Life-After (15 page)

I tried to create a world where your souls could be at peace, be happy, but as I soon found many of you were too unstable to accept it. Ethan was the first. A so-called man of science who could not accept the world I had created for him. Back then I allowed your kind much more freedoms and control. He used that freedom to shatter his world. He wanted to escape, but it was not possible. All he succeeded in doing was to cause damage to what I had created harming his fellow man.

Once Ethan realized he could not free himself he created his own reality somehow mirroring the events that were happening on earth. Even I could not understand how he was able to do this and as such could not easily correct it. I was content to allow him to have his little world that was until he began to draw others to it. He took the woman I loved and her life energy was lost in the process. I realized how dangerous Ethan was and moved to stop him. I thought I had corrected the error, but clearly, I was mistaken.”

“
You killed him!” Clara shouted. “You destroyed him when you destroyed his world.”

Richard waved his hands and in an instant Clara’s body disappeared. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. I felt the rage inside me explode. A rush of energy flowed through my body. I regained feeling and movement and rushed forward grabbing hold of Richard, lifting him into the air by the throat.

“
Where is she?” I screamed trying to squeeze the life out of him. “What did you do to her?”

“
Impossible.” Richard stammered.

The energy flowing through me faded. My body went weak. I released Richard dropping to my knees. A searing pain radiated throughout my body. It felt as if it were on fire. I fell onto my side and looked up at Richard as I fought to remain conscious. His surprised look had returned.

“
You will be with her soon enough.” Richard said. “You cannot remain here, you are tainted. It is true, I destroyed Ethan but there was another who took his place. I wanted to spare your species, but I see now it is not possible. I will feed your life energy along with Clara’s to my lord, all of it. Then I do the same with the remaining souls here. You are not worthy of an afterlife, you are barley worthy of being food.”

With those final words Richard faded away returning all to darkness. I could feel nothing, no presence, no life. As the last of my energy faded away I did not think about myself. I had led Richard to Clara and failed her once again. My life had revolved around helping others, fighting for the betterment of humanity, but in the end I was the cause of it losing its second change at existence. Pain and loss was all I had known in life and it would be the last thing I knew in death.

9

I could see Clara’s face in my mind. The expression on it, the fear, she was trying to tell me something before Richard took her from me. I wanted my death to come quickly, if death was even possible. Trapped in a black void with no physical feeling all I had were my thoughts and memories and they all haunted me.

My thoughts turned to my childhood, more specifically my time at Alpha Medical. The darkness, the lack of all feeling, the wanting to die, I had felt that way before. The facility I was raised in was known as The Campus. The alliance government felt it was in their best interest to raise all their orphans to become soldiers or other productive members of the Alliance. At the time all I thought about were my parents and how they would soon come and take me away, but in time I realized that day would never come.

The other children there came from many different situations though most were children of soldiers who were killed. There were many gifted children who would grow up to become important players in the global government. We were all tested, mentally and physically when we arrived and placed into groups of ten which they called QUAD’s for some reason I never figured out.

Because of my high tests scores I was placed in QUAD seven. I wanted nothing to do with their system and chose to keep a low profile, but even at age nine the other children were masters of hacking into the campus computer system. They accessed each other’s folders to compare and brag on what was written there. When they discovered my parent’s so-called defection I was ostracized and considered a traitor by the other members of my QUAD.

I did not care. To me being thought of as an outcast allowed me to keep my distance from the others. I did not want to accept my place as one of them. For me I was beyond them because I did not feel I belonged there. When one of them would get too close I would show them what else I was good at, fighting. After a few bloodied noses the others stayed away and that was the extent of the peace I would have.

The staff at the campus taught us their version of our history, revisionist at best. They blamed the Federation for the start of the war and the constant escalations. It was clearly propaganda, but with many of the children there having parents that were killed by Federation troops it was easy to convince them. They would organize activities to teach team skills and how to follow orders. The campus was not a clear path to the military but it was about as close as you would get without joining the C.O.R.E school.

I would perform any task given to me even the ones where I would have to work with others. I was not the best but I never caused the team to lose which in the end would infuriate them more. We would win a competition and I would simply walk away unwilling to celebrate with the team even if I was instrumental in the victory. Again many fights would result from this and I was more than willing engage them, it brought me pleasure.

My fights were not confined to those only in my age group. I would fight people five years my senior and even though I would sometimes come out of it bloodied and beaten I would always be victorious. In time it became who I was, a nine year old kid taking on all challengers in the field behind the gymnasium.

All of that changed not long after my tenth birthday. The campus held their annual games where the QUADs would compete against one another in a series of events. Our QUAD was heavily favored in the testing portions of the competition and I was heavily favored in the martial arts and boxing competitions.

The morning began normal enough, but a few hours before the boxing match I felt lethargic. Shawn, my coach, believed it was mental, but gave me a vitamin boost just to be safe. It helped for an hour or so but by the time the match came around the feeling had returned. Normally I would have quit. I did not really care if I won a medal or not and surely did not care about the QUAD but my first opponent was from QUAD six, a kid named Rictor.

Rictor was thirteen and originally part of QUAD seven that was until I discovered he cheated on his entrance exam. He would have been removed from the campus entirely but his father was Dante Reese, a hero to the alliance. He was moved to QUAD six which was nick named the dentition QUAD because most of its members had at one time or another been on corrective action. It infuriated Rictor that I, a so-called traitor, was the one who exposed him and he hated me ever since.

