139 Years to the End of the World

Year One, Part One

"I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates."

- Thomas Stearns Elliot

Mist Poisoning. When the doctors told me those words, I knew. I knew it was over. Of course by then my right leg had been paralysed from the knee down for a year. And I had been blind in both eyes for nearly a month so I had a pretty good guess I was dying. The disease caused cells to mutate, slowly shutting down nerves in the body from the bottom up, like the ones that are connected to my legs and eyes. After a while, you'd get this nifty ability to stop feeling pain.

By the time they diagnosed my condition, it was already too late to treat. It wasn't like there was a cure either, so it was more about buying time with therapy and medications. I had, according to the specialists, about three weeks left to live. Time suddenly became as precious as family to me. I couldn't imagine living without it. Given my situation, I don't think I can.

For the first few days, I had resigned myself to living without my sight and had accepted my death. But from out of the blue, my family and I received a sponsorship from a government affiliate for bionic implants. I went through emergency surgery and got a new pair of robotic legs and a new set of mechanical eyes wired into a hard drive and processor in my brain that reworked the information into optic nerve signal. That same hard drive is responsible for what you're reading now as well, as I can record thoughts as texts straight from my mind to it. Of course, I was still dying. The Mist Poisoning can't be cured. But I can at least see the faces of my family and friends in my final days.

And that brings me to my predicament. As I sat in my clean, white hospital bed after the surgical transplant succeeded, enjoying colours after a month of darkness, I had expected my family to be the first by my side. My wife, Joan, and my beautiful adopted daughter, Leila. Of course, that was not the case. If it was, I wouldn't be recording like this.

Beside me sat a bald man in a black suit lying against a chair, wearing sunglasses despite being indoors, soaking in the bright, white fluorescent light of the room. Everything about him screamed of 'government agent', like the ones in those classic 2D spy films I watched as a kid.

The entire room was empty saved for the two of us. No nurses or familiar faces. Just me, the bald man-in-black, and the beeping of my ECG. I could not tell if the man was awake since his sunglasses covered his eyes. So I just stared at him, pondering my next move. There were no buttons to call for assistance either. No windows to open or curtains to draw. Just a small, white, clean, empty hospital room with a door in the corner.

Suddenly, the man spoke in an expected gravelly voice. "Milton Jones?" His lips barely moved. The man's body, still as a statue in his seat.

"Yes?" I answered to my name. That's right, I haven't introduced myself yet. Milton Jones. I'm thirty years old this year. Geography teacher.

"Son of Stella and Jason Jones? Grandson to Sally Sparrow?" the man asked again.

"I am." I wanted to ask 'What is this?'. But I felt that I would find that out eventually in this strange conversation. Everything felt like a dream, the whiteness of the room disorienting for my newly reacquired eyesight. The smell of alcohol disinfectant punching into my nose.

"My name is Agent Matthews from the East Forum Administration," the man introduced himself. "Our files says you're not a man to beat around the bush with so I'll get straight to the point. We need your help," his voice was as rough as sandpaper, if sandpaper had a voice that was.

"The E.F.A?" I replied, slightly surprised but still collected. "What do you need my help for? Learning how to write better introduction speeches?" My mother always said I was a lot like her father. Witty in the face of dangerous and odd circumstances, never knowing when to keep my mouth shut. I'd like to think that I'm just really stupid at conversation-making and very good at pissing people off.