Tuesday 13 October 2015

The Day You Fell Off Your Bike

Just a little story I jotted down quickly. It's far from perfect, I but I had a bit of fun writing it. I hope you can have the same enjoyment reading it.

You were just on your way to work when your bike decided to lick the pavement. Just that tiny movement sent you flying, your legs were grazed up and down but you weren't seriously hurt. A stranger approaches, bends down to help you up and asks if you were ok. You're a little flustered but also amused by your own flying skills. "Yeah, did you SEE THAT?!" You respond, he chuckles.

He gave you his number, you giggled, you went on a date, you found out you had this weird connection, you go on a few more dates, turns out he's rich as fuck but didn't want to let on to make sure you liked him for who he was not just his cash and merc, he takes you back to his pad, you move in, give up work, you don't need it anymore, you go travelling the world, everything's great, he pays for you to learn to be a pilot, buys you everthing you could want. You're on holiday in India, you're up a tall, ruined tower, beautiful views, you're having a really great time, he gets down on one knee, he proposes and you think "fuck it, aiight". 
He starts down the stairs to get a "further surprise" you hear gun shots, men in black SWAT uniforms, carrying guns and wearing helmets- they grab you and drag you downstairs into the back of a van. You're in the van, hooded for what you can tell is a couple of hours. When you stop, you're manhandled out of the back of the van, and into what seems to be an interrogation room. The men there are all very american looking, they're all speaking English, you assume you're in an Embassy type building. They handcuff you and have you sat on a metal chair with a table, you keep asking but no one is telling you what's going on until an older, burly but not fat gentleman smoking a large cigar walks in and sits down with a sigh. He continues smoking, running hs hand through his hair. 
He asks you about your husband's whereabouts, asks you what you're doing in India and then asks you if, when you agreed to marry your fiancee (spotting the ring on your hand) if you knew he was the world's leading bio-terrorist and that he'd been planning on destroying every human being he could get at with a well designed virus that would wipe out the entire race within 6.2 weeks. 
You tell them whatever you know, which is very little. Of course they don't believe you.They keep you in solitary confinement for weeks, months even, you think, dragging you out and waterboarding you insisting that you tell them where he is and when he's going to strike. You can't tell them anything, you're scared, alone, pissed off. 

You're sat in your tiny room, no one has come to see you for days, you've had slop- at best- poked under your door once a day but nothing else. Then, one day, you hear loud alarms, the entire building is in emergency shut down, but a guard feels sorry for you, he opens your room, desperately tells you that "it's happened. It's here, we're all fucked. Run if you can"
You're weak, you've barely eaten, your eyes hurt from the bright lights outside but there's no way you're just going to sit in that room while the door is open. The guard legs it, the building is in mayhem. Other inmates screaming to be let free, guards running to get out first. You find an open fire exit and escape. You take things slowly, at first, there doesn't seem to be any immediate threat outside the doors. You walk from the compound across a large sandy expanse to the closest town you can find. You're careful not to be loud, or obvious. The town is practically empty, a few last cars pissing off into the distance. You find a shop window with a heap load of tele screens in them, you swore this only happened in films, but heck your life had thrown some weird shit, ever since that day you fell off your bike. The TVs were all showing the same face, a desperately scared-looking woman informing whoever was still around to watch to "find your loved ones and enjoy your last moments" 
Of course, you assumed you knew what was going on. Reading discarded newspapers you find in bins across the town, reading propaganda posters and rifling through other random bits of paper you find, it's some sort of horrible disease that's broken out. As soon as the infection reacjhes you, if you come in contact with it, or air that is infected, you grow hotter and hotter until your skin ruptures into boils and pustules... eventually the heat causes your blood to physically boil within your veins and you die. It's pretty quick, it sounds pretty fucking horrible to you.

You head towards the centre of town, there's absolutely no one around, but if there is any steal-able transport left, it'll be there. You get to a bus station, there's a bus, just sat there, with its keys in the ignition. Bingo. You climb in, you adjust your wing mirror, just as you're about to pull off you hear a scream. A whole plethora of screams, all similar tone and pitch. A melting, middle aged woman is pelting towards the bus where you are, you panic to find how to close the doors. You give up looking for the button pretty quickly, you just start forcing them shut with your hands. You just get it shut, with your back against them when you feel it. You look down toyour right, the woman, outside the doors is dead, she boiled a few seconds ago, her flesh now smoldering ashes and goop. but her arm, her right arm that she launched towards you to stop the doors from shutting is on yours. Holding onto your forearm. You freeze, it falls to  the ground as it continues disintegrating and you wait. You have nothing else to do but wait for the seething pain, the heat, the boiling... 10 seconds pass, your heart is pounding, maybe that's the first step? 20 seconds, 30.. from everthing you'd found it suggested the changes were immediate... what's going on? A whole minute, you open your eyes to inspect your arm. There's no obvious signs of infection, there's no melting, no blood, no,... nothing.
and that's when it dawns on you. 
That's why he chose you. 
The richest bastard on the planet with the most twisted idea of how to save it... why he chose you. There must have been a million and one other girls that he could have had, playboy bunnies, models, doctors, scientists. But he chose you, a PhD student from Manchester from a middle class family and an addiction to posh coffee and whisky that you can barely afford. You're the only one. You're the immune. 
6.2 weeks... and you'll be the only one. You, and you assume, the asshole that took everything else.

You sit down and start the bus.