Gold’s Coffee House, third bench outside the front entrance along the vine-covered windows, 11:00am. One hour after my Applied Mathematics lecture in the morning and one hour before my afternoon lecture in Biology. The perfect spot in the day. The perfect part of my daily routine. And I got to spend it in perfect company. Mariana Torres. We'd been dating for a short while. Two months, three weeks and four days. Not too long, and yet it has felt like a lifetime - but in a good way. And perfect company she truly was. I mean, just the sight of her was great. The golden brown skin, the dark yet vibrant hair, the calming hazel eyes. Every inch of her is as close to perfect as one could wish for. And her character matches her looks too, I can attest to that. I got accepted into Manus University a year early. Navigating through the best and most prestigious university in all of Renyland at the tender age of seventeen is a big ask for anyone, even me. But Mariana made sure I got settled in properly. I don’t know what I would have done without her. Buying coffee for her every morning is the least I could do. It’s not like it’s a chore either, I want to. These mornings were the best part of my week.
But our weekly coffee date was soon brought to a close. I look up to the sun-shiny sky, only to be greeted by a different kind of yellow entity. The mist.
Initially we do nothing but stare up at it. A strange occurrence but not a concerning one right? Wrong. I count not even a minute passed in my head until I see people all over campus violently desperate to kill each other. My dear girlfriend, Mariana being one of them. She lunges at me, knocking me off the table and smashing my glass to the floor. Mariana tries to wring my neck and crush my windpipe, but I manage to throw her off and turn the fight in my favour. Now I’m the one about to crush a windpipe.
It takes me to this point in this series of events to realise that none of this is real. This…this is a nightmare, I must have contracted Khalil’s ‘nonsensical recurring dream’ disease. This isn’t how the memory went down in reality. I had long graduated Manus University by the time the mist had come around. And I had long broken up with Mariana by that point too. When the mist came I was on my own. I had gone on a break from my work at the lab and wanted to visit home. A few days later and my parents would come back to the county. What happened instead was I remained on my own, holed up in my house, waiting for all the horrors in the msit to blow over. Except it never did.
But for some reason the dream always goes down this way instead. With the mist taking place at university. And with Mariana attacking me. I’m not sure what my subconscious is trying to tell me, but whatever it is, I don’t want to know. I know how this dream goes. I remember it all too well. It won't end until I kill her. I have to look into her eyes and kill her.
So I do it. I look Mariana straight into her beautifully brown eyes and I kill her, ruining her amazing face with a bludgeoning series of blows. I’ve had this dream so frequently that I don’t even feel anything anymore when I get to this part. No remorse, no sorrow. I just want it to end out of soulless irritation. And so it does. But this time, rather abruptly.
I'm rocked awake by the jumping and jolting of the car. We’re driving somewhere, and fast. Where could we be possibly going at this ungodly hour?! As soon as I open my eyes, I look out of the window of the passenger seat to see that wherever we're going, we're getting there at insane speeds. I dart my eyes over to see Khalil, his foot glued to the gas and hands glued to the wheel, like a nervous learner who has never driven before. He presses the car forward as he drives through field to field to abandoned town to abandoned town. I look back to see Cameron and Lysandra cramped in the middle of the backseats. To either side of them are Grace and Michael who symmetrically and simultaneously stick their heads and pistol-wielding arms out of the window as they shoot back at something. I stick my head out of my own window to see what they are shooting at. I'm met with six other groups of people in cars, motorbikes and trucks speeding their way after us. Some of these people shoot back.
I retract my head back into the car and return to gripping the sides of my seats. What the hell did I just wake up to?!
"What's going on?!" I exclaim, double checking my seatbelt is fastened in case I end up flying through the windshield due to Khalil’s driving.
Khalil takes one second to look over at me, opening his mouth to explain. His attention is hastily directed back at the road once he starts hitting the bumps on a hill he drives down. I think I’ll leave him to his driving. I turn back to look at Cameron and Lysandra who remain cramped between Grace and Michael, who remain guns blazing.
“Who’s coming after us?” I ask them.
“You know how we were marked as the group in first place?” Lysandra reminds me.
“Yes?”
“I don’t think the rest of the land wants it to stay that way.” says Cameron.
It’s that bad already? I knew it was bad when we had to sleep in the car cause there were people scouting for us outside Michael’s house, but this? This is ridiculous.
“Grace! Michael!” shouts Khalil. “Get your heads back in! Now!”
“Why?!” Grace shouts back as she shoots.
Khalil swerves his way left of the field and into the limits of a smalltown. He bombs the car past a destroyed town hall and onto a sidestreet. Grace and Michael both squeeze their heads back in the car, just in time for Khalil to drive down an alleyway. Just in time. The alley barely has enough space for the car to go down it, nevermind those two with their heads out of it.
