Short Stories

Short Story #10

I padded through the marsh, my boots squelching in mud and occasionally getting stuck, which forced me to stop my trek and release it from the hungry mud.

I wasn't sure how I had ended up here. The last memory I had that was not of here was of me falling asleep on my bed at home. There had been nothing unusual about that day; summer camp was the same, dinner was the same as usual, the cartoons on TV aired at the same time, and I hadn't noticed anything strange outside the window.

But when I woke up, I felt exceptionally groggy. This led me to believe I had been asleep for more than a few hours. I heard nothing but insects buzzing and a few scattered birdsongs, and I only was able to perceive what was in front of me after thirty minutes. It took another ten-ish minutes before I could form thoughts that made sense to myself.

It took a while before I could stand up, but when I did, I realized my back, as well as the back of my legs and some of my hair, were completely covered in mud. I had begun to shake it off, but the sudden motion made me dizzy, and I had to sit down.

After I fully woke up, I began to walk. I don't recall needing food or water; I simply walked. I had a natural gift for being able to process and remember large and complex amounts of information, as well as highly accurate spatial visualization, so I decided to imagine large and complex functions or equations and solve or picture them in my mind.

The years flew by, and I still continued to imagine more and more things. I set math off to the side and began writing pieces in my mind. They came out awkwardly at first, but I was able to fine-tune the stories, first adding descriptive details to it. Then, I began organizing the plot, removing parts that didn't make sense and smoothing out parts of the story. I formulated a good climax and made the resolution one to remember.

After about ten years, I had left a ton of footprints, created a whole bunch of weird equations, created a proof for every known theorem of mathematics, gotten way better at writing, and memorized three books I'd written. If I ever found a city again, I would instantly become a highly decorated mathematician and a respected writer, but that was the exact thing I was worried about. All these years, I had been walking in a straight line with an error below 0.5 degrees. Since I spent a lot of the day walking- sometimes the entire day, all 24 hours -I should have circled the planet several times now, or at least crossed my own path. But every step I took brought me to a fresh new part of the marsh. 

It was like the sky- no matter where you traveled in it, it all looked the same, but slightly different.

I began to feel trapped. I didn't feel like a fish caught on a hook, unable to wriggle free. Nor did I feel like I was in a cardboard box- The marsh was very open. I felt as if I was a guinea pig for some twisted experiment. I stopped walking, and I began excavating a spot in the mud. I dug and dug and dug. I kept digging, even after my fingernails became split and covered in blood. I kept digging, even after I hit a rocky layer of dirt. I kept digging, even when the layer of mud reached my head level.

Eventually, I hit a layer of solid rock. This would be exceedingly hard for a human to dig, so I took some mud from the layer far above me, spread it across the rocky floor until there was a layer about a foot thick, and laid down on it. Then, I laid down to sleep. As the last rays of sunlight turned the dark-colored mud into caramel, and as my consciousness slowly faded into blackness, I saw a strange figure swooping down from the sky. But before I could open my eyes farther to see what it was, the darkness claimed me.

"He had an incredibly accurate sense of timing," the man in the video call noted. He was cloaked in shadows, leaving only the outline of his mouth visible. "He stayed awake for exactly twenty years by his frame of reference before sleeping." 

The scientist sighed. "Well, the drugs we released into the air to compensate for lack of sleep were not beneficial to his health." He pointed behind him. "They're doing an autopsy now."

The man nodded gravely. "Yes. Prepare the next test subject for transport to the Environment."

The scientist hesitated. "Sir, we can't keep killing people. We've already tried this on thirty-odd other people; we already know the results. They're about the same each time."

The man said nothing. He merely scratched his chin. "I see. Well, you may terminate further research. And tell your technicians to press the large orange button on the terminal. That should terminate the mainframe's calculations on the project."

The scientist was taken aback at his compliance with the request. Normally, the man only cared about his own agenda. "Yes, sir." He terminated the video link and hurried out of the conference room.

In the control room, a technician received a call from the head researcher. "Press the orange button," he said tersely to the technician over the call, then hung up. The technician, slightly baffled, went over to the control panel and lifted the plastic cover on the orange button. He pressed it, lowered the control panel, and went to call the head back to inform him that the job was done.

Suddenly, hidden nozzles rotated and extended from the wall. The technicians were confused; these were the nozzles that would spray water in the case of a fire, but no alarm had sounded. The nozzles made a hissing sound, but no gas seemed to come from them. 

Some of the technicians in the room felt a tightness in the chest, and some of them acquired a runny nose. The initial instinct was to leave the room since there had apparently been a malfunction with the fire extinguishing system.

However, once outside, some of them reported that they felt nausea, and others wheezed and clutched at their throat and chest. The head technician frowned. Even if there were chemicals in the fire extinguishing system, they couldn't be this harmful. However, he himself quickly felt a tight knot in his chest, and drool involuntarily came out of his mouth. No one ridiculed his actions; the same thing was occurring to them.

Several researchers rushed out of other doors, apparently in the same state as the technicians. One of the technicians vomited all over the floor. A handful of the people gathered in the hallway simply dropped to the floor and began jerking and twitching.

Several minutes later, they were all dead.

The man from the video call had taken a stroll outside. He observed the live video feed from the research station on his phone. The sarin gas had taken effect. He smiled, his teeth glinting pearly white in the light from the full moon.

"My game, my rules," he said.

A/N: (1212 words) The last part was added to make this a bit more exciting, but the first part was kind of me writing randomly. Sometimes, I feel like my entire life is a lab experiment. Sometimes, I don't.
Not sure if there's a plot...
(My) writing is weird