Oblivion

T W E N T Y - T W O

Tuesday, 15 July, 2014

Zyre

When things started to get scary . . . well, things got really damn scary.

And this was all because of what my father had spent the last two years trying to achieve. All because of the stupid immortality drug he seemed to be obsessed with.

My older brother already looked like something out of a horror movie, maybe a sci-fi one; his skin had gotten very pale, almost to the point where he was literally turning grey, his skin ice cold to the touch, his normally crystal blue eyes turning into more of a cloudier grey colour, he already couldn't hear anything anyone was saying, let alone see. Because of this stupid thing my father was working on, my brother was turning into a blind and dead ghost.

It wasn't like my little sister or my mother were better off, they were quickly following after him, though, my sister could still hear . . . okay-ish, but she was still blind right now. Mum was starting to lose her vision, and she said it was getting a bit more blurry every day, a little harder to see much of anything.

But on the days it wasn't so bad, she would hold me in her arms and tell me everything would be okay, that my dad would be able to make an antidote in time and that he'd save us, that he'd save everyone else too.

And I really, really hoped he would. I was scared of what was happening to everyone else, knowing that it was eventually going to happen to me.

So, I took comfort in my mother's cold embrace, her thin, bony fingers running through my blonde hair to try and comfort me while I just sat there and cried into her chest.

I didn't want to die.

No, death would be better than whatever this was.

I wanted to die, but it wasn't like my father's 'research' would allow that to happen.

Thursday, 31 July, 2014

After nearly two weeks had passed, everyone else except me and my dad were gone. Not gone as in dead but gone as in the fact that they were practically dead. They were all unresponsive, still alive, but they looked dead.

And dad said there was no helping them anymore, he said they were past the point of no return.

He was starting to spend even longer in his lab in the basement. That meant he was close to fixing this whole mess.

But mum had been wrong about him being able to help all of them.

And now there was no one left to comfort me, no one left to hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay . . . no one left who would lie just to ease my mind.

And dad certainly wasn't going to be there to comfort me.

Dad was telling me that he would only be able to save me, and only me.

That day he came out of the lab at noon, he said the cure was finished and he wanted me to take it, there was a folder flooded with papers in his free hand, the other one stretched out towards me with a pitch black pill that was the size of my pinkie toe that had microscopic white flecks in it that reminded me of space.

I stared at my dad for a long few minutes before taking it from him, the look in his eyes was near desperate, looking like he was about to fall apart right there and cry, however, he managed a small smile as I put the pill in my mouth, taking a sip of the water in the cup he had set in front of me mere minutes ago.

As soon as he knew I had swallowed, he stalked out of the room towards the glass sliding doors that led to the back garden.

I slowly followed after him, staying behind the doors as I saw him throw his folder full of papers into the firepit he made three years ago for a family bonfire, before work had consumed him, then, he took out a box of matches, lit one, and threw it into the pit that was full of paper, dried grass, and wood chips after staring at the flame for a moment.

"Dad?" he immediately turned to me with a cautious look, "What are you doing?"

"Burning my research on the antidote," he replied simply, turning back as a small fire started, slowly, very slowly growing in the firepit, "I've finished what I needed to do, so there's no use for it anymore."

"What?!" I exclaimed, "What about everyone else?! What about everyone else that's like this because of you and this stupid drug?! What about them?!"

"They don't matter," he said slowly, continuing to watch the growing flames before continuing, "I was only trying to save all three of you . . . but if I can manage to save you, then I'll be fine with that."

"What about you?" I asked in a quiet voice.

"It's too late for me, but I could still save you, so I did just that."

After another long moment of my father staring into the orange flames before he turned back to the house, pushing past me and heading to the stairwell that led to his basement lab. A few minutes later I heard the lab door slam closed, the echo of the sound of the door locking being the last thing I heard from downstairs.

A few hours later, I tested the theory of the antidote actually being effective.

I tried to kill myself.

Blood flowed for a few seconds from either wrist before the cuts stitched themselves back together, leaving nothing there but pale, untouched skin in its place.

That meant the cure hadn't worked after all.

My father hadn't saved me, he just gave me a pill that god knows what it might do to me.

He didn't save me . . .

. . . And then, the faintest little rumble came from my stomach.

I hadn't been hungry in a month.

My eyes went wide . . . he managed to pull it off, after all, he just wasn't able to completely cure me.

Instead, he left me to a far worse fate than death.