Inverted

Chapter 1 Grim

      The year was 2120, the world was in chaos and uproar. A new strain of the Spanish influenza has struck globally. Many large cities are in complete turmoil. There was now a mandatory curfew and those who used to work in retail and other forms of customer service have now switched to a completely digital form of service. The world was basically on lockdown and you were only allowed to leave if you were a government employee who was essential, or to go out and get the essentials for survival.
     That's all I've known for the past ten years of my oblique life. I spent my late teenage years longing for the sun on my face and my early twenties was mostly the same. Except as you age people treat you more as if you have the plague when you do have to go on you're outings. It's an every man for themselves kind of situation in the small province in the state of North Carolina. We were one of the last states hit in the United States having less affected citizens.  The way we went about achieving that was a rather forceful state of affairs.
     First the schools shut down, this was a nationwide thing, but trust me being 16 at the time it was no piece of cake you could say. Then businesses shut down, our state took some of the first precautions only allowing grocery stores, hospitals, banks, etc. the necessities to remain open. Back then me and my crowd of friends couldn't stand the thought of being stuck in doors. We goofed off, got caught by the cops more times than I could count.  Hell when I was 19 I spent four days in jail because I got busted out late at night with my best friend Cover. We had snuck into my dads liquor cabinet, grabbed the bottle of Cruzan Rum, and went on a drunken "adventure" into town at 12 am far passed curfew. I can still remember Cover laughing without a care in the world and the cops constantly trying to berate her and me to make us see the errors of our ways. It had been the best night of my life.
     Two weeks later everything changed though. I remember Cover had stopped answering my FaceGrams, two days after we had been let go. I had tried to reach out to her parents in the case they were angry with us both, but I couldn't reach them. Two weeks passed with out a word. Finally I had had enough so I snuck out the house in the middle of the day. Using the guise that I was just bring sugar to my grandma, in case I got stopped. I walked up to Cover's house, we'd lived right down the road from each other since we were twelve, and knocked on the front door.
     Her mother opened the door but only a smidge. She peeked through and I saw her face. She was pale, which wasn't saying much all of Cover's family was really fair skinned. There were dark circles under her eyes, she obviously hadn't slept in days. It was almost as if she had aged 20 years or something because she looked so.... old.... at first when she saw me a smile rose to the corner of her lips
    "Cover...." she had said and almost opened the door, the small smile still there. Then her eyes focused. the look of pain, and disappointment wasn't hard to see. "Oh, Selinè. I thought you were.... oh honey never mind. If you're here to see Cover...hic..." Mrs. Daniels started to tear up, and it took her a moment to get herself under control.
    "Mrs. D, is everything ok??? I've been trying to reach out to y'all and Cover. Look what happened two weeks ago it wasn't Covers fault, don't punish her it was...." I didn't even have time to finish explaining. Mrs. Daniels through open the door, and grabbed me in a hug so tight I might have broken if I hadn't braced myself.
    "She's GONE Selè, she's gone our Cover is gone..." she wailed hysterically holding me tighter if that was possible. I had gone numb. Frozen. I couldn't process what she meant.
    "What.... what do you mean gone?" I said around the huge lump that had formed in my throat. I heard footsteps coming towards us. Out came Mr. Daniels looking just as forlorn, but upon seeing my face he looked as heartbroken as I felt.
    "Jesus... Mary, you know we were told to remain in quarantine until we have been completely gone over to make sure....." he stopped and looked at me, "to make sure we didn't catch the virus from Cover." His eyes had appeared dead by the end of his sentence. He knelt down and helped Mrs D. off of me. She was whimpering, but she reluctantly went back into the house and they shut the door behind them. I stood on that front porch for so long. Waiting for Cover to come out and tell me this was just some sick joke. I could see her, smiling and laughing uncontrollably due to the alcohol, blonde waves tumbling down her back as her blue eyes twinkled with delight. My best friend was gone.
