The Desperation of A Broken Heart

The infection began as a silent, cruel thing. It began slowly, eroding the body before it tarnished the mind. The cruelness came from knowing your fate, when the second you see that tell-tale sign of sickness and knowing there was nothing you could do.

Nothing you could do, except watch yourself die, that is.

I first noticed it on the back of my hand. I had just put my baby down for a nap, and went to lovingly stroke her cheek when it caught my eye. It was as if a bucket of ice had been suddenly dumped over me, a loud whining beginning in my ears--my whole body buzzing.

Disbelief. Shock. Horror.

I snatched my hand back, a sob tearing through me with a painful force. Was my baby okay? Had I already infected her?

“Honey,” I call, voice strangled as I stumble from the room, eyes searching for my husband. I could see his lips moving, the concern pulling his eyebrows together. A warm hand on my shoulder, but I couldn’t feel it, as if I had stepped away from my own body.

I couldn’t say anything more, my legs had given out. My husband, Jake, reaches for me but I shake my head. The world blurs and I could taste salt in my mouth, blood? Had the infection spread that fast?

No, tears. They were streaming from my face and I could do nothing but hold my hand up, the back of it facing forward. For my husband to see.

I could see the second he noticed it, the small decrepit mark. A black spot, as dark as the night, no bigger than a silver coin. It had already begun to spider down to my wrist, the infection slowly leeching into my blood stream.

I had days, maybe a week.

Jake took a step back, a large hand running through his dark brown hair. It caught the light in a golden hue, curling around his ear in small waves. It was beautiful, just as he was, with his bright blue eyes, and the dimples on either side of his face.

But his features twisted into something ugly, the devastation marring his handsome features.

“How?” The words were a harsh whisper, his blue eyes even brighter against the tears pooling in them.

“Maybe at the lab…” I started, hanging my head in shame when he barked out a laugh.

It wasn’t funny. I knew that. He knew that.

It was a horrible, hopeless situation. He had told me to leave my job months ago, when the disease first showed symptoms of a larger outbreak. But we needed the money.

They had promised there would be no contamination, no way that any of us would be in danger.

How wrong that turned out to be.

***

It had taken eighteen months for the infection to completely ravage my body.

I do not know if my husband and baby are still alive.

I do not know if anyone, really, was still alive. Breathing, maybe, humans as we once were still existed, but can one really live with death at your heels?

The streets were empty, pale imitations of what they once were. It was as though the infection had begun bleeding into the land once it had finished decimating every human on earth. The sky itself even weeped at the destruction, an endless rain in a dark, gloomy sky that continues to pelt into my melting flesh.

My limbs no longer cooperated with me as I limped along in what used to be downtown Chicago. Rats had taken off most of the flesh in both of my calves, the rot that followed had slowly begun creeping up the rest of my body.

Only my eyes remained the same as I once knew, or what I think I knew. They were hazel, the green in them stark against the inflamed skin of my face.

All sense of self has left me. I only knew whispers of the person I once was, fleeting memories of a life I used to live.

A high-pitched squeal that falls into a fit of laughter. Eyes as blue as a cloudless sky, twinkling with mischief and love. So much love for me to hold on to, to desperately cling to while the infection continues its cruel ruination of my mind and body.

Somehow, I had held onto a sliver of sanity. The pounding, searing pain in my head each day fighting against my last hold on humanity, of the family I once knew I had.

But to what end? I roam endlessly and painfully, the exposed bones of my body have begun to erode from the relentless downpour.

It was a cruel fate to have been infected, but it was abhorrently wicked to still hold a shred of my mind.

My feet moved on their own accord, following a path that I seem to be stuck in--every day circling around the miles of chainlink fence.

Part of me recognizes it, some small, uninfected part expects to see those beautiful blue eyes staring back at me.

Every day I continue my slow preamble around the fence, my body looking for them, even as my mind continues to crumble.

Safe zone, some part of me whispers.

Quarantine. Safe. They’re safe.

I stop. My dead, rotted heart gives one timid pulse in my chest.

I see a man, next to him a small child. Standing, I realize with a tight chest and a sob caught in my throat. My baby girl was standing. Her auburn hair had grown long, the ends of it curling just like her fathers.

I could feel myself clawing at my own mind, the part of me still existing behind the infection so utterly anguished to be trapped behind it. My body steps forward, and the man steps back--eyes flashing in warning.

Blue eyes, the same blue eyes that have haunted my mind all these months.

“Mommy?” The child calls, and my knees give out, bringing me back all that time ago to the day I first noticed the infection.

The man kneels down to gather the small child in his arms, his muscles tightening as the small figure ferociously fights to free herself.

“Mommy!” The voice wails, the sound piercing through the fog, straight through the infection and into the heart of who I once was.

“My babies,” I breathe, the relief like a tidal wave crashing upon me. I could feel the last vestiges of my mind relinquishing their hold, the infection slowly winning the war it had been waging.

My legs burn as I push myself to stand, not wanting my daughter or my husband to see me finally succumb to the infection.

I leave them to my back, flinching with each wail that slices through me. But a warmth follows, knowing they were safe. Knowing they were alive.

They would be okay.

My feet slow, my body giving out in the end. My eyes look to the sky, and a slow smile spreads across my face. It was small, barely there, but just beyond the clouds I could see the sun.

The infection had won, in the end. But at least the rain had finally stopped.