Forgotten Dreams of Eternity: Lost Odyssey: Thousand Years of Dreams
Copyright © 2011 Sky_Knight
(Short Story -XXVI.)
*Signpost*
"I'll be gone soon." Anri says.
"So it makes no difference-a life like this."
She smiles with some effort, puts a gray tablet on her tongue, and swallows it.
Use or possession of this drug by ordinary people is prohibited by law and strictly controlled. The person taking it feels as if every bone in his or her body is melting. All the anxieties and cares of life vanish as the individual wanders in the space between languor and pleasure.
"Why don't you take one, too?"
Anri pulls another tablet from her leather pouch and holds it out to Kaim, who is standing by her bed.
"Coward!" she says with a grim smile when he shakes his head in silence, and then she places the second tablet on her tongue.
"How many pills does that make today?" Kaim asks.
"H mm, I forgot . . ."
With empty eyes, Anri stares into space and sighs.
This is an addiction-a serious one.
"How do you feel?" he asks.
"Not bad." she says. "Very happy."
She gives him a smile. It is deeper and softer than her earlier smile-though maybe too deep and too soft. It appears to be a smile of ultimate bliss, but, for that very reason, it also has a frightening quality that sends chills up his spine.
The drug is called "signpost."
This is not its formal designation, of course.
People started calling it that as a secret code word to avoid prosecution, and the term caught on.
"Signpost" is, however, the single most appropriate name for this drug.
Each pill takes the user one step farther down the road. And when withdrawal symptoms strikes, the person rushes to take the next pill, thereby advancing yet another step.
Farther and farther and farther . . .
The road marked by this signpost is a soothing one, entirely free of pain or suffering.
At the end of the road, however, there waits only death.
The use and possession of signpost is so strictly prohibited because it is seen as an invitation to gradual suicide.
"How many more pills, I wonder?"
Anri mutters, stretching her emaciated body full length on the bed.
It is a question that Kaim can not answer. He knows only that she is nearing the end of her signpost journey.
It is for this that Kaim has been called to this hospital, which is a facility for people on the verge of death.
"I have no regrets." Anri says.
"None at all. This way I die pleasantly, quietly, like going to sleep."
Her empty eyes fixed on Kaim, but they seem to register nothing.
"I'll be fine."
She reaches into the leather pouch again.
"You probably shouldn't do that." Kaim says.
"I'm telling you I'm fine." she says, laughing weakly, and placing a third signpost in her mouth.
YOU ARE READING
Forgotten Dreams of Eternity: Lost Odyssey: Thousand Years of Dreams
Science FictionA science fiction novel with 33 short stories foretelling the forgotten dreams of Kaim, A immortal who has lived over more than a thousand years. This novel is based on the hit video game Lost Odyssey. Short Story XV, Short Story -XXI, and Short Sto...
