Until You're Cured

Four Days

A/N: Sorry this is so extremely short. I have tons of work to do for school and a choir concert tonight. I promise  that the next few chapters will be longer and better. Sorry again. Love ya.

Emmi

Four Days

When I wake up, I’m hit by a single thought. Today is the first of a short string of last days. Today, our last day of freedom. Tomorrow, our last celebration. Monday, the last normal day. Tuesday, the last day that Scott will wake up as Scott, and not just the shell of Scott.

He’s sleeping still, and I just watch his chest rise and fall as I listen to his breathing. It’s soothing. Until it’s not. He starts to gasp and shake. Tears leak from tightly shut eyes as the gasps turn to sobs. I shake him to try to wake him, but it does nothing.

Scott cries out suddenly. “No! Mitch! No no no no!” he screams, waking himself up.

He stares at me, blue eyes wide and scared shitless. “It’s just a dream, right?”

“Yes. Are you okay?” I ask.

“I don’t know. The dream was so real. They took you. They took us both to the labs and they tried to Cure you while you were still awake. I screamed and tried to get to you, so they did something to you. I don’t know what it was, but it stopped your lungs. I had to watch you writhe and suffocate and die right there. They told me that I’d never forget and I know that I’ll have that image burned into my mind for my whole life. The worst part was that they were laughing like it was the biggest joke and they seemed to enjoy killing you and torturing me.”

“You know that they don’t really do that. They would never. They’d be thrown into the Crypts for torture,” I say.

“Maybe. It just seems like they’re out to get us.”

“They’re just doing their jobs. The people in the labs are just performing the Procedure that they’ve been told to and they think they’re doing something good. Everyone thinks love is deadly and they are just trying to protect people,” I state. I sound like a teacher talking to kids, not like a guy trying to comfort his boyfriend.

“I know that’s what they think. I know. I know exactly why we have to pretend we’re Cured even though it’s quite obvious we aren’t. We don’t have the scars and everyone can see that. They can see that we aren’t Cured. I know that they just want us to pretend that we’re ‘safe’ from the threat of this thing that as they say, ‘Kills when you have it and kills when you don’t’. But you know what? Taking it from us doesn’t do much except steal the humanity from us,” Scott mutters. His eyes have turned hard and angry. All the softness and the fear are gone and he’s no longer the person that he was thirty seconds ago.

Suddenly, he stands up fast. He looks like he’s about to punch through a wall. He explodes, “They locked up Kevin for trying to protect someone that he cares about. He’s not even infected. He’s just trying to protect his pair. Lillian should be the one taking the fall for this, it’s her fault. He was just trying to protect her and her baby.

“I’m sure that when they realize Avi can’t be Cured, they’ll lock him in the psychiatric ward. Honestly, I believe that they enjoy the pain of others because it’s the only way they can feel pleasure anymore. The damned Cure stole everything else from them. My dad’s fucking lucky to still be truly human. I can’t say the same for everyone else. I can’t even say the same for my own mom or your parents.”

“I know. I know what it seems like, but it won’t matter in a few days anyway. So, you can fight and scream all you want. it won’t help anybody. It’ll just get you hurt. I can’t stand to  see you hurt.” I say.

“Oh, but you can stand to see me Cured?” His voice is rising to a manic volume.

“No! But that, we don’t have a choice about. We can’t prevent it. You can chose to not do something stupid that’ll get you in trouble or hurt. That’s all I was saying.” I tell him quickly.

“You know what? Forget it. I need to think.” and with that, Scott walks away.

It’s not until I’m getting in bed that he says, “Look, sorry I exploded earlier. Guess I’m just getting really stressed out. You know I can’t stay mad at you. I love you.”

“I love you too, Scott.”