Laura
Does the Walker Choose the Path, or the Path the W
2 weeks ago - City of Kanti, Arkania
It is the nature of the universe that we never really see the end coming. Sure, scientists can publish results, pundits debate possibilities, and the wiser among us might even warn of the coming storm. Still, you never really think it’s going to be you who suffers until reality slaps you in the face. Such was the case for Laura Hill, standing in the aisle of the grocery store, staring at the dying woman.
She was lying unmoving, a few metres down the aisle. Laura was at the entrance, frozen. Between them were a couple of tins of food and a smashed bottle, dribbling a thick brown liquid onto the floor next to a dropped handbasket. The woman looked to be about forty, but it was hard to tell. The muscles on her neck and arms bulged, and she was locked in a position like a coiled millipede, as if a great and invisible weight had been placed upon her back. Her head, pressed against the floor, was twisted unnaturally so that her face looked sideward, up the aisle towards where Laura stared, mouth agape. The woman’s jaw muscles strained, but her mouth remained firmly closed. She blinked at Laura, wide-eyed, and from her throat came the low grunting that had first brought the girl over to investigate.
“Huhh. Huhh. Huhh.”
Laura stepped back, blanching. She’d heard stories of the outbreak. Everyone had. It was all over the news. But here, now? In the grocery store? There was no telling how long the woman had been lying there, it was close to closing time and the store was almost deserted. Laura told herself that someone else would be there to help the woman soon. Slowly she placed the basket she was carrying down, leaving it next to the shelves. Grimly, she took a last look at the woman and turned to leave.
3 days ago - City of Adascopolis, Arkania
Things had got worse after that. A lot worse. Nominally, there was still a government, but the cities felt pretty lawless nonetheless. The shops were shuttered and the streets deserted. An eerie quiet had settled over the city, punctuated by the occasional pop pop of distant slugthrowers, or more rarely the crash as some gang of looters or militia’s death squad smashed in a door or window nearby. On those nights, she would sit bolt upright in her bed, and look across the trio of tense faces, each one having been roused by the disturbance, or else unable to get to sleep. How did you rest easy when sleep could mean death?
They’d all seen it. It was impossible not to. First you got sick. Sneezing and coughing and the like. Then there were the aches and pains, and the splitting headaches. Sometimes you could tell somebody had the sickness just from the way they stared into space, like they weren’t even there. After that came the drowsiness, the first wave of sleep. Liable to knock you flat as you sat down to eat your dinner, or stepped out of the shower. That was when you really knew, when you could no longer tell yourself it wasn’t The Lullaby Plague, that it was just the flu, something harmless when compared to the Sickness.
That was how Laura had known.
It had hit her climbing the stairs up to the one-bedroom apartment. Stroke-swift, one moment she had been trudging up the steps, wincing from her aching legs, and then a deep, true darkness had swept across her vision. She awoke in the bed, some twelve hours later.
Now she was wearing a face mask, not for her own benefit, but for her family, huddled on the other side of the room. Mother, father, and brother, sharing the single bed, pushed up against the wall as far away from Laura as they could get in the cramped space. She didn’t blame them. She’d argued, not very convincingly, that they should just kick her out and leave her to her fate. Truth be told, she still hoped that there was something that could be done. They were going to take her to the hospital the next day. They would be able to do something for her, she was sure of it.
1 day ago - Walcott Medical Centre, Adascopolis, Arkania
Laura crumpled up the note in her fist. Her family was dead. It was something she had known in her gut, some ethereal cord, some connection that bound one to their kin, had been severed. Wherever their souls had gone, she would soon join them.
In front of her, on a small rectangular tray, sat several orange capsules. The doctor had explained in simple terms two days prior, addressing her and the other sickly patrons of the ward.
“There is nothing we can do. You can sit there and let the disease take you, or you can take stimulant packs to keep you awake until your brain melts.”
Up until now, she’d chosen the latter, popping orange capsules that made her brain sizzle like raw meat on a hot skillet. But she didn’t know why. She felt empty. She’d already died. What was the point of struggling now if the result would be the same? Her lips forming a hard line, she shoved the tray away from her, letting it clatter to the floor.
Laura sat back in her bed, sighing and closing her eyes as she waited for the sleep to take her.
Now - Walcott Medical Centre, Adascopolis, ArkaniaShe sat up slowly, squinting into the bright morning light. The ward was bright and empty, and she was still here. Around her, two or three bodies lay motionless in their hospital cots. They had passed from this world in the night, but she had not. Laura smiled ruefully. Nothing ever seemed to go her way. Swinging her legs off the side of the bed, she flexed her fingers a few times. Stiff, but she still felt okay, better than she had in days in fact.
That meant nothing though. She knew what fate awaited her. She would become one of the bodies lying twisted in the empty ward soon enough. Of that she was sure. Still, the utter silence of the room made her uncomfortable, even if the presence of the dead no longer did, so she rose gingerly to her feet, and padded barefoot out into the hospital’s halls.
It had been abandoned, and the paperwork and equipment strewn across the hallway indicated the few remaining staff had wasted no time in getting out of there. Gazing out of the huge windows of the reception area, she saw nothing but the empty street and the bright midmorning day. She may as well have been the last living person in the Galaxy.
Though as far as she knew, she would not last much longer.