A Cold Breeze

Chapter One

"What about self preservation, Breeze?" The man asked and chewed his on bottom lip. "You don't seem to like living. I don't think you would hold a gun to your head, but you don't seem to care. You act like you're immune to pain."

Breeze looked at Davids through narrowed eyes; trying to see what he was getting at.

"I'm not afraid of death."

Dr. Davids raised his eyebrows, indicating for Breeze to elaborate. Breeze sighed and adjusted his position in his chair.

"Sure, I'm afraid of some of the ways that death comes, but I'm not afraid of death itself. Not during it, or after it."

"What ways of dying scare you?", Davids asked. Breeze thought about that for a long moment. His gaze remained on Davids.

"I don't want to burn," he replied, "I don't want to be attacked by a shark, drowned in my own blood. I don't want to die a coward. If I die young, I want my last act to be of some importance."

"And what do you mean you aren't scared of what's after death?"

"The truth is that I'm not afraid of the unknown. I don't know what will be after that. I'm not a very religious person. I have theories, yes. But much, much uncertainty. If there is heaven and hell, I'm already sentenced to hell. Which brings us back to before. I'm not afraid of hell because I've already been through it."

Davids nodded.

"Go ahead, write it down in your notebook so you can go share it with the Martial."

"Breeze, you know our sessions are completely private."

Breeze nodded and smiled coldly.

"Doc, we both know that's a lie."

• • • •

Chapter One

The officials of The Court sat gathered around a rather long conference table, tablets and coffees at hand. The room was very dim, the corners of the room were completely shadowed. One of the on call doctors stood up, his apron soaked with blood, as he hadn't had time to change.

"Look, I can only hold him on this machine for a little longer."

The man sitting at the head of the table, in a pressed suit and tie, spoke. "How much time, doctor, to be exact?"

The young doctor ran a hand through his hair and bit his lip in concentration. "Roughly. . . 25 minutes or so?", he replied and let out a sigh, "There really isn't a way to tell. The sooner we can decide what to do, the better. The terminal door hit him in the temple. We have blood being pumped into him this moment; he's lost so much."

The man sitting at the head of the table, the Martial, leaned back in his chair. His eyes flickered around the room. "What can we do?"

For a while no one spoke. The scientists sitting around the tables stared blankly around at each other, no one's voice piping up with an idea.

A woman with curly hair and a pale face stood. "We have to carry on with this experiment, yes? It is mandatory that this boy be in it. I don't think that there is a timely way that we can do this. Lahey, how long, if he can even survive, will it take for Breeze's wounds to heal?"

Lahey, the brown haired doctor from before, looked at his crystalline tablet, his face illuminated by the screen's glow. "It could take months for his wounds to heal. . . might not ever heal. . . Significant brain damage. . . already occurred. . ."

"What your saying is that their really is no way to heal this boy without it affecting the experiment?"

Lahey nodded.

A man with a square face and long out of style mustache tapped his pen on the table and opened his mouth. "Is that it then? Is he even worth saving? You're saying that if he even heals, which will take a more time than we have, he most likely won't be the person we were looking for to begin with?"

The Martial pressed his lips into a thin line. The room was silent once again.

"There is a way." A man with flowing brown hair and sideburns that met his beard announced.

The Martial narrowed his eyes at the man. "Well, Davids, let's hear it."

Davids paused and looked around. "The Elixir."

There were gasps.

"That's preposterous! Have you no idea the cost we would be looking at? And the affects?"

Some nodded in agreement.

"Here's what we are looking at. We either let the boy die, this causes our years of work to go down the drain-"

"We could always find another like him."

"The likeliness of that? None. At all. No chance. Back to what I was saying, the boys dies; we lose everything. The boy heals; we lose everything because the boy does not heal mentally which is really what our whole mission requires. Or, we can use the Elixir. Though, it is critically expensive and will eventually kill the boy, it will repair his mind. . . mostly. We can still use him in the experiment, and the outcome at least has a chance of proving worthy."

A moment was taken were the men and women around the room absorbed what Davids had said.

"He has got a point."

"But what are the chances of it actually working?"

"Close to none. But it's better then letting him die or waiting for him to heal."

"And what are the effects, as you said?"

Davids sighed loudly. "There is no way to be completely sure, the Elixir hasn't been used enough to know. It could take something away from him; some piece of him. A sense, a trait. It would kill him, slowly. But as far as out data goes, the experiment would be over by then. This is the best chance we have."

"Time is running out." Lahey announced.

The Martial blew air out of his nose. "All in favor of using the Elixir?"

There was a chorus of "I"'s.

"All in favor of it not?"

There were "I"'s heard around the room, but not as many.

"It's decided then. Lahey, inject Breeze Medley with the Elixir."