Evergreen

VII

I had been awake for maybe three or four hours before the spluttering from the blankets came. I turned immediately to see Alex with is eyes wide open on ground coughing heavily.

I rushed over sitting him up. Reaching over him for the canister of water, sitting on top of him I slowly pour sips of water into his mouth. I placed the cup down next to him and we just stared at each other for a while.

'so,' I looked at him, I had so many questions I wanted answering. 'You come here often?' he said laughing hysterically. I had half the mind to slap him across the cheek, making a joke while all I was doing was stressing over him but instead I pulled him tight, hugging him. I relaxed into the warmth of his body, I could hear his heart beating in his chest.

I let go, getting up to fetch the food from the storage kept hidden away, tins of vegetables and meat; hardly appetising but it was something to keep us both going.

'care to explain everything?' I asked as I sat opposite him, opening the cans and handing him one.

'I was doing research when they caught me. The cure is no cure. It's a way to manipulate people's minds. Don't you understand emotion is no disease. They aren't neural impulses they are emotions, the very prime of human existence. They aren't saving humankind they're controlling them. I think they're planning something, and something big at that.'

All this was a lot to take in. No disease, no cure? Everything I was taught. Alex is trying to tell me that all of it, that it is all a lie?

'Is that why they cured you?'

He nodded, 'They did it because they knew that then they could control me, that they could make me forget what I figured out.'

I took everything in.

'Then we need to do something about it.'