The skies bleed with the torment of the scolding, copper flames and deep scarlet tides that collide as the blistering sphere of heat sets over the angst ridden city. Like even the celestials astray with the glistening stars above us, know what is to come. As though they're warning us. And we are failing to see it, so disoriented within ourselves to grasp anything other than our own miniscule dubiousness.
And it will be our downfall.
***
Words that are almost lyrical; sweet nectar for the mind to suckle on once devoured. A place and quote I found myself; the core of my being drawn to when I was mindlessly scrolling through different tabs about the effects of the collapsing society theory. Then, as the bottom of my hefty laptop burned the bare flesh of my sweat-ridden thighs, I began to delete all fifty or so tabs that I had collected for however many hours I'd sat on the splintered, wooden floors. Until I had landed upon one page that I had unfurled earlier on, and had only skimmed the first sentence before progressing to another link. I held those words within the warmth of my brightering spirit, so encapsulated by the meaning tucked within the cursive writing, a meaning that I was yet to fully grasp.
Pain shoots up the side of my stomach as I hunch over Nan's trembling limbs, my hands clutching her sweater as my arm stays tightly wrapped around her. Her laboured breaths exit her, the smothering breath caressing against my ear with each wobbling tread she takes upon the uneven concrete.
She's gotten worse.
Up just ahead is an overwhelmingly wide-reaching building that easily swathes around an entire block, if not landscaping out further. Making the (pending) Hospital, the biggest medical help centre that this overflowing city holds within its winding streets, and my only option out of the total three medical centres that I have access to.
It wasn't much of a thought before, the only thing spinning around in the empty space that lies within my mind was to get her help, immediately. But now, as I take in the deep depths that has occurred in the brief few hours since leaving the warmth of our small home, I can't help but ponder about if it's safe in there for either of us, so surrounded by this virus, every crevice harbouring a thriving stand of the Deirigh virus.
I lob forward with no other option but to ignore my instincts. She needs help, and she needs it now and the people inside those gaping doors are the only ones close enough to me to achieve such things.
Just means that I must decide what to do with the consequences after Nan gets better.
We propel beyond the trickerling, tranquille water fountain with a cultivated statuesque out-streched towards the gated heavens, a viridescent tint streaming out of the tip of her hand and rearing down to the gawping pond below her quenched, moss shielded feet. Bodies mob the cylinder entrance leading up to the large, sliding reflective doors, each person shuffling steps back, a few almost collapsing over their own feet with the shree urgency, as though they are manufacturing a barrier only their foreboding gazes are destined to behold. We trudge forward, a clashing sea of limbs divide like the depths of the ocean, our steps heavy as we drag our burning bodies through the divide. Murmurs flow and weave through the crowd of people like the scaled creatures that belong to the deep, carrying the daunted whispers of the land. My breath is heavy as my muddled gaze washes over each bystander who merely observes as I heave us both to the front of the brick structure, their eyes wide as they stay planted to the ground; not only from us, but the towering building itself.
Footsteps scuffle across the dirty pavement.
"Don't. it's not safe in there. Let her go the rest of the way, they'll help her once she's checked in," the woman's eyes protrude from the soft, pudgy lines conjuring her face. With so much distance still between where we both stand, she reaches her arm out to me as I now face away from the entrance, as if beckoning me back from a the unknown that lies beyond these automated doors.
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Vines of Hunger | ONC 2024
Science FictionDeath was once something I feared, an illusion that brought darkness with it, but now I plead for its mercy in this time that survivors have come to call, The New Order. ••• It was only a cough to began with, something so simple, it had happened a t...
