98.6 (first 3 pages)
The steady beeping of the Monitor slowly draws you from sleep’s gentle arms. It is morning. It has to be, since you are waking up. You’ve never been one to rise in the dead of night. But you lie in bed for a few seconds, letting the beeping Monitor next to you sooth you like a lullaby.
Beep…beep…beep…
Gradually, you become aware of the IV in your arm. It’s starting to tingle a bit, a sign you’ve slept for too long. It’s like an alarm clock, very reliable - you never oversleep these days. A few years ago, if you were tired enough, you would go too sleep without the IV, so it couldn’t wake you up in the morning by prickling. But you wouldn’t dare now. The very thought scares you. After all, you don’t have all the vaccines.
But maybe that’s a good thing.
You sit up, and open your eyes. You blink once, and then the room comes into focus. The same as you left it last night. It’s incredibly organized, if not a little bare. The carpeting is a deep shade of blue that reminds you of the night sky, and the walls are painted tan. The paint is starting to peel, but you haven’t found time to reapply it. On one wall is a large window that provides a nice view outside; but the curtains are drawn, so you can’t see anything. There’s a desk in the corner of the room, and a lamp on a small table on the right side of your bed. To the left is your Monitor, with its big black screen and mess of needles and wires and tubes. A bright green line is zigzagging across the screen in time with the Monitor’s beeps. As you carefully remove the IV from your arm, it stops, and then disappears altogether.
You shift a bit and flex your left arm. It still tingles a little - it always takes a minute or so for that to fade - but apart from that, everything seems to be all right. You feel refreshed. In a good mood, you hop out of bed, and stretch. Once that is over, you step over to the Monitor and prick your finger, then press it to a small, sensitive grey patch on the Monitor’s front side. The small drop of blood disappears, and you eagerly watch the Monitor’s screen.
Your Monitor is an amazing thing. You are so lucky to have found and taken it from one of the hospitals. It can take your temperature, provide your blood sugar, tell of any diseases or infections, and do so much more - all from a single drop of blood. Your spit can say almost as much. And of course it can do many other things- there are needles and tubes and IVs to distribute medicine and fluids, some of which you use daily; there are ice packs and ointments for treating burns and bruises; there are a bunch of mixes of medicines, vaccinations and shots you can give yourself that the Monitor provides…you never use those though - far too risky. It even responds to your voice. You don’t know how it works; some genius invented it a year or so before the Epidemic. Most of the Monitors are no longer in use. But you use yours all the time.
The Monitor buzzes for a few seconds, and then the results appear on its screen. But of course, before anything is reported, the Monitor must go through it’s morning routine:
Date: Wednesday, September 21st, 2020. Time: 7:36 A.M. Test Results as following…
First, it measures your blood sugar. It’s normal, no surprise; it always is - you were never diabetic. After exactly three seconds the Monitor moves on; it knows not to dwell on your blood sugar.
Next, it gives you a report on your general health according to your blood. You pay a lot more attention to this test - sickness is one of your greatest worries. But the Monitor reports everything is well. You have none of the standard sicknesses. But that doesn’t mean you are healthy, however.
You bite the inside of your lip, and wait for the next result, the most important of them all. Your temperature. To your relief, the Monitor reports it as 98.6 - normal. You relax. You’re fine. Healthy as a horse.
You worry the most about your temperature, because it is one of the only warnings of the Virus. The Monitor cannot detect the Virus - because it’s slow and deadly, like a predator, and it doesn’t exactly have any symptoms. Well, it does have symptoms - but not physical symptoms. For example, when one gets the flu, he or she might have a sore throat or a runny nose. But there is nothing like this for the Virus. It is unlike any other disease out there. It preys on the brain. All the symptoms are mental. One experiences minor visual or auditory hallucinations. They get worse as time goes on, driving the victim to insanity and many times death. Perhaps the earliest symptom of the Virus is the rise of one’s temperature.
Most people do not believe the Virus exists. But then again, most people nowadays have the Virus, so you have learned to pretty much ignore what they say and to take great care out in the streets.
You told them all, told the world about the Virus eight years ago. But did they listen? No, of course not. They thought you were mad. After all, they had cured every other illness, from the common cold to cancer. No one believed you when you said all the vaccines were creating a new disease, one more deadly than anything else the world had seen yet. So no action was taken, and the world gradually succumbed, until almost everyone had the Virus, whether it was in its early or late stages. But not you - you were smart. You never got those vaccinations.
But the Virus is contagious. Not incredibly contagious, but it can be spread. So you must be careful.
You dream of finding a cure, but since you have no medical training (it took you long enough to master working the Monitor alone), you have been unsuccessful. Sometimes you would find a weaker Victim and take them home. You would sedate them and lay them down on a table, while trying out whatever supposed remedy you had created using the Monitor’s medications. Mixing various fever medicines did nothing, and the headache relievers weren’t any better. You tried everything sensible, and then started reluctantly mixing multiple medicines but many times, that just ended up strengthening the Virus or killing the Victim. You even went as far as to try collecting plants from the woods outside city limits. Herbal dictionary in hand, you tried boiling leaves, chopping up roots, and even once mixing fever medicine and mint (bad idea). Nothing seemed to have a lasting effect, however.
Sometimes you wonder why you even bother to keep trying.
The Monitor beeps once again, jerking you back to the present. The screen still reads your temperature, but new larger, white words have appeared below it:
Testing complete. Finish?
You sigh, and tell the Monitor that that will be all for this morning. You have things you would like to get done. Working on the cure is always a priority, but you also want to head over to The Shop today. You’re fresh out of bread and milk, and it would also be nice to get some new clothes. You’re getting a bit sick of your current ones. Maybe you could even find some time to repaint your house, if you could find any paint. The color doesn’t really matter much - paint is so hard to come by these days, any color will do.
Another sigh, and you begrudgingly begin to ready yourself. Hair combed back (more from comfortable routine than need to impress), teeth brushed (toothpaste is one thing you have an abundance of, thanks to the Monitor), face washed. You dress in your usual going-outside clothes. You’re so sick of them; long black pants, a dark grey shirt, and once fancy, now faded, boots have become almost a uniform for you. You find bright colors both alert and scare the Victims, making staying hidden rather difficult - so you try to avoid those unless you plan to spend all of your time indoors. Once dressed, you retrieve from the hook that it hangs on the final piece of your outfit - a long black trench coat that falls to your knees and buttons up. You slip clean white gloves onto your hands and place a large black top hat on your head. Although the gloves are to keep your hands warm, the top hat serves little purpose; it’s really more of a fashion statement. You feel important with your top hat on. Finally, you tie a white handkerchief around your mouth to act as a mask. Ironically enough, the Monitor lacks to provide you with something as simple as a mask to protect you from airborne diseases, so you must make do as best you can.
Then, you look yourself over in the cracked mirror on your bedroom one more time. Satisfied, you exit your bedroom.
The rest of your house is not much to look at. You bedroom is the only room with the pretty blue carpeting - once you leave, the ground turns to a boring brown, while the walls remain that same dull beige.
You have gradually come to hate beige - everything you see these days is beige. Your walls. Your carpet. The dusty streets outside. Even the sky is beige half the time. It would probably be more practical to wear beige rather than black when going outside - you’d blend in better - but you decided a long time ago that you would never again wear the color again, you see so much of it. Besides, half of the Victims are too far gone to really pay any attention to anything but themselves and their visions anyway.
You make your way through your disorganized house, finally entering the outside world through you front door.