Dead But Alive

chapter seventeen: cowardly

That night the pain is excruciating. The nerves I thought were damaged and no longer working are screaming in agony, and it feels like fire on my skin, like acid chewing away at me. If I could move, I would cry. Would pound on the glass until someone let me out of this prison.

But to any outsider, I simply appear as a sleeping experiment, healthy and alive and peacefully drifting in bluish liquid.

I am trapped in pain, powerless to escape the burning.

After several hours of enduring the pain in silence, the shadow returns. He is moving quickly, looking around every corner and jumping at every noise.

He is afraid of being caught.

He hurries to the control panel of the cylindrical container of blue liquid I'm in, and he looks up at me.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" he asks me.

I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to throttle him and beg him for the love of humanity to save me from being burned alive.

Instead I just lock my watery stinging eyes on his, and I ache to communicate.

"I can help," he says. "I've only got one chance, and not much time. But I can save you from this momentarily. It'll be a sacrifice in the long run, but right now it'll stop the pain. What do you think?"

My heart hitches in my chest. Stop the pain, stop the pain. It's all I want, all I need. I stare at him, begging, begging, craving peace and calm like I've never wanted anything ever before.

Please let me out. Please help me.

He runs his hands over the control panel, searching, searching. "Where is it...oh, there. Hold tight, Reid. Stay with me here. It's gonna hurt."

Wait, what??

And he pulls the lever.

The plexiglass of the container depressurizes, and the doors hiss and slide open. The blue liquid bursts out, spilling in a waterfall out of the open doors, splashing everywhere. I am thrown with it, swept out, flung onto the floor in a pool of blue.

And there is sudden fire, fire, burning over every inch of my skin. The pain increased, to the point of no control. It hurts so badly that it gives me strength, strength to move some muscles. I grit my teeth, and a strangled scream rips from my hoarse throat.

That first one is like a drug, an adrenaline high making me drunk with unexpected success and giddy realization of my capabilities. I am suddenly addicted to the sound of myself, the way my raw scream sounds to my own unused ears. I open my mouth and I scream again, the bloodcurdling sound tearing through the room.

The shadow kneels beside me. "Reid! Reid, shh. They'll find you. They'll put you back. Shhh." He's frantic.

I fumble with my voice, accidentally bite my tongue and gag at the cool salty flavor of the antifreeze that has replaced my blood. I choke on my thick dry tongue, find my lips. "You tricked me. You lied to me. I hate you." He promised he'd help me, and he left me weaker than ever.

"Reid, you have to-Reid, I-" He struggles for a moment. Then he just stands and runs.

Coward.

Just as I thought.

Why can't I die? I have no more faith in humanity. There's no reason to live any longer.

Why can't I pull the plug on myself?

I shouldn't have let him help me. I should have begged him to kill me. To end it now. I should have forced myself to suffer to the bitter end, paying the price for what I did.

But I did not.

Who's the coward now?