Stories Brief & Unconnected

The Problems With Genetic Experimentation - Part 2

Ok, here's the conclusion to my gory tale... I may or may not have googled 'mosquito anatomy' for this, which resulted in some...interesting....image results (blech). Also, the next time you feel like you aren't doing enough with your life, remember that there's a highly detailed website out there called 'mosquitoworld.net'. Oh, people... *sigh* Well, hope you enjoy this! 
- Lana ;)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Specimen 04 went unexpectedly quiet, and in a way its silence was more disturbing than its screams. I could sense that 04 was seconds away from oblivion, and it's noiselessness scared me. Why wasn't it scared? Why wasn't it screeching and crying - it had to know that death's imminent approach was no longer an event to be ignored, put out of the mind in favor of more pressing, more current concerns. Death was upon the piteous creature; and yet I did not think that it's silence was due to peace, relief at its death. No, I thought, and call my mind warped and morbid if you will, that specimen 04 was in so much pain, was experiencing something so awful that no sound could express its agony. 

It looked at me one final time, and then slumped miserably, its muzzle hitting the floor with a fur-muffled thump. It was so quiet that I could hear the hiss of the air as it slowly escaped from its lungs. I stood still, paralyzed by 04’s departure.

Then I heard a squelching sound, and the thing that had sucked the life from specimen 04 emerged from the slimy crevice it had been hiding in. 

It was lanky and many-legged, and it's limbs were edged with rows of tiny, needling hooks,. As a scientist, I though those hooks were most likely used for latching onto a host's internal workings. Its exoskeleton was wrinkled and knotted, and its many eyes flicked hungrily around the room from sunken hollows above the thing's long, serrated proboscis. I snapped back into focus, ignoring the dead dog in front of me and redoubling my efforts to locate a weapon. The only thing in the room I saw as a possible weapon candidate was a battered first aid kit, resting in a nook in the wall to my left. I smiled. 

Dr. Shultz had been diabetic, and very nervous about his condition. He had made a point of checking his blood sugar levels every ten minutes, and actually kept a 'sugar log' to track the normal amount of glucose in his blood. He had also insisted that every first aid kit in the building contained emergency insulin injections, 'just in case'. This lab hadn't been in use in my time with the CDC, but Dr. Shultz had been around a lot longer than I had. There was a chance that he had used this room before; a chance that there were needles in that kit... 

I lunged toward the faded white box, and my movement alerted the thing to my presence. It made a high-pitched 'squee' noise and lurched towards me, moving awkwardly due to the excessive amounts of  blood it had just consumed. It skittered across the floor behind me as I ripped open the first aid kit and tore through its neatly organized band aids and alcohol wipes, desperate and terrified. There! I found two neglected syringes underneath a packet of gauze, both of which I took, hurling the now-empty first aid kit at the thing scuttling towards me. The box hit one of its five legs (I could tell that there had once been six legs, and I didn't want to think about where the missing one might be located), and the limb crumpled, bending inwards at what might have been a knee joint. Good; maybe it wasn't very physically strong. 

The thing emitted an angry squeal, and its leg snapped back into place. Shit. 

I looked at the insulin injections in my hand. I only had two shots to do this, and not much time to think. Honestly, I wished that I had died when the thing had first started infecting people, so that some other unfortunate researcher would be in this position instead of me. 

And then it was upon me. I felt one of its barbed legs scrape my calf, shredding the skin. I ignored the pain, soaring on an adrenaline high. Gripping one of the syringes tightly in my right fist, I swiped at the thing in front of me. 

I missed. 

It sprang, its proboscis aimed for my chest. I scrambled backward, and its proboscis plunged, not, as it had intended, into my heart, but into my thigh. I screamed. The pain was intense, and black mist crept around the edges of my vision. I could feel the suction inside of my leg, and I watched as the color slowly drained from it. I could see dark liquid streaming up the slightly-translucent proboscis tube and into the thing’s mouth. The skin around the wound was loosening, as if there was less mass underneath it for it to contain. I felt nausea grip my stomach; it was eating me alive. 

I steeled myself. I still had both insulin-filled shots; it was still possible for me to kill the thing. I twisted my torso, and more pain, more than I had ever thought was feasible, radiated in red-hot waves through my body. Pushing through, I raised my arm. I slashed down at the thing, using all of my remaining might. 

I missed. I dropped the syringe in my right hand. And then I blacked out. 

I hovered on the far side of consciousness, sometimes flitting across and feeling the pain my physical self was enduring, then relapsing into oblivion. 

Some time later - I couldn’t have told you if it was ten minutes or ten hours - I awoke and stayed awake. I couldn’t feel anything from my waist downward. I hypothesized that the thing had ingested all of the nerve endings in that area. The relief was welcome. 

I looked down, and the horror was such that my brain simply refused to process it. Those aren’t my legs; they can’t be. I’ve been through enough, this is too much; this trial can’t be mine. My legs were shrunken husks, devoid of flesh to fill out my skin. The thing that had done this to me appeared to be asleep, still hooked into me, still feeding off of me, but now so full that it had degressed into a comatose state. 

And then I realized what I needed to do to end it, to eliminate this problem. I was what was keeping the thing alive; I was its host. There was not another living organism in the building to sustain it, and I doubted that it was intelligent enough to find its way to the people outside. But I also knew, innately, that it was strong enough to break out if it knew the way to go. 

I knew the way to go. And I wasn’t going to be able to get the thing off of me. Who knew how it reproduced; it might have laid some kind of eggs that were now incubating inside of me. 

No, I wasn't going to get out of here. And even if I did make it out, what would be left of my life? I had no usable legs and no way to repair that. The thing had probably taken an important organ that I hadn't begun to feel the loss of yet. What use had I for living anymore?

There was only one way out of this that was even slightly better than the others. It might not have been desirable, but the pain waves beginning to course upwards from my lower body were an unwelcome reminder of the hopelessness of my situation. I took a deep breath; one of my last on this plane of existence.

I lifted my hand to my face slowly. I still had the second syringe clamped tight in my fist. My hand was a frightful sight; clawed and bloodied, each miniscule furrow of each fingerprint lined in brick red. I tucked my chin into my chest, looking over my gore-streaked chest. I was a scientist. I knew what arteries, when pierced, would cause an instantaneous death. When you looked at the mere actions, the simplest motions of what I was considering…it was so easy. 

I took one last long, calming breath, and examined my surroundings for the final time. It was pretty damn nasty. Specimen 04’s carcass slumped in a corner, still oozing blood from the gaping hole in its side. The dog’s intestines were clearly visible - peeking out, gray and filmy, from underneath its fur - from my position on the tile floor. The lab, once a wonderful place of learning and discovery, was completely destroyed. I would not miss this place. 

I was ready.

So I struck, plunging the needle exactly where I knew it needed to go. 

I felt pain, but I was beyond that now. I was a scientist, and I was making the ultimate discovery; the one everybody makes and nobody can share. 

As I left, I sensed the thing join me. It’s body slumped, dead without a living host. 

I smiled, and it accompanied me, and we left together, as companions, into nothing.