earth

chapter 62

Days pass and my wounds have started to heal, but I can't shake this urge deep in my gut.

But when I'm with Ava, I want to kill even more. She ignites something in me, a primal desire that I can't control. And when I'm out there, chasing after victims and taking their lives, all I can think about is her. It's a vicious cycle, one that keeps me trapped in this twisted reality.

"Time to go," I say, looking at my comrades. They nod in unison, and I can see the anticipation in their eyes. Jason, for once, isn't wearing black and I can't help but smile. We all squeeze into the car, ready for the journey ahead.

As I start driving, it hits me- the gloom and destruction that surrounds us. It's been a while since we've been to the city, hiding out in the countryside, and I realize how much we've been shielded from. The city looks like a scene straight out of hell- everything ablaze, everyone in agony. The sky is no longer blue; it's blood red and the sun is obscured by smog and smoke. The stench of the polluted air fills my lungs with every breath and I cough violently, my hand stained with blood. The others begin coughing too, and the truck is soon filled with their hacking.

The only one unaffected is Ava, and I'm glad for it. The city is like a disease, and she's immune. But the rest of us feel like we're melting into madness, our minds struggling to comprehend the horror around us. Amidst the chaos and despair, I can feel my eyes rolling back, succumbing to darkness.

My body jolted with searing pain, as if a thousand needles pricked every inch of my skin. The world felt distant and blurry, like I was looking through a dense fog. Suddenly, a flickering light pierced the darkness and provided some sort of anchor for my drifting consciousness. And then, a figure appeared - a silhouette of a person cloaked in a sterile hospital mask. As the stranger bent over me, I caught a glimpse of a blood stain smeared on their glove, setting off alarms in my mind.

Panic surged through my body as I realized I couldn't feel my arms. The doctor seem to sense my discomfort and offered a reassuring tone, "Don't worry, we have another one that matches." But my stomach tightened at his words, and my fears were confirmed when he brought something into sight - a bloody and green mass that, when he drew it closer, revealed another eye. My eye.

My scream echoed through the sterile room as I saw someone else's eye looking back at me from inside my own socket. The ghastly reality that there was another's eye inside of me - a cruel violation of my body. I could feel my mind spiraling in horror and fear, and the doctor's voice seemed to fade into the background.

"Can you see?" the doctor repeated, more firmly this time. My vision danced with the flickering light, but all I could see was the grotesque sight of another's eye inside of me. "it's weird how you had two different eye colors"

The screams pierced through the air, like sharp knives scrapping against metal. For a moment, I thought the jarring noise was coming from my own throat, but as I looked around, I saw others writhing in agony, their faces contorted with pain. My eyes scanned the room until they settled on my right arm, which throbbed with an unbearable ache. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a doctor scribbling frantically on a clipboard, his gaze darting back and forth between my arm and the barely visible bones.

"Do you feel anything?" one of them asked, but all I could feel was the white-hot pain in my arm and the warm trickle of blood streaming down my face from a cut above my eye. My throat was parched and dry, and I struggled to summon a response. Desperately, I tried to yank away from the pain, but the doctors held me down, their cold hands pressing against my skin.

Suddenly, I heard a shriek that sliced through my consciousness like a razor blade. It was me, screaming at the top of my lungs as the doctors tore my arm from my grasp. I glimpsed my vision flickering in and out, like a faulty light, until finally, it came back with a jolt of white-hot pain. My arm was gone, but the doctors held it up and handed it to another man, who took it away with a casual air.

"Freeze this," he said as if he were discussing a piece of meat. "We are about to inject him with the plague."
My body convulsed with pain, but I was powerless to fight back. Every inch of me ached, and I could hardly think straight. It was the end of everything.

"Not yet," the doctor protested vehemently. It was the same doctor who had replaced my brown eye with another green one. "he'll surely die, and we already need more monkeys. I recommend sending him to the danger zone."

"Good idea," the other doctor replied with a curt nod. The room grew tense as they both glanced woodenly at me. Fear choked me and my hands began to tremble uncontrollably. I closed my eyes tightly, trying to keep myself together.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp tug on my forearm, and my eyes fluttered open. Panic surged through my veins as I realized my legs were numb. I knew then that they were dragging me out of the room. I tried to fight them off, but my body seemed to have given up.

As they dragged me along, my eyelids grew heavier and heavier, threatening to close. It was like being in a deep sleep from which I couldn't wake up. I wanted to say something, to plead with them, but my voice seemed to be stuck in my throat.

Finally, they opened a door and threw me inside a room. I crawled into a corner, holding onto my arm, which felt like it was on fire. Warm, thick blood oozed through my fingers as I clutched at the stump that used to be a fully formed limb. Disbelief washed over me as I tried to process what happened.