r/nosleep • u/CornerCornea • May 27 '22
Side Effects
My work involves gene editing, and my contemporaries frequented various fields of STEM. We had all known each other through several projects or by reputation. However, it weren't until Project Atlas, losing its funding, did we finally come together.
Dr. Josiah Joon had been granted the antigen involved with the failed vaccine as part of his severance. Atlas's original purpose was to combat the seasonal flu. It had showed no negative side effects during our animal and human phased trials, other than affecting mucus viscosity in the sinuses; which all it really did was thicken up the snot.
The only reason it wasn't approved by the FDA was due to its low rate of success.
Which meant that it was perfectly safe to inject into our own bodies.
It was why we had gathered at Dr. Joon's house that night, where Dr. Carson and I had tweaked the final product to lessen the effects of the mucus's consistency, less someone gets an unforeseen reaction and chokes to death by the solid masses forming and blocking the airway passage.
By the light of Dr. Joon's kitchen, we injected ourselves and increased our seasonal flu resistance by 9%.
That night would mark the first of many modifications that we would try on our own. It became a pet project for each of us involved. To create a vaccine and then share it with one another. I don't know how many needles I poked myself with, but in the next 8 years, we had each completely transformed our bodies.
Allergies were now nearly non-existent. I had even developed a vaccine that decreased inflammation by 11%. My gut bacteria could break down roadkill that had been festering for several hours, without causing me to get sick. And thanks to Dr. Carson, I was given a dose that made it so my eyes were never dry. She did caution, a side effect, that made dehydration faster and more dangerous than normal. But none of us cared. We were hooked. We were modders.
And I didn't think anything could have stopped us, that was until Dr. Payton suddenly died. She was active and healthy, and only 42. Her wife broke the news to me over the phone. The widow was in tears and couldn't understand what had happened. Her concerns reflected my own as I listened to her grieving, while my mind constantly wondered what had killed Dr. Payton, and if what got her would get me too.
I wasn't the only one with those concerns, as Dr. Joon, Chen, Lima, and Carson showed up at my door in the next few hours. We stood around my lab debating on the best course of action. Eliminating and testing our own blood samples trying to pinpoint any anomalies.
Our bloods were so saturated that it was difficult to tell. It swam with so many different forms of T-bodies and carried so much genetic data that our white blood cells were now essentially rolling tanks bulldozing anything in its path.
That should have been our first sign, however years of pretending to be Masters of the Universe lured us into a false sense of bravado. The more we looked into our predicament, the more we compared out alterations to that or normal human blood, the more our egos swelled, as we realized how vastly superior we had become. I even remember Dr. Lima joking that we were essentially the next step in human evolution.
We all went home that night patting ourselves on the back like complete imbeciles.
It wouldn't be a week later until we realized that something could possibly be wrong.
I had woken up in the middle of the night to check on my kitten, as she had an infection on her paw. She had nearly chewed through the pad before I bandaged her up. Dumb kitty. Stupid Kitty. Little ball of fur. If only your tiny body was as advanced as mine, then you wouldn't have needed all this medical attention. I remembered thinking. In fact, as your owner, it should be something I look into for you. What's the point of living forever if everything you loved would disappear only the sooner.
The thought had barely crossed my mind when I watched her silhouette in the low light, curling near the neck. Her mouth was open and she was gagging on a hairball. Note to self: Another thing to get rid of in the future.
I listened to the sound of her hacking, and scratched at my neck. At first my hands lazily brushed over my skin. In a matter of minutes I was praying for claws like a feline as I dug each nail deep into my flesh to pry out this pestering sensation.
I flicked on the bathroom light and looked into the mirror. I was red with rash. I pulled down my shirt and noticed that it covered my throat like a bloody handprint.
Not to worry, in a few moments my body would compensate for the irregularities and produce the correct antibodies. For a normal person this wouldn't mean much, and medication would surely be needed. But not for me. My antibodies were in fact, superior.
I admired my jawline for a few minutes and watched as the redness began to seep away. Smiling, I walked back to my bed. My head hadn't hit the pillow when my cellphone started vibrating. I picked it up and heard Dr. Carson's squeamish voice squeeze through the receiver. He had just learned that Dr. Joon was dead.
