure the strength it took to move.
Only now have I finally received the strength to write this down. My story is not an amazing story of bravery and heroism, but I felt that it should be told. I am a woman who is going to be killed for being special in a world of sameness, and if my story is known, perhaps the dawn will break for people in situations like mine. Perhaps they will also know the truth.