My Timeless Torment.

Chapter 2

I awoke to the sound of my phone ringing, my arm lunging towards my bedside table to retrieve it.

"Ash?"

His name lingered on my lips as I breathed it out. I could almost hear his lips curling into a smile.

'Of course its me, Lucy."

I wish I could laugh. I wish I could giggle and my mum would peep her head around my door to see my cheeks, flushed red.

"When can I see you?"

It was the same question every morning, always ending with the same answer.

"Soon, baby. Soon."

"Ash, what if it gets any worse?"

"Then I will find you."

My life was not normal, nor would it ever be. Schools shut down and jobs were only for the very brave.

My days were always the same. Awake, talk to Asher. Watch the news, attempt to convince my mother to get out of bed that day. Read a book, try to learn, think of him. Asleep.

I went to the lounge room, flicking on the television and perching on the worn couch. Sound filled the room, breaking the almost unbearable silence.

Pictures flashed in front of me. Masks, scientists, rubbish and the rash. Except today, something was different.

The way that many people continued to survive was to avoid all contact with the outside world. Trust that a cure would be found, trust that they would be safe. The disease was passed from skin-to-skin contact so as long as you were always alone, you had a higher chance of staying somewhat healthy.

But the warnings were clear, as the television displayed them.

MXT546 IS THE NEWEST STRAND OF THE DISEASE AND IS NOW AIRBORNE.

I choked, rubbing my eyes. Airborne? As in, travelled through the air? Caught by breathing?

I ran to my mothers room to tell her.

'The Demon's collar,' started the same. An itch, a tiny itch on the chest. This itch expanded, covering from the lower chest right up to the chin. The itch turned into a rash and that is how it stayed. The windpipe usually began to give in after a week or so of the constant swell of a rashy neck and because of the oxygen deprived brain, this is where the person went insane.

This is what we feared. We feared the sick who tried to kill and who tried to spread. We feared leaving our houses as of the blood splattered on the ground and that if a tiny bit flicked up and landed on our bare legs, next was going to be us.

The disease ended the same way, the itch becoming unbearable. I hadn't seen it, a person in the last stages of The Demons Collar but I had heard enough. When the itch flared up, the person couldn't do anything but itched. They itched through the skin, digging into their throats.

The disease resulted in the infected killing themselves.