It's the year 2038 and a deadly virus has consumed the world for more than 14 years.
In Denmark, an unknown politician took it upon himself to create a safe space from the infected. As long as you abide by the 8 Obligations, you are allowed to live...
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Andrew 2027
It is almost as if I can't even gather my own thoughts anymore. I just stare at the blank page in my diary, but don't know what to write. I'm not even sure how to write anymore. The pen feels strange in my hands, and the words just don't want to come out. I put it down against the paper hoping I can force out the words, but nothing happens.
The phrases that are forming in my head, disappear faster than I can put them down on paper. For the first time in my life, my mind is filled with pictures instead of words. Pictures and small scenarios that are just repeating itself in my head again and again and I can't find the words to describe the pictures.
I sigh and put the pen down next to the paper. Maybe this is the apocalyptic version of writer's block? It has never been this bad for me before. I've always been able to write something down.
Once more my head fills with pictures from the dreams I've tried to write down on the paper. Writing has always been the way I process things like the nightmares that torture me once in a while. I take the pen again, close my eyes and try to let the pictures flow through my mind, down to my fingers and out onto the paper. Slowly and with great effort my fingers start to move. The sound of the pen scratching over the paper starts calming me down. I've always loved that sound.
When I open my eyes to see what I have written, surprise hits me hard. It's a sketch of what I think is supposed to be a severed arm, which to be fair, actually fits well into my dreams, and then the word blood is written in big, clumsy letters that looks nothing like my handwriting.
I toss the pen on the ground, slightly freaked out from what I'm looking at. Nothing of this looks like anything I have done before, and I didn't even realize I was doing it. I thought I was writing sentences... If the pen hadn't been in my hand. I would have sworn someone else had been into the apartment to write this.
Nausea starts to rise in my throat, and I hurry towards the window. I open it all the way. Stick my head outside and breathe in big gulps of air. Slowly, I feel the nausea disappear and my mind getting clearer, but when I look down to the streets, my heart nearly stops beating. Beneath the window 12-15 creatures have gathered and they are looking straight at me. Not that they are trying to attack or anything, they are just looking at me. They haven't attacked me since the day I was banished from The City, but they usually just don't pay attention to me. One of them growls slightly when one of the others gets too close, but that's it. No other sound is made.
Normally I can hear the growling, moaning and hissing from the streets, but I have kind of gotten used to that sound. This silence though is making me very uncomfortable. It's strange and freaking scary.
Slowly, I close the window and retreat to the furthest corner. My entire body is shaking, and I can't stop seeing the faces in my mind. I dig my fingers into my scalp and grab fistfuls of hair, while I try to shake the image out of my head.
The faces outside my window are the same as the ones in my dreams.
***
The dreams get worse every day. Outside my window more creatures gather every day too, now there's so many that I can't even count them anymore. Probably because I don't want to look at them long enough to count. But still.
I also have a suspicion that they are planning on attacking me at any time. I think one of them has sneaked into the apartment while I slept, because this morning I found a bloody handprint on the door to the bathroom. I haven't dared going out there yet. I'm afraid of what I'll find. So instead, I have had to pee in a bottle, that I empty out the window, but not even my urine can get the creatures to move away. No matter how many times I empty it out the window.
Shaking, I pull the blanket tighter around me while I stare at the bathroom door. My body is for some reason having trouble regulating between hot and cold. So, it constantly feels like I'm having a fever, but I know I don't, because I usually get really tired and sick when I have a fever. And I show no other symptoms of illness than the shifting from sweating to freezing constantly.
A sound from outside the window causes me to discreetly glance out. Anther creature emerges. He is pushing himself in front of the others even though they hiss at him, but he just growls with barred teeth and then they moved out of his way. In the end he is standing right beneath the window staring straight at me. Not breaking eye contact the slightest. Then he roars.
I ball up in the corner and tries to get control on my trembling body, because I have no doubt that this is it. They are going to attack now.
And just as I expect I hear their dragging steps in the hallway. Coming up the stairs. Quickly I open the window in anticipation of fleeing through it, but some of the creatures are waiting there too. They are cutting me off. Desperately, I look through the room to find a solution and then my eyes land on the bathroom door. Fuck... I don't have a choice. I have to pull myself together.
I grab an old abandoned vase to use as a weapon when I move towards the door. The steps in the hallway are now close and I can hear the sound of the doorknob being turned.
It's now or never. I run into the bathroom with my weapon ready to bust the creature's skull in, but there isn't anyone there. I put the vase down and try to open the window, but it is stuck. It can only open a few inches.
The creatures are now moving around in the apartment, and I quickly close the door silently. I can hear their hissing right outside and I raise the vase in my hand. I'm ready to fight them when they find me, but just as I'm preparing to fight for my life, I see more bloody handprints on the sink next to me. When I look closer, I suddenly feel sick. I begin to sweat uncontrollably, and my head feels like it's about to explode. Pictures form my dreams rushes over me like a tsunami, but they are not all from my dreams. Some are scenes I haven't seen before, even though the content is very similar. Blood... flesh... cannibalism... I grab the sink to keep myself from falling, and all of a sudden, I notice how well the handprint fits my hand. Almost perfectly.
I hold my breath as I turn my gaze to the mirror. Something inside me already suspects what I am going to see, but it's still a shock.
My face is covered in dried up blood, my eyes are dark and sunken while the skin is hanging loosely from my bones.
I look like them.
The creatures.
Something clicks inside of me and unexpectedly I know why they are here.
The dreams aren't dreams. They are memories. Memories from another part of me. The new part of me. I pull myself together and opens the door. Immediately, I'm face to face with the creatures. The one closest to me sniffs slightly then tilts its head as it watches me. But it doesn't attack. Because I'm one of them.
