Chapter 3: Antidote

One day I opened my eyes to moving shadows in front of me with blazing eyes. I didn't flinch as I saw them. I didn't know whether they were real but I have gotten to a point where I didn't know if anything I saw was real. I ignored them and sat up in my cramped box, now plenty used to being confined in a tight space. I looked around me and saw that the prisoner that I shared a wall with to my right was gone. There would be only one reason a prisoner wasn't returned to their cell for the night. 

The test subjects were slowly getting picked off one by one, and now there weren't many left. The experiments had killed so many, yet I was unfortunate enough to be one of the remaining handful that survived. When I was first put here, every cell contained a prisoner, but now as I looked down the transparent glass I saw only a few left on this floor. I didn't know what was going on with the other floors, but I assumed it was the same case. The scientists have acted more hesitantly with injections recently due to the decrease in lab rats, however, because there weren't so many, my experiment time went from an hour to eight hours over the seven years. 

I don't know how I've been able to endure the torture, but I guessed that it was because I was already tortured by my mind every second of the day. I leaned my head against the wall and waited for my inevitable daily demise, not moving and barely breathing. I felt so unclean and hungry. Rations were scarce and there wasn't any opportunity for hygiene in a place like this. I remember that three years ago a lot of prisoners got sick because of it, but nothing was done and they died. Why couldn't I have been one of them?

I waited for a while until I heard the sound I dreaded to hear. Footsteps. Two workers and a scientist walked down the hallway and the scientist stopped in front of my cell. She checked my file on the wall for a moment and nodded to the workers. The workers then opened my cell and pulled me to my feet. They restrained me and forced me down the hallway after the scientist. As they pushed me I begged the voices to help distract me through the next eight hours. They told me to sing in my head and slowed my panicked breathing. 

I asked them what song and the workers brought me into the lab and strapped me onto the experiment table. My eyes hurt from all the shiny metal that surrounded me and I started to panic again at the sight of needles being prepared. The hush whispers told me to sing Daisy Bell as one scientist raised the first needle. I started to shake as they felt for a vein in my arm and tears welled up in my eyes. 'Daisy... Daisy... Give me your answer do...' I cringed at the pain of the needle being stabbed into me and fuzziness surrounded my vision. I screamed as my whole arm started to burn, but I forced myself to shut my mouth. 'I'm half crazy... All for the love of you...'

 The scientists watched me carefully and noted everything they saw me do. Tears fell down the sides of my head as the burning spread to my throat. 'It won't be a stylish marriage... I can't afford a carriage...' Another needle was stabbed into the same arm and the burning became straight pain. My muscles locked up and I screamed again until one of the scientists put a piece of leather in my mouth to shut me up, which was no doubt used by all the other prisoners. They continued experimenting and I tried not to black out from the pain. 'But you'll look sweet upon the seat... Of a bicycle built for two...'

After a few hours of constant pain and torture, I heard the scientists beside me speak of another dose. "This subject is perfect for it, he has survived all the others. It needs to be tested, it may be the only dose, but it's the closest we've gotten to a cure and we don't have any more time." The other scientist hesitated until a big bang came from outside. Everyone stopped what they were doing and one scientist pointed to the workers. "Go and see what that was." They nodded and left the room.

Meanwhile, the other scientists continued their conversation and answered, "Okay, inject the virus into the subject. We'll get the serum." My eyes widened a bit after hearing them. They're going to infect me? One of them brought out a black case and another cleaned a needle filled with dark green liquid. The one carrying the case opened it and pulled out another syringe filled with orange liquid. "Ready with the experimental antidote. Start injecting. If it doesn't work be ready." A worker then pulled out a gun, and the needle carrying the green virus slowly made its way toward my arm.

I started to hyperventilate even though I knew I had to die someday. I just never expected it to end like this. I couldn't move as I was stabbed with the zombie infection, and the skin around the puncture died instantly. My arm started turning green and I struggled with sudden urges that were beyond my control. I started growling and bit through the leather in my mouth, but before the virus made its way completely up my arm, I was injected with the experimental antidote. 

I froze suddenly, and another bang came from outside. The scientists looked at the door curiously until it slammed open to a hoard of zombies. They somehow had finally managed to get through the prison's defenses, and the room became an uproar of screaming and chaos. The scientists were brutally killed within minutes, and gunfire was shot by the worker holding a gun. He didn't last long from how many there were, and he too became a corpse. While all of this was going on I could barely pay attention to what was going on from the feeling that was radiating through me.

It was the first injection to feel good when it spread through my blood. I stopped changing, and my dead arm came back to life. I gasped from feeling human again, but the antidote did a lot more than it was supposed to. Suddenly, all at once, all of the pain in my body vanished. I felt stronger, and I was no longer hungry. But what freaked me out most of all was that my mind cleared itself. I could now tell whether what was happening was real or not. I could hear the voices in my head as actual voices instead of various whispers, but now I didn't feel controlled by them anymore. 

I had a voice of my own and I had thoughts. I hadn't felt sanity in so long, the feeling of it made me smile. I could understand things again, and everything that happened since I lost my mind made sense to me now. I knew things, I could feel things, and I could see things that I wasn't able to see before. I fully understood everything that was going on around me and the feeling was so great I started to laugh.