4 Days - 4

Day 2 - Morning

               As the night crawled into the sky, the dark clouds rolled in and out of the sky. The sun cracked the horizon, rays raining upon the city. The boy’s eyes slowly lifted open. His mind was still clouded. He slowly raised himself up from the floor, rubbing his temple. His head was hurting from last night. He examined his surroundings to find that it wasn’t a dream; he had passed out in the bathroom after swallowing the seizure pills. The boy was worried as the sudden memories of last night rushed into his mind. The boy’s family line had always had issues with seizures and light epilepsy, however none of the one’s the boy had experienced were as painful or as bad as last night. He placed the bottle on the floor and stood up slowly, pulling himself up on the bathroom sink. He looked back at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes had looked sunken in and strained. His color had come back however. In the reflection, his left arm was limp and dangling gently. He tried to move it with the best of his ability, but it was numb and he could only move his upper arm at best. Either he broke his arm last night or his seizure somehow paralyzed the use of his left arm. When he stumbled slowly out of the bathroom, he tasted a bitter taste in his mouth and began coughing violently. He raised his arm to cover his mouth, and looked frantically around the room. He saw the window over the television set, open. A dark, pink sky painted the landscape outside. Some strange sensation in the back of the boys mind was speaking to him, some instinctual voice, forcing him to stay alive, no matter what said, “Close the window”. He didn’t understand what this strange desire to close the window meant, but he rushed over to the television set and shoved it out of the way with his right shoulder. He gripped the window frame with his right hand and forced it down. He coughed a little more, tiny traces of blood sprayed onto the window. The bitter taste had left his mouth, and he no longer felt a hitch in his throat. 

He realized at that moment that whatever happened to him last night must have been something in the air. He didn’t know what it was, or why it would’ve done this to him, but he just knew that he should stay away from it. He lowered his hand from his mouth, to realize his left arm was never raised, but it felt as if it really was covering his mouth. The strain of these events had tired him, but he was afraid to lie down or to rest, he was afraid that if he closed his eyes, that they’d never open again. The fear kept him completely still for several minutes, when he finally forced his legs to move over to the phone on the table which still read “NO SERVICE”. He sighed, and paced in circles around the room nervously, repeating to himself that he will be alright, he will be alright, he will be alright, over and over again, rubbing his face with his hands, even though he knew his left hand wasn’t really there, he shoved the thought out of his mind and had the sensation of his left and right hands on his face try to calm him down. The boy took a deep breath, and slowly removed his hands from his face. His mind raced, trying to grasp what had happened. He was all alone, scared and crippled. He felt that if he somehow got home he would be fine, the scenario played in his head that if he got home, his father and sister would be there waiting, and they would be concerned, he would go to the hospital and fix his arm. 

He played this scenario over and over, as he descended into the basement. He glanced over at the corpse, now grey, and sullen-looking. The crashing realization that none of this is a dream, all of it is real, hit the boy like a runaway train. He stared at the corpse from the stairwell, breathing heavily as to keep his already damaged psyche in order. He turned his eyes away and mumbled to himself not to look at it repeatedly. Resolvedly refusing to look at the body that was once his grandfather, the boy searched around the room, checking boxes and packages across the room. When he stumbled on a small plastic container labeled, “medicine” he opened the lid off the container and rustled the various pills and serums around. Eventually he found a package of foldable surgical masks. He removed the package from the container and bit it with his teeth to open it. It tore open to have masks spill over on the floor around him. With a sigh, he kneeled down and picked up a small mask and held it to his face to see if it fit. It matched his facial figure well enough. He held it to his face as he grabbed the string with his left hand and attempted to wrap it around his head, when he found his left hand wasn’t actually holding the string, he gave out a dry laugh, cursing at his dead arm. He then attempted to hold his breath to keep the mask on his face, while tying the string around his head with his right hand.  After finally getting the mask on his face, he stood up, took a deep breath and strolled back upstairs; he then turned and looked at the front door.

Slowly, he walked over to the door, saying out loud, “You can do this” to ready himself for the outside, whatever may wait for him. He inhaled slowly, held his breath deep in his chest and placed his good arm on the door handle and turned precariously. He pushed the door open and let it just drift the rest of the way, cautiously stepping out of the house. The air didn’t taste bitter; he felt in control of his body, he didn’t feel a hitch in the back of his throat. The mask seemed to be working for the most part. The boy noticed that the outside world was dead silent, there were no birds chirping, there was no swoosh of the wind, no honking or music or anything coming from the urban area, nothing. He walked over to his grandfather’s car; it was a large, dark blue van. The boy did know how to drive, but he didn’t have a license, he also didn’t want to risk driving with a bum arm, but he wanted to get back to his home as soon as possible, so he was willing to take the risk. He opened up the driver side door; he pulled himself into the seat. He reached around the back of the seat and pulled a spare key his grandfather left under the seat. The key was freezing to the touch, but the boy didn’t mind it, he put it in the ignition and turned. The car revved up to life, the lights lit up, the radio turned on to the sound of static. The boy turned off the radio and put his one hand on the wheel, he switched the gear into drive and slid out of the driveway.

His foot pressed down gently on the gas pedal, the car began cruising gently down the road. Aside from the noise of the car itself, the world around him remained silent still. No houses had any noises of any sort. Along the sidewalk the boy spotted a woman, lying motionless on the ground, her eyes were wide and her limbs were bent in bizarre angles. Her skin was the similar shade of grey; she was dead. The boy tried to ignore it, but as he pulled around a corner, he stopped, letting the car drift gently. He was shocked by the sight he saw, a wreckage of cars with more grey corpses littered about the road. All frozen stiff in more strange contortions.