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tw: blood, vaccines, pain, mentions of death
Everything can be changed in a matter of minutes.
A sharp twinge of pain. A moment of discomfort.
But then I'll be safe.
I've seen horrors in this year- nightmares no 20-year-old nurse should have had to see. Children and adults alike with silvered skin and red eyes, partly puffy with crying...and partly puffy with hunger.
Feeding blood to those infected with the Silver does nothing but make them want more. So we have to hide every inch of our skin with silver suits. We have to drink medicine that makes our blood pump slower.
Blood. The thought that this sickness makes other people, humans, crave it...it's just unimaginable. Horrifying.
I remember my first patient. She was maybe 5, clutching a teddy bear. Her skin had taken on a silver-ish hue, and she was sobbing.
None of us could understand her until it was too late.
We gave her some cold water, took her temperature, and left her sleeping in one of the hospital beds. An hour later, I opened the door, finding the floor covered with fluff. The head of the teddy bear had been ripped off.
I heard the girl then. She said one word. "Help."
I ran screaming.
The girl escaped the hospital because of my carelessness and cowardly actions. She infected 12 more people, 11 of which we were able to sedate, placing them in the care of our affiliate, Lezla Darek. But the damage was already done. The twelfth infected more people and those people spread it even more, and soon we had a full-blown pandemic. The Silver Plague, they called it. Or the Night Plague, or the Death Plague, or simply: The End.
No one came out of their homes. Not for food, not to see if their friends were okay, not for anything.
When the silver suit was invented, they paid nurses and doctors triple their usual wage if they'd come back to work.
I was one of the 15 nurses who came back to the city's hospital. Only 7 doctors returned.
"We once had the finest hospital in the country." Doctor Confret said to me one day when his shift ended. "Hundreds of doctors, thousands of nurses." He laughed bitterly. "Now look at us. Look what's happened."
I should have told him then that it was me that let the little girl escape. It was my fault. But I couldn't say it. My mouth wouldn't move.
"I know." I had said lamely. "I know."
But that all changes today. I'm the test subject for the vaccine. I don't care if I die or if I live. All the scientists' hard work would be for nothing if they couldn't test it.
"Mrs. Juraunt?" I look up, feeling the familiar twang in my chest at the last name of my late wife. We had been young and in love, foolish even. I married Trish at 18. She died the next year in a car crash.
"I'm ready." I bite my lip, standing up. "Should I take my silver suit off-"
"No, no. We'll just inject it straight through the suit."
I frown. That hardly seems like it would work, but I'm not one to argue with people. The man leads me to a small room.
It's painted silver.
I swallow back tears. The colour is so horrible. When I was a child I loved it, hid all my pretty silver jewelry from our neighbor's daughter.
The man pulls up a chair for me, and I sit down. There are handcuffs attached to the arms. "What are those for?"
"In case...it doesn't work right."
Oh. He means in case it doesn't protect me, in case my body can't fight it. He means that if this fails, I'll need to be subdued and sedated.
The door opens again. I look up to see a young man walk in. He looks barely old enough to have this job.
"Felicity, right?" he asks, watching as I nod. "I'm Doctor Riune. I'll be injecting the test vaccine into you today."
"Yes."
"I must warn you...this will hurt as if you have the sickness yourself," Riune says.
"Just get it over with."
Riune pulls out a needle. The liquid inside it is a faint golden colour. Something about that gives me hope.
He carefully presses a piece of cotton against my silver suit. "To absorb the blood," he explains.
I know what's going to happen next, so I close my eyes.
He was right. Oh, gold, he was right.
The pain is immense, unimaginably horrible. Like some sort of beast is clambering to escape from inside me. In a flash, I see Trish's pale face, her body splayed out against the cold, dark concrete. Tears spill from my eyes.
But then it's over.
There's a moment of complete silence before I realize Riune is crying. "It worked. It worked." The man who brought me here has his hands clasped together tightly, his eyes portraying happiness I've never seen in years.
I look at my hand.
It's not silver- it's golden.
"It worked," I whispered as well. "Thank you."
Riune rubs his eyes. "No. Thank you."
"If you need someone to help inject the vaccine into people-" I start.
"Of course, we'd love for you to help." "What are you going to call it?"
Riune closes his eyes for a second, before they fly open, inspiration having obviously struck. "Gold. GoldFelicity01."
I almost laugh. How fitting.
I might feel at fault for The End, but maybe I do deserve to have the beginning of Once Upon A Time named after me. The world is mysterious like that sometimes.