Any thoughts of throwing in the towel were destroyed as soon as I saw his name. We had fought a number of times but like me Rictor would never give up. There had never been a fight that came to a completion between us. It was always broken up by a teacher or security. Perhaps a ten and thirteen year old boxing match was nothing to the upper classmen but to those in twelve pre-teen QUADs it was a major event.

The adrenaline rush I had approaching the ring masked any weakness I had felt before. The gym was packed full of children from all the QUADs. Even some of the upper classmen attended to see what the fuss was all about. As I stepped into the ring Shawn asked me to look at him. I guess he wanted to see into my eyes and make sure I was ready. All I wanted was to put Rictor on his back and end our rivalry once and for all. Whatever look I gave my coach was more than enough for him to allow me to proceed.

Rictor approached me looking just as determined as I did. It was not to be a fight about two competing QUADs; this was about him and me. As the referee read off the rules I blocked out the sound of the crowd. I could only hear my own heartbeat.

The bell rang and I stepped forward thrusting my arm toward him with all my might. Rictor did not expect me to come out swinging, it was never my style. Rictor attempted to side step to avoid the contact but I was too quick. My fist connected squarely in the center of his chest.

Time slowed to a crawl. Something was wrong. My arm went numb. I felt my fist make contact and then nothing. I looked up into Rictor’s eyes, he was in shock, but unhurt. My punch had no effect on him. I did not understand why until my vision blurred. Every ounce of energy drained out of my body. My knees buckled and my eyes darted around like a fly trapped in a bottle. I was wide open and no one besides Rictor knew something was seriously wrong with me.

My mind screamed at my body to move, but I was frozen. A sadistic smile formed on Rictor’s face as he reared back his left arm to hit me. There was nothing I could do but watch as Rictor’s fist barreled towards me. He put everything into that punch, it did not matter to him that I was defenseless. His eyes told that much and more. His fist struck me in the center of my face, but I did not feel the impact. My blurred vision flashed into darkness, the sound of the crowd, of everything faded into nothingness.

The darkness seemed to last forever. I had no dreams or visions, a pure void, no sound. Slowly over time I could hear a beeping, it came every six seconds. After a while it was driving me mad. I wanted to scream, to do anything to wake up but it was useless. In time the darkness began to lessen, it was as if a light was turned on and slowly brightened from its lowest setting. Eventually I could see a blurred outline and the sounds I heard made sense. I was in a hospital.

The first face I saw was Shawn’s. He told me I was at Alpha Medical the Alliance’s research and scientific hospital. His tone was somber, even as a child it sounded as if he was explaining to me that someone close to me was dying. I could barely speak but Shawn could tell I just wanted to know what happened. When he told me I had been in a coma for six weeks I began crying uncontrollably. Information was always given to us straight with no sugar-coating regardless of our age. In the past I liked it that way, but hearing Shawn’s words made me wish there was someone there to sweeten them, to comfort me.

I was in a private room surrounded by equipment I had never seen before. Tubes and wires were connected to every part of my body. It was so cold and a dull pain radiated throughout my body. I was so thirsty and the small amount of water the nurse placed on my lips did little to quench it.

Shawn sat with me until my QUAD leader and a doctor who I did not know entered the room. I knew long before they opened their mouths that whatever had happened to me was critical. They both stood by my bedside. Jonas, my QUAD leader just looked at me as if I were a leper. I wished I could have screamed at him to leave.

The doctor introduced himself as Henry Flag, lead doctor and researcher for cellular disorders. The title alone nearly frightened me to death. I was told I had a disease that affected my mitochondria. They told me the name but it was much too hard to pronounce much less remember. They explained to me that mitochondria are the cellular power planets for the human body because they generate most of the cell's supply of adenosine triphosphate which is used as a source of chemical energy.

In addition, Doctor Flag stated that recently it was discovered a secondary form of energy was found to be created from mitochondria. He did not elaborate but stated that in some human beings the secondary energy would interact with every cell in the human body. Most of the time nothing would result from this, but in very rare cases a human can develop additional cellular energy and the ability to push themselves to a limit higher than normal human beings.

In my case something within my cells were draining me of energy causing my weakness and other affects to my body. They told me they believed it was hereditary and likely passed on to me by my mother. I was brought to Alpha Medical because the local doctors had limited information on my disease. Doctor Flag had studied the disease and the primary and secondary energy production within mitochondria.

The treatment was experimental and dangerous. This was made extremely clear by Jonas, Shawn and Doctor Flag, but it was the only chance I had to be normal. Otherwise, I would be bedridden for the rest of my life. It was a choice that had no choice. I was not willing to have my story end in a hospital bed. There was no one else to make the final decision for me. The decision was mine and I choose to proceed.

Over the next six months I was subjected to countless tests. At first I would ask whenever they would inject something into my I.V. or scan me with a device, after the umpteenth time I did not care anymore and frankly did not want to know. It was during that time the physical and mental pain I had endured proved useful as the pain of the tests and treatments were nearly unbearable.

One night Doctor Flag entered my room alone. By then most of the equipment was removed from my room as the treatment was going well. I was able to move with seventy percent of my normal energy and after months of painful treatments and setbacks I was more than grateful just for that. Flag sat on the edge of my bed looking out my window into the night sky. He was quiet, in deep thought. I believed at first he had bad news to tell me until he turned to me and smiled.

“
We have reached an impasse, David.” Doctor Flag said. “From here you can go back to the campus and live a relatively normal life or we can go beyond that.”