“Holy shit!” shouts Grace as she settles back into the car, holding her chest as she gasps. Michael on the other hand laughs at the prospect of him almost having his head permanently separated from his body. Michael’s laughter proves contagious as Grace joins in. The two of them chuckle together so incessantly you would’ve thought they were Joker and Harley Quinn. I’m still not sure about how I feel with Michael now being part of the group. He’s clearly shown to have had his uses, but he’s a dangerous character for us to associate with. But progress towards the cure is progress towards the cure. If he can help us potentially carve a future out of all of this, then all he’s done in the past and all he’s doing now won’t matter.
“Where are we going?” asks Lysandra. I for one would also like to know where we’re going.
“Anywhere.” answers Khalil. “Anywhere that will let us lose the rest of them.”
I check the rear-view mirror and see that only two of the six vehicles are still following. That’s progress at least. I see Lysandra looking out of the window with slimmed focused eyes. She watches the town go by us as we drive. She seems to pay attention less to the destroyed buildings that make up the town and more to the dead bodies that scatter it. Her face is plagued with a sorrowful disgust.
“We’ve travelled through so much of the county.” she comments cheerlessly. “But no matter where we go, it’s all the same.”
“Pretty sure it’s like this all over the world. Not just here.” I remind her.
“I know.” sighs Lysandra. “It’s still not nice to see.”
No. It’s not nice to see at all. As Khalil continues to drive through the wrecked town and onwards I continue to check on the cars that follow us. Now only one remains on our tail. But even then this one is slowing down.
“Looks like they’ve gotten bored.” snides Michael, noticing the same thing I did.
“Really?” asks Grace, sticking her head back out of the window to check. “Oh shit you’re right?”
“Are you sure?” asks Khalil.
“Yeah, they backed off!” confirms Grace.
Khalil slows down his driving. They have in fact backed off, but something tells me they didn’t do it cause they were bored. Khalil takes a moment to turn around and inspect the cars backing off for himself. In the split second he does so, I catch wind of exactly why our perpetrators were backing off. The drop off to a cliff.
“Khalil! Cliff!” I scream, snapping his attention back towards what’s ahead.
Khalil halts down the car in time to not send us barrelling off of the cliff.
“Shit!” screams Cameron as we slowly tip over. Shit indeed.
The six of us stew in simultaneous panic and awe as we drop off of the cliff. The car clatters and clangs as it plunges down from grass to rock. Though the yelling of the group as it does so is louder.
The drop ends up being way shorter than we expected, the bottom of the car slamming down onto another lower ledge of the cliff. The car shakes as it plants itself on the rocky ground below. I smack my head on the top of the car’s roof, leaving me in a daze as the car starts to settle down. Better than plummeting to our death though.
“Jesus!” gasps Lysandra. “I thought we dropped off of a cliff!”
“We did.” corrects Khalil. He points down the ledge below us. There’s less than half a foot of ledge between the right side of our car and a monumental drop off into water. If Khalil hadn't stopped in time, we would have sunk the car and ourselves with it.
“That’s not good.” says Cameron.
“Everyone get out from Grace’s side.” orders Khalil, immediately. You don’t have to tell me twice.
One by one we all leave the car out of the left door, taking as many bags of weapons and supplies as we can possibly carry. Thankfully the ledge isn’t too high to climb out of. With a little effort and a helping hand the rest of us climb back up to the grassy top we fell off of. We all stand together on the top of the cliff, looking down at our car that remains there.
“How are we gonna get it back up?” asks Grace.
“We don’t.” says Khalil. “At least not for now.”
“Then what are we doing ‘for now’?” asks Michael.
Khalil and I look around the general area. There’s nothing to see here apart from the ghost-town we had just sped through. We’re not exactly spoilt for choice in terms of pressing forward. Especially without a car.
“We’ll search through that town. Try and find a new vehicle, and if not a place to post up for the while.” dictates Khalil. “How does that sound?”
“Fine, I guess.” grumbles Michael. Like I said, we're not spoiled for choice.
The six of us march together as we re-enter the town. Not that long of a journey. Would have been better by car though. As we walk into the town, I observe all the members of our group. I like to make an effort of studying the state everyone is in regularly. I need to make sure that everyones acting right if we want to succeed in our future cure-achieving ventures.
I start by looking over at Grace and Michael, who might as well be joint at the hip with how closely they stay together whilst they walk. Those two have gotten extremely chummy with each other. It’s pretty much been that way ever since Michael joined. I felt the car rocking slightly whilst I was trying to sleep last night and I’m half-sure that their ‘chuminess’ is responsible. I hope to God I was wrong. I’m not a fan of their partnership. Ever since Grace’s Uncle Bradely died she’s been acting strange. She mourned for a little, but not even up to a few hours later, she just switched back to acting like she usually would But it’s like she’s trying to be that way on purpose, like she’s forcing herself to act this way again. Except even her usual self wasn’t as rash and impulsive as she’s been recently. And Michael’s presence is only encouraging her to be more like this. Well, at least she’s kind of happy.