     I don't remember how I got home, in fact the next few weeks that went by all I remember was being in a numb pattern. Not a comfortable numb, but an icy numbness that leaves you're bones chilled. I was cold. It wasn't until I woke up. Weeks later in the hospital bed with my mother weeping over me that I even knew I'd been sick too.  Contracting the virus from Cover possibly or maybe I'm the one that ultimately gave my friend the killing blow. Both of Covers parents had passed while I was in my fever induced coma.
      Weeks passed before I was released to go home.  Doctors were astounded. I was the first surviving case thanks to my parents allowing them to test a new drug on me. So that meant round check ups back with the doctor. To put it lightly at 19 I became the governments human 'lab rat', and that's put very lightly. I under went a series of test all for the next year of my life only every going back and forth from home to the hospital.
      Ironically for my contribution to humanity, I received a 'small' sum of money to keep my mouth shut about the stuff done to me. So that's how it stayed shut in, just like me. Eventually I moved out, but I never left my house. Not after everything that happens not after what happened with Cover. I may have survived some how but others weren't with that same treatment. I was labeled a miracle. I felt nothing of it.
     So sitting here now at my kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal I can't help but think where did we go wrong? Here I was now 25, and for as long as I can remember this plague hasn't gone away. We're basically at square one.
      "It's reported that now the death toll has had an immense impact on not only us but the environment. With the death toll now calculated, new claims have said that over half the entire human population has been wiped out since the appearance of the virus 2110, people are stammered and some are left to wonder why a cure hasn't been established in ten years, taking it over to Jacque with the news" the live reporter in site at the main quarantine zone declared.
      This wasn't really news to me or anyone who had been alive before the virus, I mean you could look outside and see it's affects. Where I stay in the now small town used to be the capital of North Carolina. Now looking out the window next to my kitchen table and seeing the desolate city off in the distance, I could feel the lose of human life. I worked as a nurse in one of the many quarantine zones in the area, due to my inability to reconstruct the virus. I wouldn't really say I'm a nurse though, I know basic medical care, but I was here more towards to help ease the sick into there final resting place. In fact I had deemed the nickname the Grim Reaper about two years ago. It was the governments idea, due to all the testing that I underwent they believed it the most humane thing to do.
     You see once you're sick, you're basically already dead in the eyes of the government. Long gone of the days of hoping for a cure, I mean if penicillin doesn't work what will? So after we found out the disease itself doesn't affect me and I'm not a career anymore, why not help as many people reach peace. I remember what it felt like in that dream like trance feeling nothing but the aching cold. Just hearing ANY voice would have helped me. I was scared. So now I do what no one else can, be there in those final moments. After someone is pronounced dead there's no funeral service just a cremation. So I'm the last form of human contact some of these people will ever get excluding there actual health care providers.
     Speaking of which, I glanced at the clock. It's about that time again, time to head to work as one of the few people who can. I grabbed my clearance pass, and set to walking. Vehicles, trains, and all forms of mobility were now used by the government. So you're average necessary worker like me, we needed clearance and had to walk everywhere we went. It's fine by me anyways, not to say I need the exercise. At five foot three inches, I'm actually underweight for what the doctors would wish me weigh. I brush my long red locks behind my back they fell in loose waves. It's  getting time for a cut it's almost past my butt at this point but who has the time for that now a days. Looking in the mirror, and seeing my emerald green eyes looking dull and lifeless as ever, I'd been in a state of numbness since Cover, that nothing and no one had been able to alleviate, I dashed out the door and ran down the road towards the quarantine building.
    My foot caught something and I braced myself for the fall as I went tumbling down. Suddenly a white light exploded and before I could hit the ground everything went to spinning. The feeling almost reminded me of being 13 again and going to the amusement parks with Cover. I felt pulled and yanked but I was blinded by the light. Then suddenly as if it was all just a figment of my imagination it stopped and I kept falling.... and falling.... and falling.
    I don't remember screaming but I could hear the scream as the wind beat my ears.