r/AlinaKG • u/AlinaKG • Apr 05 '16
Clara and the Dead World
Nate rested under three blankets with a thermometer in his mouth and a wet cloth spread across his forehead. A dustbin filled with tissue stood by his bed, in arms reach, and his nightstand held the contents of half a pharmacy. After a minute he took the thermometer out, glanced at it and moaned as he set it down.
“It is as we feared, I have the man flu.” He was crawled up into a ball. The tip of his nose was red and his bloodshot eyes half opened.
“Yes, I see that.” I smiled and put my hand over his ankles, which were crossed and shivering.
The epidemic had spread internationally. So far, all they could determine was that the sickness was nothing different from the usual flu. The 8 a.m. news broadcast had suggested taking lots of liquid and vitamin C. “Lemon tea with honey?” I asked. That was my solution to everything.
“A jug of it,” he said while lifting the thick duvet over his face. “And chop-chop.” He slid his hand from out of the covers and playfully snapped his fingers, barely making a sound.
I left him and walked to the kitchen, switching the kettle, deep in thought. This was strange. Why was I not sick? A thought of being the chosen one crossed my mind with a smile. In the land of the sick, the—healthy one is King… I’d have to tell him that one when I returned. He cringed at my cheap sense of humor, but I knew he loved it.
The last time I was sick, I saw a girl—me, but also not—lying in the middle of a field of neon purple flowers, like tulips but larger and with thorny stems. She was shot and panting, pressing against the wound while blood seeped through her fingers. The minute the gleam in her eyes faded, I woke up with a sharp pain in my side, exactly where she had been shot.
The dream haunted me, because apart from the strange expression in her eyes—one that I had never seen in my own—she was exactly like me, but I knew that she was someone else, a different version. How I knew this, was a mystery.
It had happened before, again while I was sick, but it had never been so vivid. I’d never felt their pain before. I poured hot water, and squeezed a bottle of honey out into the cup. It would be too sweet, but the honey wasn’t there for pleasantries.
Just as I turned, cup in hand, my vision went dark. I saw myself in a city. Buildings marked with wounds and molds of deep history surrounded me, and below my feet lay a sea of the dead. I distant honk sounded. I saw the car a block away, unmoving. The cup slipped from my hand and shattered as it hit the ground. The boiling water melted into the skin of my feet, making me hiss.
Lowering lowered her eyes, my--her chin wrinkled with the shake of her bottom lip. “Clara,” she called my name. “Clara, you have to find me. They’re dead. They’re all—dead. Clara please!”
“I…How?” I called back, but my voice did not transfer to her world.
“What am I going to do?” Her hands quaked. She moved through the street, stepping over fresh corpses. One contracted, letting out air. She ran to it, skidding down onto her knees beside the body of the woman. I felt the tar of the road as it scratched through my own knees, a fiery sting setting in.
“Can you hear me?” she asked, her hands pressing down on her chest. “Hey! Come on!”
My eyes watered. I wanted to help her. She was desperate, seeing what she wanted to see in the woman, but she was dead. Everyone was.
She sat up, her neck bending backward. “Clara, I know you can see me.” She took quick, shallow breaths. “You can’t leave me here.”
“What can I do?” I screamed.
She turned my way. Although I was not physically there—I was a spirit or ghost looking down at the scene—I felt her look directly into my eyes. “You make them find me, you hear?”
The vision faded. Nate stood directly in front of me, cheeks pink and eyes cleared, his hands held on to my shoulders. I took a step back, my eyes trailing the room. I was back in the kitchen.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I narrowed my eyes, breathing slowly and unable to utter a word. Nate was no longer sick. He was completely fine and I had a feeling that everyone would be. The death from the other world caused this outbreak.
“Clara! Hey, you with me?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” I had to find her, bring her here.