I look over to Cameron and Lysandra. The ‘weak’ ones of the group. Lysandra seems battered and beaten. Less so physically, the princess still manages to look great without a few days of showers. I mean mentally. She wasn’t kidding when she said she’s spent most of her post-mist days holed up in that mansion. Cause she looks almost broken from all the stuff she’s seen so far. Not only that but the stuff about her Dad. I still don’t know whether any of that stuff was true. And I don’t know how to respond if it is. On one hand even if it is true, it's not her fault, not like she oversaw her father’s company. On the other hand, she’s connected to it. That was enough for McKeown’s crew to try and kill her. She’s the closest thing alive to a person responsible for all of this if that’s the case. That’s sure to break someone up inside.
Cameron on the other hand, should be used to seeing things like this. He’s been quiet, even more so than usual. I think he’s trying to keep a low-profile, especially since that whole debt with Declan incident. I’d be quiet too. Luckily for him we have too much going on to think about that anymore. But I doubt Khalil’s forgotten about that completely.
Khalil. Save the best for last. He’s the one who seems to be coping the best, the person who has been operating the most efficiently. But it’s for that exact reason that I worry about him. I think he’s starting to throw himself too much into getting us the cure. It’s fueled his already violent obsession with ‘protecting’ the group. That shit he pulled to deal with McKeown is the perfect example of what I mean. That hero complex of his could get him killed one day. Hopefully it’s not before we get that cure off of Dubois.
Speaking of that, first place. I can’t believe we’re in first place. Goddamn do I want that cure so bad. I need to get my hands on it, I need to. Once we do, I can help build something. Like I said, the world can heal. I need to make sure the world can heal.
“Oi, look!” calls out Khalil, stopping our walk. He points ahead of us to a large building another short walk away. Not just any building, but a shopping centre, a surprisingly intact shopping centre. Capital County Marketplace in all its glory.
“What, you thinking of us posting up here?” asks Cameron. Khalil nods.
“Are you sure?” asks Lysandra. “There might be pe-
“It’ll do.” I say, leading the walk back to the supermarket. Beggars can’t be choosers, let's make the most of it.
I part open what used to be the automatic entrance of the shopping centre. With the door open we’re greeted to the entire ground floor of the marketplace. The slick cream-coloured marble floors below us, the entrances to other stores aligned to the left and right of us and in front of us, the elevators that lead you to the cinema. The lights are off, making it darker and dimmer than what I remember But just looking at it is still refreshing. It reminds me of the world's previous normality. It reminds me of what I want to build back to.
But the best thing about this place, is that it is calm and quiet. I don’t see not a single other group or person to disturb us. Us beggars have chosen well.
“Look at all of this!” marvells Michael. He spins around taking a gander at all the different stores. There’s still quite a lot of stuff in each of these shops.
“I know.” says Khalil. “We can easily replenish our stock.”
Replenish we can. Seems like great minds think alike. Michael turns to Grace with a cheeky grin stretched across his face.
“You want to go explore?” he asks her.
“Fuck yeah!” responds Grace.
Grace and Michael run away from the group together, like giddy rebellious school kids.
“Be careful!” Khalil shouts over to them. “Meet back by the escalators in twenty minutes.”
Whether they heard him or not, they don’t look back, sprinting into a closed-off old food court to the left of us. Khalil shakes his head in disappointment. All of a sudden, Khalil clutches his head. His eyes squint and he grits his teeth so hard you’d think he was trying to grind them into dust. He’s probably still hurting from both his beatings yesterday. I’m surprised he was well enough to even drive in the first place. Lysandra is the first to rush to his aid, laying a comfortable hand on his head and shoulders.
“Are you okay?” asks Lysandra.
“Not feeling the best to be honest.” Khalil admits.
“I think there’s a pharmacy in one of the shops.” says Lysandra. “I know a little first aid, I can look over any injuries you have
“I’d appreciate that.” says Khalil, nodding his head weakly. With her hand on his back, Lysandra corrals Khalil further down the marketplace and towards the
“Like I said, replenish supplies meet back at the escalators.” Khalil shouts back at us with as much energy as he can manage. “No longer than twenty minutes from now.”
I nod at Khalil as I watch them walk away. I look to Cameron.
“The couples have gone. Looks like it’s just you and me.” I say to him.
“Yeah.” Cameron chuckles. “Where do you want to go?”
My eyes survey the market place again. I think it would be wise to keep away from the escalators. Stay on the ground floor like rest. I spot a large shop at the end of the floor layout. The End-Shop. A supermarket within the supermarket. From the front of the shop alone I see fruit and veg stalls, stands of packaged junk food, bottled water and even some clothes. All we could ask for.
