Keeper of the Sleeping Minds

Survivors and Suited

Survivors and Suited

I was so tired of watching my loved ones die.
Mother went first. At least she got a painless death and a decent burial. At this point, we still thought it was only an extraordinary, aggressive type of flu. It was moving fast across the countries, jumping continents with commercial airlines before anyone got suspicious. Only a few victims died, the elderly, small children, and pregnant women—the usual risk groups.

Mom was five months pregnant with my youngest brother to be. The day the government gave out first tentative warnings, Dad literally begged her to stay, to avoid visiting her sister who had come down with the flu. She just laughed and kissed him goodbye. We buried her two weeks later, her and the unborn child.

The virus traveled fast and mutated faster. By the time it hit our town the third time, I'd lost two friends from school. School closed down days later, as a precaution, they said. The fourth wave took my dad and brother. He was only five. Medication got scarce and there were no private burials allowed anymore. First little Martin and, soon after, dad were collected by people wearing protection suits and breathing equipment, to be brought to the burial pits. The scene reminded me of the dead being carted off when the bubonic plague hit Europe, way back in medieval times.

That left me alone with my younger sister. She was sick as well, but on her way to recovery. We lived off the provisions dad bought after mom's death, not leaving our eerily deserted home. Most stores had closed down anyway, only a few staying in business up until the fourth wave and with it, the general curfew. We spent our time in front of the tv, watching old films of dad's collection or listening to news announcements, hoping that the scientists would succeed and find a working cure. They didn't, and somewhere during the sixth wave, the news service got sparser and trickled down to nothing but static.

Selena became a victim of the seventh wave. I realised that she was the only thing between me and desperation the moment she stopped coughing and, minutes later, breathing. With her eleven years, she was so thin and light by then, I managed to carry her to the pits myself. As I laid her down, I considered laying down beside her. Temptation was great. But the man in charge sent me away, scolding me for breaking curfew. In his eyes, hidden behind a protection mask, I was a walking corpse. So I went home. There was nowhere else to go.
The next weeks were bleak, my memories of the time are blurry, and I can't be sure how I survived.

At some point, the government agents found me. Later, I learned they started searching for special cases like me, survivors as they called us, those surviving the plague in open contact with its victims without ever getting so much as a fever themselves. Today, I think I might have been lucky. Back then, I was not so sure.

Daryl picked me up early one morning. I was half starved and probably bleary-eyed from sleep deprivation, having spent almost my entire time playing computer games to keep back the ghosts and frightening nightmares. I guess that's how they found me, checking all the empty houses to shut off still running energy consumers. Surviving had become an issue, and energy was worth more than gold.

When Daryl entered our house in his plague suit, I took him for a villain out of one of my games, some stormtrooper or mutant soldier. I tried to defend myself with a kitchen knife and by throwing my mom's favourite painted plates at him, to no avail. He sedated me after I tried to bite through his heavy protection suit.

With other similar cases, I was brought to a former four star hotel in the city centre. When I awoke in a big bed made up in crisp white linen, I thought I had died. But soon it turned out I was alive after all. It wasn't a nice surprise. They must have had me monitored. I was barely awake for five minutes when the door of my room opened and two intimidating, suited persons came in. Belatedly, I recognised one of them as Daryl. The suits looked all alike. The other one, through her visor I recognised the face of a young woman, stepped up to my bed. Daryl caught her by the arm, pulling her back. "Slow, Judy, she's feral. She tried to bite me."

Judy shrank back, her eyes showing concern behind the mask. Instead, Daryl came closer. His features were hard as he studied my face, unblinking. A shiver ran down my back, and I pulled the white bedcover over my head in a futile attempt to hide from these frightening strangers. With a quick pull, Daryl took away my comforter and left me shivering and exposed.

Judy stepped closer, her face unreadable."She seems not dangerous, more starved and very sick. Are you sure she is one of the survivors? This could well be the plague in an early stage."

There it was, the name they chose to call us. It seemed harmless at first. Soon I came to loathe it and its implications. We were the 'survivors', the few humans that for unknown reasons survived the plague. Later, we started to call them the 'suited' in contrast. I'm sure some thought this hilarious. I didn't—I missed my family.