ACCUPATION 3 The Descent of Man

Chapter 3: "Atom towers, home of science."

Stopping my vehicle, I asked why they were headed to the laboratory.

They told me: "Well, going home isn't an option is it? Either we die in our houses or we die making a cure."

He then asked why I was wearing a hazmat suit when the virus wasn't airborne. So he gave me some less sweaty clothes to wear. I felt bad for them, a cure isn't something you make in a day, it takes years. Letting them get on my vehicle I drove along the refugees for two hours before we finally arrived. It was a small door that only fit so many people at a time.

Going through the guarded doorway we entered the underwater abandoned city. Copper rusted green, and thick glass tubes led us to the laboratory. Brick industrial interiors, contrasted with mossy art deco decor of the gold age before the fall. Inside the tower 61 scientists had managed to survive the 356 years of being submerged. They worked away on the infected, conducting experiments to test the virus's capabilities. Sadly there was no sign of Daniela. But perhaps I spoke to soon.

As I anxiously walked through the underwater streets. Everything looked grandiose, overlaid with gold and brass. But all good things came to an end as red carpets are left torn and stained from the blood of a three hundred year old war. Streets that were once full of tourists are now filled with scientific anarchy. And my dear love Daniela was somewhere in this city. What do I do once I find her? A neon light flashed, the infected waiting in a line outside. They had went through the same change that Daniela had experienced. They stood civilly and calmly waiting for the next room to open. Going inside I looked for Daniela and found her on an operating table. I was in shock, and said to the operator: "is she ok?"

He took his goggles off and looked at me confused: "well of course not. She's been infected with a virus that's changed her entire DNA code, it's a miracle the infected still retain their memories!"

I replied: "what are you doing for her right now?"

Scoffing, he answered: "for her?? Why I've already done what she asked, I have a team making a cure from her... goo."

I continued: "why are you still operating on her then?"

He looked at me like I had no manners: "her request has been done, now I'm getting my payment. I was curious just how much slime the infected can produce... especially without proper nourishment. Your friend Daniela as produced 30 buckets of infected substance without eating for 4 days! It's a scientific marvel!"

Confused, I panicked. "You're starving her!?!?"

Trying to calm me down, the scientist gathered together reassuring me that "it was simply the price of accurate knowledge."Terrified, I pushed the surgeons out of the room.

Locking the doors, I put on protective gear and put all of her organs back where they once were. Except for one problem... she didn't seem to have any. Looking around all I found were buckets of the slime Daniela's body was made of. Those crazy doctors had been experimenting on her, they had a bin with robotic eyes and what looked like fish gills. My guess is they were playing mad scientist with my friend.

Whatever the reason for their test, they had manipulated her genes in a way that turned her entire gooey body dark gray. Pouring the buckets back into her stomach,it then healed itself. I tried to carry her but her body slipped away from my grasp every single time.

The sergeants banged on the door with their hands telling me to let them in... like that's going to happen. Daniela then woke up and confusingly asked what I was doing. When I told her I was saving her, she got mad and said:

"I chose this! They were going to use me to make a cure!"

Laughing I told her: "No they weren't, they were farming your body for infected tissue!"

Daniela looked at the doctors through the window: "what is the purpose of that?!"

I replied: "I don't know why they did this"

If you ask me it was inhuman, but their culture viewed these experiments as a privilege, that is if you survived them. The youths seemed to view it as getting a driver's license. When I tried to explain that their behavior was psychotic they shunned me and Danny, sending us to one of the abandoned towers.

There I stayed in an old cryptic hotel room. Its walls were covered in graffiti left from whoever used to live here. Salt Water leaked from the ceiling but at least it wasn't magma this time. Getting in a dusty bed, I opened my food bag and shared it with Daniela. When I tried to sleep, I was bitten horribly by bedbugs. I couldn't sleep, it was pointless trying to sleep. My mind wouldn't turn off anyways. I missed Dexter, I missed my sister Chess, I missed my mom, I missed my dad. Walking down the stairs, it seemed Daniela couldn't sleep either. She had lit up some candles and sat in the staircase staring at her hands. Sitting next to her we sat silently lost in thought.

She then spoke: "So you're human again? How's that going? I wasn't sure how to tell her I was immortal. She probably wouldn't believe me anyways.

Pushing the subject aside I asked her how she was doing, having been sick quite some time now. She smiled and acknowledged:

"At first it was horrible. I'm not human anymore and I probably won't ever be human again. The doctors said the virus changed every part of my body... I don't even have a heart or lungs anymore. I'm just glad I got my sanity back, it was quite unpleasant mentally... you know... wanting everything dead for a week. I'm not normally an angry person."

She then said: "what about you, you kinda avoided my question."

Finally I told her the truth, how I had been killed by her father, how I then died from a collapsed building, and that Anthony too was immortal. She then asked: "So you remember now, everything that's happened?"

Yes, I guess I did. Me and Daniela had been friends since I showed up in the underground, she helped us get established, me and dexter.

Confused, I asked her: "you believe me?"

She replied: "you've never lied to me before, and believe it or not you've died before... I saw it happen. Tell me, where did you wake up when you died?"

I replied to her: "I woke up in someone's house? Why do you ask?"

She then asked me: "do you remember why that house is significant?"

"Yes" I replied, "it was where we became friends"

Daniela smiled, "so you really do remember. Do you know how to control where you wake up next time? Because that house is in the contamination zone now."

Funny enough I did now realize how to control my power. When I die, my mind takes me back to a place where I last felt safe. So if I think of a place that I feel safe in, I should wake up there next time. After me and Dan finished talking we cleaned up the ugly room, analyzing the tower we had been imprisoned in. Most of it had been emptied, probably on purpose. Judging by the plates on the floor as well as the sealed up exits, this had been used as a makeshift prison for some time now. In the back of my mind throughout this whole time, I was thinking about dexter. I just hope he's being treated well up there.