“How about here? Looks good.” I tell Cameron as I point towards the End-Shop.
“It does look good.” agrees Cameron. That’s settled.
Cameron and I walk towards the End-Shop. Not even three steps into the shop and I’ve already filled most of my backpack with as much as I can. This shop is like a goldmine. We won’t have to worry about rations for a while after this. Like a kid in a candy store I dash and grab for everything that I can. Water? Check. Sandwiches? Check. Apples? Check. Salt and vinegar crisps? Might as well add that to the bag - check.
“Look at all this food!” I celebrate as I look back at Cameron. But when I do I see he is no longer by my side. Where’s he gone off to now? I look over the rest of the store for him. He’s not at the baked goods aisle, or the shirts and shoes one. I hear his footsteps however, treading somewhere around the frozen food aisle at the very back of the shop. What is he doing there? Surely not looking for more rations? Does he think we’re about to cook frozen pizza’s over a fire-pit?
“Cameron, what you doing over there?” I shout over at him.
“Um…Isabelle?” calls Cameron. “Come look at this.”
I don’t like the tone of Cameron’s voice. Why couldn’t he just tell me what he’s looking at? Whatever he’s looking at right now, is either really shocking, really interesting, hard to explain, or all three. Let’s find out.
As I make my way down to one of the frozen food aisles the first thing I see is Cameron. Speechless, he points towards the very back of the store where it leads to a storage room.
“What…the fuck…” is all I can utter as I look past Cameron. As I look into the storage room I’m met with a small community of dozens of young people dressed in tattered and torn clothes. The youngest of them being toddlers, the oldest of them being no older than eighteen. They look dirty, tired and deathly afraid. One of the kids, approximately six I’d guess, tugs on one of the older girls for support. The woman looks down at him and back up at us. It takes her some time to build up the courage to even make eye contact with me.
“He- hello…” says the girl quietly. She can barely get the words out as well. “Are you here to help or hurt?”
Cameron and I stare at each other. What the hell did we just stumble upon?
A few minutes pass by and I’m sat on boxes in a damp, depressing storage room. I look around to see the other members of the tattered and torn youth group go about their day. Some eat food, some clean up the area, others talk amongst each other. But most, can’t help but stare me down, as well as Cameron who sits right next to me. The two of us are sat across from two of the older members of the group. Cameron across from the woman who just let us in, and me across from a new face from the back of the group. A man, a tall man. A tall strong looking man, slightly older than the rest, early twenties, about my age if I were to guess. His age isn’t the only thing about him that differs from the rest. Though as dirty and dishevelled as the rest, he’s not as scared or even anxious in the slightest. In fact, he seems to have more energy. A strong disposition about him. For one, he has no problem with looking me in the eye.
“I’m Adam and this is Eva.” he says, introducing himself, then the girl next to him. “And this is our group.”
Adam waves his arms in a grand gesture, collectively introducing us to the gang of hermits who had been eyeballing us viciously since we came in here. Wait, did they just say their names were Adam and…Eva? Adam and Eva. They’ve got to be pulling our legs right now.
“Um…I’m Cameron and this is Isabelle.” greets Cameron. He offers up a handshake to Adam and Eva, to which they both graciously accept. I, on the other hand, refrain from doing so. They may have let us in here, but I'm not one to exchange pleasantries so readily. Not yet at least. At least, not until I can trust them more. They look weak but looks can be deceiving.
“So, Cameron and Isabelle.” he starts off, looking at me in particular. “Are you going to answer our question?”
“What question exactly?” I ask him. I realise the tone of my voice is a little demanding. Perhaps I should work on that. Adam straightens up his posture. I see a slight change in his facial expression, like I’m irritating him, but he doesn’t want to make it clear.
“Are you here to help? Or are you here to hurt?” he asks us.
A weird line of questioning if you ask me. Not many people in this world are still here to help. And if we were here to hurt, wouldn’t we just hurt them immediately without having to announce our intention of doing so? I’m not sure what he’s trying to get at here.
“Neither.” I answer.
“What do you mean neither?” asks Eva, starting to panic.
Adam is quick to place a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. Can see who holds all the cards from a mile away.
“Neither you say?” questions Adam.
“Yes, neither.” I emphasise “We came in here looking for supplies and rations. We had no reason to believe you’d be here in the first place. Obviously.”
Adam smiles and nods his head, chuckling quietly. Eva joins him in chuckling, as does Cameron in what I can only assume is an attempt to ease the tension. Again, I don’t reciprocate any social pleasantries. I like the tension exactly how it is.
“So you’re not here to hurt us? Lucky us.” laughs Adam.
“Yeah lucky you guys indeed.” I say.
Adam continues to smile at me. There’s a slight twitch in his eyes as he looks me up and down. I know what he’s doing. He’s still trying to assess me. Monitoring my every movement to see if my words match my body language and catching me out if they don’t . It’s what I’ve been doing to him the entire time.
