could muster.
Behind me, the footsteps were gaining. The nurse’s voice yelled, “Doctor!”
As my thumb jammed the plunger down into his thigh and he screamed in pain, I had one more thought as I descended into the darkness.
This was not going to end well for me.
Chapter 6
I flew.
Through air that was thin and pure, cold and dry. Ice formed on my face and my arms as I touched the sky.
Despite my better judgment, I looked down. Something told me that I didn’t want to do it. Didn’t want to look toward the places below. But I did. I was that kind of guy.
In the back of my mind, I knew that the world was changed. I remembered very little in my place of oblivious height, but I remembered that. I wanted to do something about it, but there wasn’t much to be done. I was too high. Too removed.
Plumes of dark, oily smoke in the distance. Green fields speckled with fire and debris.
Even from my height I could hear the screams.
As I leaned to my side, I veered left, soaring effortlessly lower until I skimmed the treetops. Forest passed by below, and I reached my hand toward the treetops. I left a bloody trail on the evergreen boughs, normally unreachable by human hands from the ground below.
Curiously, I raised my hand before my eyes. A gaping wound shone bright and red in the clear sun. Blood dripped slowly down the palm, flittering away into the air below, slowly, despite my speed. Air whipped my face but left the trail of coppery liquid untouched and unhurried.
I wondered at the wound, at how I could be hurt when I was so high. So untouchable. It didn’t make sense. If it didn’t make sense, it couldn’t be. So I willed it to change.
The skin obeyed. The muscles wound themselves together tightly, pulling one ligament to the other, closing skin over flesh and blood. Color returned to the members of the hand, turning dead flesh to living. That was much better. I smiled.
But something drew me back to the ground below. Forest graduated to field, which led to suburb, which moved to city. Buildings burned and streets screamed in outrage.
Sirens blared, but if no one living was left to hear them, did they make a sound?
Shuffling forms raised their rotting heads in suffering supplication, mouths opened with dark glee as I passed above them. Food was near, and the hunters were abroad. The dead walked in the world of the living.
But for now, I was above them all. I was different. New and untouched. Untouchable.
I flew higher, wondering at the new world below. I remained detached, flexing my new muscles, feeling strong. Feeling alive. But I suppose life was relative in the world of the dead.
It all had to end sometime though. I knew that much.
Mushroom clouds exploded before me across the horizon, the shockwaves rippling the earth below them as they sped toward me. Air itself was crushed to oblivion as molecules collided and matter was ripped apart. Dead flesh evaporated in clouds of dust and the world as it was became a world of the past. In a blink of the eye the world was dead, and there were only voices and sounds. In the distance I heard them speak. Their voices cut in and out, like a radio losing its battery power.
“…must be some sort of medicine. I’ve never seen anything …”
This voice was a doctor. A man of authority. I tried to move. The earth prevented it, heavy on my chest. Nothing listened to me. My hands, my feet. All silent in the face of our predicament.
Traitors.
“Figure it out, Doc. I want to know what the fuck is on my ship.” Gruff and mean. Another man. It seemed like I should know him, but in my new world, I knew nothing.
Dreams flitted in and out of the clouds.
Maria. That was her name, right? She was pretty. Then she yawned, and her teeth tried so hard to kill me. I struggled away. That was no good, no sir.
Just keep on moving, nothing to see here.
In my mind, I thought I could move.
In my body…did I even have a body?
Traitorous bastard, that body.
But I was
Behind me, the footsteps were gaining. The nurse’s voice yelled, “Doctor!”
As my thumb jammed the plunger down into his thigh and he screamed in pain, I had one more thought as I descended into the darkness.
This was not going to end well for me.
Chapter 6
I flew.
Through air that was thin and pure, cold and dry. Ice formed on my face and my arms as I touched the sky.
Despite my better judgment, I looked down. Something told me that I didn’t want to do it. Didn’t want to look toward the places below. But I did. I was that kind of guy.
In the back of my mind, I knew that the world was changed. I remembered very little in my place of oblivious height, but I remembered that. I wanted to do something about it, but there wasn’t much to be done. I was too high. Too removed.
Plumes of dark, oily smoke in the distance. Green fields speckled with fire and debris.
Even from my height I could hear the screams.
As I leaned to my side, I veered left, soaring effortlessly lower until I skimmed the treetops. Forest passed by below, and I reached my hand toward the treetops. I left a bloody trail on the evergreen boughs, normally unreachable by human hands from the ground below.
Curiously, I raised my hand before my eyes. A gaping wound shone bright and red in the clear sun. Blood dripped slowly down the palm, flittering away into the air below, slowly, despite my speed. Air whipped my face but left the trail of coppery liquid untouched and unhurried.
I wondered at the wound, at how I could be hurt when I was so high. So untouchable. It didn’t make sense. If it didn’t make sense, it couldn’t be. So I willed it to change.
The skin obeyed. The muscles wound themselves together tightly, pulling one ligament to the other, closing skin over flesh and blood. Color returned to the members of the hand, turning dead flesh to living. That was much better. I smiled.
But something drew me back to the ground below. Forest graduated to field, which led to suburb, which moved to city. Buildings burned and streets screamed in outrage.
Sirens blared, but if no one living was left to hear them, did they make a sound?
Shuffling forms raised their rotting heads in suffering supplication, mouths opened with dark glee as I passed above them. Food was near, and the hunters were abroad. The dead walked in the world of the living.
But for now, I was above them all. I was different. New and untouched. Untouchable.
I flew higher, wondering at the new world below. I remained detached, flexing my new muscles, feeling strong. Feeling alive. But I suppose life was relative in the world of the dead.
It all had to end sometime though. I knew that much.
Mushroom clouds exploded before me across the horizon, the shockwaves rippling the earth below them as they sped toward me. Air itself was crushed to oblivion as molecules collided and matter was ripped apart. Dead flesh evaporated in clouds of dust and the world as it was became a world of the past. In a blink of the eye the world was dead, and there were only voices and sounds. In the distance I heard them speak. Their voices cut in and out, like a radio losing its battery power.
“…must be some sort of medicine. I’ve never seen anything …”
This voice was a doctor. A man of authority. I tried to move. The earth prevented it, heavy on my chest. Nothing listened to me. My hands, my feet. All silent in the face of our predicament.
Traitors.
“Figure it out, Doc. I want to know what the fuck is on my ship.” Gruff and mean. Another man. It seemed like I should know him, but in my new world, I knew nothing.
Dreams flitted in and out of the clouds.
Maria. That was her name, right? She was pretty. Then she yawned, and her teeth tried so hard to kill me. I struggled away. That was no good, no sir.
Just keep on moving, nothing to see here.
In my mind, I thought I could move.
In my body…did I even have a body?
Traitorous bastard, that body.
But I was
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