[EternalPen]

Category: Action/Adventure

Synopsis: Trey is diagnosed with a deadly virus that is believed to have wiped out the Roanoke colony back in the 1500's. The virus was dubbed "The Croatoan" and there is but one cure. The cure only has a small chance of success but, as Trey is about to find out, the Indian roots of the cure go farther back than even the doctors knew. He must face his fears in his own mind to survive, and ultimately cure, the virus.


***A Cure And Its Virus***

Trey slammed the door to his Ford as he stepped out. He was returning from a doctor’s appointment he wasn’t too excited about in the first place. His doctor has suggested that, if there was anything he wanted to do before he died, he had better do it now.

Thinking about it now, that was actually an understatement.

There was a strange new strain of a cancerous virus that had only been seen once before. The only time it had ever been seen before was a violent eruption of the airborne death-incubator was way back in the 1500’s. The inhabitants of the Roanoke colony called the virus “The Croatoan”.

There had been about 75 reports of the virus since last year, and each one ended in death about one week after the symptoms had shown. The big-shots, at first, tried to hide this. It had wiped out an entire colony in one week and was showing signs of returning. It was spreading through South Carolina and Trey was simply another victim.

After the President’s wife had died of this virus, he decided it was best to release this into the public’s small grasp of knowledge. This was only one nightmare of thousands the president had to deal with, and after having this particular nightmare black out his spouse, he decided best to warn the public.

The virus was now transferred from host to host by blood transfer. Kissing, getting blood on a cut, anything that made part of them become a part of you, it spread the virus. Trey was to be quarantined until death and his body hidden, but since this was public news, he was only to be isolated until death.

Thing was, Trey got lucky. They couldn’t find the virus. They found it and he knew he had it, but it wasn’t the same thing. His couldn’t be spread. Only kept.

For this, the doctor’s had a small chance of a cure. Not a cure for the virus itself, but a cure for Trey. Every patient that took this developed cure died from it before the virus had its chance to work, and the patients that were like Trey…

Well, there was only one other and he died, too.

He talked for a long time about this to the doctor, and had it explained to him that, even if the one person that took it died, it didn’t mean it doesn’t work. It had only been tested on one patient; it could be a fifty-fifty chance.

He had made the decision to try it. It could end his life before his time, but he would die either way so he decided to try. They had given him a thermos he had yet to open, and they told him to drink EVERY thing in it.

The doctors told Trey this was made from ancient Indian cures for “The Croatoan”. The Indians described it as a type of Spirit Walk. You drink it, you fight the virus with your physical body, you wake up cured. They had no idea what would happen when he drank the liquid they had concocted, but this was Trey’s last hope…

He walked into the apartment complex where he stayed and took the stairs to the second floor. He entered his room, number 13. How appropriate.

Not bothering to remove his shoes or shirt, he walked straight to his bed and, more or less, shut down as he fell face-first onto his mattress.

Then he cried.

He cried for a few hours, reaching for the phone every now-and-again but never actually calling his parents. He knew they would want to know, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t tell them what would happen, he didn’t have it in him to tell his parents that, within a week, his bones would deteriorate to dust in his body, and the his body’s decomposition rate would be speed up to about a week-and-a-half, as the virus was carnivorous, before everything was gone. No trace of his existence.

It took him a while to calm himself down, and when he thought about life, he began to cry again.
He never got married, he never had kids of his own, he hadn’t even been on a date before, and had never kissed a woman. He had never completely finished his education, he never got to open his own coffee shop, and never finished the novel he was working on. He had never been published, he had never done anything important, and he had yet to truly live. He was too young to die.

The hands on his clock spun in a circle faster than he ever remembered them going. The day had already gone by and night was creeping up behind him. The stars began to dot the sky, one by one, slowly claiming their territory until all traces of the sun were gone. The clouds were missing that night and every star that was up could be seen with little to no effort. They were brighter than Trey had ever remembered them being and he simply stared in wonder for an hour before making his decision.

He unscrewed the lid to the thermos and popped off the built-in cup. He tossed it to the side and started to guzzle the whole thing in one shot. It was hotter than he thought it would be, and it scalded his tongue, his lips, and his throat. He could feel it burning his insides, but it was a good pain. It was a pain that might heal.

As the thick, chunky, and yellowed liquid made its way out of the thermos and into his mouth, Trey began to taste it. It slid over his tongue and each individual taste bud quivered in pure agony. He had to concentrate and strain hard to keep his gag reflex from making him spit it all on the carpet. When Trey drank something he didn’t like, he usually said it tasted like shit, but this new flavor that washed through his mouth took his saying all too literally. He truly wondered if that was one of the ingredients.

When it was gone he growled and threw the thermos hard, hitting his mirror with it. A thousand tiny lines shot up, down, left, right, and all over the mirror. They crossed each other with no regard for the expensive piece of reflective glass. An instantaneous spider-web pattern delved into the mirror, looking for its spider.

Trey shook his head violently and clenched his fists tight. The taste stayed in his mouth for a good ten minutes. When it was gone, he was panting and sweating from head-to-toe from flopping around like a dead fish. The taste not only smelled bad, but began to burn his entire being as it chilled cold enough to kill. Yet, he didn’t die.

In pain and gasping for breath, Trey felt his life slipping away. His senses dulled and the burning, the taste, the smell, it all disappeared. Everything began to go black and he was gone.

His body twitched, twice, on the carpet.