“So…what is this place?” asks Cameron, breaking the silence.
“What do you mean?” Eva asks back.
“As in like, what do you do here?” Cameron asks again.
“We live.” says Adam. “And prosper.”
I take a quick look into one of the corners of the rooms. I see a couple of kids next to a damp mouldy corner, playing with salami sticks like they’re action figures. That doesn’t exactly look like prospering. Then again who are we to judge, we just spent the night sleeping in our car and the morning dropping off of a cliff.
“Prosper?” I question him. “How so?”
“Well for one, we’re safer than most of the land.” interjects Eva. “We don’t involve ourselves”.
“In what?” asks Cameron.
“In the dealings of the land.” explains Adam. “The fighting, the stealing, the politics.”
“Yes, in none of that.” insists Eva. “And we built a small community of people who felt the same.”
Eva waves at some of the kids in the corner. One of the kids waves his salami action figure back at her. That’s actually kind of adorable to be honest.
“But what about the mist?” I Cameron asks them. “Doesn’t it give you…urges?”
“I guess.” states Adam. “But it affects everyone differently. We just find the people who weren’t as affected…”
“Convenient.” I snark. Adam lets the comment pass with another forced closed mouth chuckle. Seems like everything happens to check out here. But there’s still a few more lines of questioning I want to take them on before I’m settled.
“If you don’t ‘get involved’ with anything then how do you stay safe? How do you protect yourself?” I interrogate them. “How do you stop anyone from wandering in here like we did, except with the intent to hurt you?”
“This isn’t our only place to stay.” says Eva. “We showed up here a few days ago and we’re going to leave it for another settlement a few days later. A week at most.”
“And if we wanted to hide from you, we would.” says Adam.
“And yet you weren't with us.” I state further.
“I didn’t think we needed to.” explains Adam. “Cameron over here has kind eyes. When I saw him in the aisle I knew I could trust him and whoever he came here with.”
Cameron lets on another awkward chuckle. I nod slowly. Alright, I suppose that explains it.Now it’s time for the other line of questioning.
“Dubois’ race for the cure.” I state bluntly. “Have you heard about it?”
“We have.” answers Eva. “And what about it?”
“You’re probably not involved in that either.” I guess. “Why’s that?”
“Where to start?” asks Adam. “The violence, the danger, the whole fucked up nature of it all?”
“It’s strange you even had to ask.” asserts Eva.
Adam and Eva laugh with each other. I don’t remember the part where I told a joke but alright. Adam and Eva continue to laugh at each other , this time Cameron doesn’t join them and just sends me a blank look. Even he’s getting tired of all of this. Adam stops in the middle of his laughing campaign, taking notice of how disgruntled we look. He turns his attention away from Eva and back to us. He quietens down, relaxing his body language to a stand-still. His eyes zone in on me specifically. I feel a great deal of intensity resonate off of him. Not sure if I like this or not, but it sure is something.
“Isabelle.” he says quietly.
“Yes?” I respond wearily.
“Do you want to know the actual reason as to why we’re not involved in Dubois’ race for the cure?”
Eva’s body language and demeanour boldly stiffens to match Adam’s. It’s like those words flicked a switch in her. The tension in the room right now is thick enough to cut with a knife.
“Yes.” I answer them, trying to speak as carefully as possible. “I would like to know.”
Adam and Eva nod in unison. They get from the storage boxes and walk together to the end of the backroom, turning towards a dark corner and out of our sights and towards a dark co
“I think we’re supposed to follow them.” advises Cameron.
“Right…” I say to him.
Cameron and I follow them around the corner and past stacks of backroom inventory. They walk down another corner, leaving our sights again. I know from my time here that whenever I’m led somewhere where I have to come around a corner, I’m going to be faced with something unbelievable. And you know what? As I do eventually turn the corner, I am soon proven exactly right.
Adam and Eva present Cameron and I to a makeshift medical room occupying the space at the end of the storage unit. On it is a table with a man hooked to a series of drips. But that’s not the strangest part. It isn’t the dodgy medical apparatus attached to the man that intrigues me, but the man himself. From just looking at him, this man can be no younger than fifty years old. And yet despite all of this, his chest moves up and down slightly, meaning he’s still breathing…
If this is what I think this is, then it’s huge. Huge. Fucking huge!
I clench my teeth, trying to stop myself from looking like a gaping mouthed excited idiot. But I don’t do it quick enough. Adam notices and laughs. He puts one hand around my shoulder and the other around Cameron’s.
“Behold.” says Adam jokingly.
“Is- Is that a middle-aged man?!” asks Cameron. “An alive and well middle-aged man?!”
“Not well.” I observe, still starstruck. “But alive…”
I keep studying the body of the sleeping man, watching carefully as he takes breaths in and out. Surely not. Surely I’m just seeing something. I might be just seeing what I want to see.