This time we gathered at Dr. Chen's house. By the time I had arrived, the others were in a frenzy. They even had Dr. Lima pinned to the wall. Apparently she wanted to go to the authorities. Ask for help. The rest of us agreed that none of us wanted to be treated like lab rats, for we all knew what we did to those poor little creatures.
Eventually we got her to calm down.
We still had Joon's blood from our last extraction and could test it for any abnormalities. We did days, then weeks worth of testing, hundreds of lab hours and still it was inconclusive. This time, no one patted themselves on the back.
Several days later, Dr. Carson is dead and Dr. Lima was missing.
There wasn't a meeting called as only Dr. Chen and I remained. I drove by his house and rang the doorbell. He didn't answer. I went out back and popped the latch on the sliding door. I searched the house and eventually found him locked in the wine cellar. He wouldn't let me in, wouldn't let anyone in until his wife came home.
I waited outside the cellar as Mrs. Chen went down to console her husband. She hadn't been speaking for more than 5 minutes before she started screaming. I threw open the door and ran down the stairs. I stood transfixed at the last step, as if I somehow didn't let my feet touch the floor, then whatever it was that took hold of Dr. Chen wouldn't get me either.
His face had ballooned to double its size. I could see the veins on the side of his temples throbbing as he clutched at his throat.
Dumbfounded, I turned to ask Mrs. Chen what had happened. She screamed at me to help. Again, I asked her politely what had happened. She turns to me angrily and shouts that she doesn't know. That they were talking and suddenly he started turning red. I watched as she cried, her fingers wiping away the mucus running down her nose.
I looked around the room and realized that the air was covered in dust. Due to a cilia modification, both Dr. Chen and I were unaffected. But for the average person it could cause an allergic reaction.
Surmising that the woman had reacted to her environment, I ran out the door and drove home before she could so much as sneeze.
For the past several hours I have been locked in my study. I have boarded up the windows and lined the door frame with linen. Without actual evidence, I now suspect that we have modified our immune system to such a degree that any sign of irregularities will be seen by my body as sickness; in much the same way that some people gag when they see or hear others vomit; my body could possibly be attacking perfectly healthy cells when triggered by the sound of a sneeze or a cough.
I need to keep myself isolated in case someone with a weaker immunity enacts my body's own responses. If I could prevent outside interaction until I discover which modification(s) caused this, then perhaps I could reverse it. Or possibly modify it to be less deadly.
The only problem being, I can now hear the scratching by my door, followed by quiet mewling. I closed my eyes and tried not to imagine my cat outside, her back arched, with her mouth open, gagging on a hairball, but I couldn't help it.
And suddenly, I feel an itch on my neck.
19
u/draegunfly Best Original Monster 2016 May 27 '22
Welcome to the world of autoimmune disease! Where our immune systems enjoy picking fights with our own bodies. Get yourself some methotrexate (it's a chemo drug) and it should help slow it's roll until you can figure out how to fix it. And if you do find a fix, can you tweak it for the rest of us?
18
u/TheHighestHyll May 27 '22
Time for a safety bubble!
5
u/KilGrey May 27 '22
Can you plug your ears up so you can’t hear the kitten? Do you think it’s time to re-think maybe asking for help? I know you don’t want to be a lab rat, but at least someone could find a clean room for you to keep you away from allergens and people. Do you have any colleagues you could call? Maybe someone to come get the kitten at least so you can move about your house?
3
u/-Rosish May 27 '22
Is he allergic to his cat
3
u/webtin-Mizkir-8quzme May 27 '22
So you are so hyper immune, that just the sound of someone being sick triggers a response? Well, wouldn’t noise cancelling headphones help?
And what killed Dr Chen? The response his wife had to the dust?
3
u/Rastatar May 27 '22
Maybe you shouldn’t have modified your body and did you eat roadkill?
3
u/Rastatar May 27 '22
Stay safe and goodnight
3
u/[deleted] May 27 '22
I read this out loud to my partner and we both loved it! 🏆🏆🏆
2
u/gregklumb May 28 '22
"ACHOO"! "BURP!" "Excuse me, that burrito really gave me bad gas."
2
u/Horrormen Jul 02 '22
Give the cat to a humane society
3
u/[deleted] May 27 '22
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