“I know, hard to believe right?” Eva says to me with glee. “Once he was poisoned but now he is cleansed!”
I pay no mind to Eva and continue to look at the sleeping man. Like I’m trying to catch him out or something. I can’t just jump to conclusions. Like I said there’s gotta be another explanation.
“No.” I respond defiantly. “No.”
“Sorry?” asks Adam.
“I don’t believe it.” I tell him. “I don’t believe it at all?”
“What do you mean you don’t believe it?”
“Yeah Issie, what are you on about?” Cameron chimes in.
“You can’t just place a random middle-aged guy in front of me and expect me to believe you have a cure!” I critique.
“Why would we lie?” asks Adam.
“I don’t know! A litany of reasons!” I clap back. “People lie all the time!”
“Yet you believed Dubois when he rolled out his grandfather?” asks Eva. That’s a fair question to ask. Not a good one, but fair.
“Key word - Grandfather.” I respond. “An elderdly man who even in the normal world would have been on the brink of death even if there was no mist.”
“So what’s the difference here? The man you see before you is still within the age range of the mist being fatal to him.” says Adam
“The difference is there have been middle-aged exceptions. Rare, but exceptions nonetheless.” I explain further. “In fact one our friends had a family member who reached his late sixties before he got the mist-sickness and died.”
“That's true.” corroborates Cameron. “How do we know this isn’t the same?”
“Because he already has mist-sickness.” says Adam. “Yet he lives.”
Yeah right. I stare into his eyes trying to sense the slightest instance of a bluff. But he continues to stare back at me, as sure as ever. He might not be lying. Adam breaks eye contact with me, letting out a half-laugh, half-sigh. He walks up to the sleeping man and places his hands on his face.
Adam carefully places his fingers on the man's eyelids. He slowly opens them to reveal pooled blood leaking from them. Those eyes. Those are the same blood-filled eyes I saw when my parents died to the mist. He has them, and yet he still breathes? Oh my God. He’s not lying.
Adam chuckles, mocking the looks on our faces.
“Miraculous right?” he jokes.
“This doesn’t make any sense…” I mutter. “How did you do this? How?”
Adam raises one eyebrow at me. With a shift of his head he gestures at Eva to go open one of the storage boxes, which she does. Eva returns with a vial of blue liquid,so dark that it’s almost blue. It looks like the same cure , yet unrefined. But even then when it’s placed it my hands I cannot help but tremble a little. He did it, he actually did it!
“Again, how?!” I desperately question him, much to his amusement.
“I was a chemistry student as well as a part-time medic before this all started.” Adam explains. “You two ever heard of the chemical that alters how we age. Juventua?”
“No, we haven’t.” answers Cameron.
“Yes. I have” I correct Isabelle. “You can find some unrefined samples of it off the coast can’t you?.”
“You can.” states Adam. “So assuming it was linked to all this mist stuff in one way or another I collected a ton of it! And with a little reverse-engineering…”
Adam takes the vial of his cure off of my hands. He displays it like it’s the winning lottery tickets. And I don’t blame him, because it might as well be just that. “It was a hard task but with a little bit of ingenuity and some help from Eva, I was able to make a little something to help out our friend on the table over there.” says Adam. “It’s not much but it’s a start.”
“Not much?!” I respond to the outrageous claim. “What do you mean not much, this? This alone is better than what I-, than what anyone’s being doing!”
“You’re right, I am underselling it a little.” chuckles Adam. “But my cure in itself is not the main point of any of this.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I protest. “What else could possibly be the main point?”
“The point is progress.” states Adam, losing his chuckling charm, serious as ever. “The point is progress and community.”
He points the cure at my face, a suddenly serious and stern look in his eyes.
“That’s why we do what we do here.” says Adam, his voice now rife with boldended intensity and passion.
“It’s the whole point of anything we do here. How we build this community, how we abstain from the whims of the mainland... ever since the mist has returned it has made as as a human collective forget what made us great in the first place - our ability to progress together, side by side and hand in hand.”
Eva violently nods her head in agreement. She grasps Adam’s hand and holds it tightly within her own.
“ But with this mist we have devolved back into animalistic tribalism. Killed or be killed. You have something I want? I’ll take it from you. A house, a car, a chance to take a cure? Everything is built on violence and leverage.” continues Adam. “But not anymore. Now we-”
“Adam…” croaks the body of the man and the table. Cameron and I remain in shocked awe, as Eva laughs. Adam calmly passes the cure back to me. He walks to the table to meet with the man.
“Adam…” croaks the sleepy man. He lets on a weak show of teeth. Might be a smile might just be him just bearing his teeth. Either way he’s barely capable of doing just this alone.
“Shhh.” says Adam, closing his eyelids again and ushering him back to sleep. “Rest for now. I’ll treat you with another juventua sample, later.”
Another sample? So there’s more where that came from? This just keeps getting better!
Adam takes a deep breath and turns back to the rest of us.
“Where was I?” he says.
It doesn’t matter where he was, because as far as I’m concerned? I’m already on board.
This. This one small thing Cameron and I just stumbled upon is a culmination of all my wishes. The answer to a year long’s prayer. If Adam and Eva could make a cure good enough to save that guy with the help of just themselves and a storage unit of grotty kids and teens then imagine what they can do with my help! I’m not exactly a medic/chemist, but I’m a very smart and capable woman with work experience at an actual lab. I can easily help them improve it, perfect it even! Then we won’t have to worry about Dubois’ stupid race for the cure! We can make enough to sustain us come the day we need it and build an even bigger community around us! Then, like Adam said, we progress. We move forward. From this table alone we can build the world build the world back up bit by bit by fucking bit! And then we can-
Wait. Calm down Isabelle. You’re getting ahead of yourself, way ahead of yourself. Let’s start small. Right now all I should be looking to do is stay here for a bit and help them. I have to help them, I need to help them.
“Adam?” I call back to him. “Is it alright if I stay here for a bit and help you guys out?”
“Of course.” says Adam. “In fact, I was about to ask you if you wanted to.”
I can’t help but smile at Adam and by extension Eva too. The pair graciously smile back.
“We can’t stay here too long.” protests Cameron. “Khalil said we should meet back at the escalators with the supplies.”
“Khalil?” wonders Adam.
“The ‘leader’ of our group.” I inform him. “And whatever Khalil wants us to do next is not nearly as important as what we can do to help out here.”
“Yeah but-” Cameron stutters. “It’s best we stick together as a group.”
I lay down an intense glare as I look at Cameron. Not even a few seconds and he’s already starting to crumble and back down. Good. I don’t know what he’s trying to do here, but I will not let this opportunity slip out of my hands.
An hour later and it's like all the woes that plagued my mind were starting to syphon out of it. I don’t know if it's Adam, the group, the chance that there's a cure or all of these things combined. Or, it might be the alcoholic coffee they gave me. That would probably make the most sense
Adam, Eva and a series of the group's other wanderers all joined us around a circle as we sat on boxes and drank the strongest, strangest mix of bourbon and coffee I've ever had the simultaneous pleasure and displeasure of consuming.
"Jesus what else did you put in this?"
"Nothing else. It's had time to age over the incident." Adam jokes.
"That's just not how bourbon works ." I correct him. "And even if it was it wouldn't become like this during that time. Ridiculous…"
"Are you always this straight-laced Isabelle?"
"You have to be nowadays." I defend myself "Especially when a group of randoms in evangelist coasts get you drunk in the back of a supermarket."
You would think that I just made the quip of the century from the way they all laugh . Can't say I mind it though. Might be the drink talking but I could really see myself enjoying my time around these people. Even in the long-term.
"You know Isabelle, I’m somewhat surprised you’re on board with what we’re trying to do here. I never would have taken you for a believer.” Eva comments. Adam nods in agreement.
"I'm not." I tell him. "But I'm hopeful.”
"Don't take this the wrong way but you don't really come across as it."
"Yeah, you come across as more of a…cynic."
"I'm both." I answer. "It's an enigma I suppose, but its the way I am, the way I've always been…and they way I need to be."
"Well I'm glad it is." says Adam. "It might be an enigma, but its the way people need to be nowadays." Adam mouth stretches into an odd stifled smile, his eyes glowing with wonderment. I can't help but smile back with the same cheesy glow in my eyes as I continue to sip my coffee.
Adam, Eva and I lose ourselves in conversation over the next nine or so minutes. It would have carried on longer if I had not come to my senses as by minute ten I notice something - Cameron’s been gone for a while.
"Where's Cameron?"
"I think he went out back." one of the group members tell me.
"Out back? Doing what?" I ask. I'm met with nothing but vacant stares and shrugs all around. I shake my head, put down my coffee and head out to go find him.
"Stay safe." Adam advises me as I leave. For some reason, this makes me feel a little more dreadful than I think he intended it to.
When I walk through the winding box corridors and arrive at the very end of the store's backend, I'm faced with a series of boxes, frozen goods and chairs blocking the exit. Did Cameron put this here? While I can't see Cameron, I know he's on the other side of this "wall". I can hear him, vaguely. I can vaguely hear him in conversation with another person…
I'm almost sure that's Cameron, I could recognise the slight whimper in his voice from anywhere. I'm just not sure what he's saying. And I'm not sure who he's talking to either but I can definitely say I recognise the voice. I can tell that whoever it is, is male but aside from that no clue. They sound friendly, perhaps its someone from the wanderers group Cameron is getting to know. Though if it is, why are they talking outside the building? What could they be possibly saying to each other that needs to be said out there? All I know is that whoever it is and whatever they're saying is distressing Cameron in some way. A silence halts the conversation between the two. I spend a minute trying to listen in, carefully pressing my ear against the wall, but I'm not able to hear even a single whisper. Then the items that barricade the door start bulging as it unlocks. I take a step back as Cameron forcefully pushes the door open, knocking all the barricaded items out of the way. He re-enters the building.
"Oh, hello Isabelle." Cameron greets me, a quake in his voice and a quiver in his lips.
"Who were you talking to?" I ask him straight away. Cameron stares at me with his face worn by worry. I put my hands on my hips as I wait for his answer. He looks like he wants to tell me, but like there's something stopping him from doing so. I look out of the door and search outside to find the answer for myself, but as my eyes scour the general area, I find nothing. Something's awry…
"Isabelle." I hear Adam calling out from the other end of the backend room. I see him and Eva being followed by the rest of their people as they both restrain Khalil and Lysandra respectively who try to struggle out of their grasp, but Adam and Eva prove too strong for their efforts to matter. As Khalil tries and fails to wriggle his way out of Adam's grasp, his glare solely fixates on me. This can't end well.
"Hey, what's going on here?" asks Cameron.
"Found these wandering about the supermarket." answers Eva
"I'm guessing this is Khalil?" Adam gestures to me.
"You'd be guessing right." I tell him.
"Isabelle, what's going on here. What is all of this?!" Khalil asks, distressed. "Is any of what they say true?"
"It is true." insists Adam. "Tell them."
"Is what true?" I ask, exasperated.
"He says you're going to help him develop his cure, is it true are you?" asks Lysandra. "Is their cure real?"
Adam stares down at me with that intense look about him returning,, slowly nodding his head as he urges me to back him up. I sigh.
"Yes, it is." I tell them. Lysandra’s eyes light up almost as much as mine did. Khalil however remains undaunted.
"I'll believe it when I see it." he scoffs.
"That can be arranged." says Adam.
Moments later, Adam takes Khalil, Lysandra, Cameron and I back to the room with his patient. The man was sleeping and had a cloak draped over his face. Khalil and Lysandra gave each other a worried glance then sent the same look mine and Cameron's way. Cameron just shrugged his lips. I didn't look back to them, too busy watching Adam who in a few seconds will answer every question that's probably in their minds right now.
"Take a look." whispers Adam as he slowly unveils the man, wrinkled in face and blue in lips.
Khalil’s undaunted disposition dissipates almost instantly as he starts to develop the expected reaction. His eyes were as wide and full of wonder as mine and Camerons had been. Even more so. For a moment he was speechless, breathing heavily out of his mouth like a desert'. And Adams enjoys every second of it.
"You see." I tell him. "I didn't stay here for nothing."
Khalil nods his head with a measured slowness, his eyes locked onto the patient's face. Look at him, he's fully entrenched in it all already. Perhaps Khalil may be even easier to convince than I was to stay here.
"How do we know he's not dying?" Lysandra asks.
"Sorry?"
"You say you're curing him but he doesn't seem to be moving much or at all even." Lysandra points out. "How do we know that he's actually cured? How do we know that he's not just dying?"
"That's a good point." Khalil corroborates, his face returning to its usually sour state.
"You constantly chastise me for being distrustful yet now you can't even give the benefit of doubt with proof right in front of you!" I argue with a little more passion blurting out than I had wanted to. Khalil and Lysandra share another concerned look. "Why can't you-"
"It's a reasonable ask, Isabelle." Adam interrupts with assurance.
"Right of course," I concede, taking a deep breath as I cross my arms. Adam rests a hand on my shoulder, but focuses on Khalil and Lysandra. After a few seconds of idle staring between the two, Adam ventures to get them their proof, returning with another vial of his cure. He approaches the man on the medical table then meets the vial to the mans lips, allowing the liquid to pour down carefully and slide on down his throat. This time he does not just give the man a taste, he empties the entire vial down into him. The rest of us watch and wait, chock ful of anticipation. And then…it happens. The man not only wakes up, but his skin clears a touch. He starts to look less like a creature at death's door and more like a genuine living thriving man.
"If that's not proof then I don't know what is!" celebrates Adam. .
"Oh wow…" utters Lysandra under her breath. I peer back at her and Khalil, the latter whose mouth is still gaped but this time with positive effect. He smiles at me, the light in his eyes has returned. Let's hope it stays this time.
Whilst we're all sharing smiles and looks of astonishment between ourselves the man on the table must be desperate for attention as he starts to make odd noises that draw it back to him. The patient convulses and trembles with intensely painful fits. I look to Adam to see if he's going to do anything, but he just stands and watches. Then, before anyone else can do anything about it the man's head explodes into a flurry of chunky pieces that splatter all over us. Wait…what the fuck just happened?!
"What the hell was that?!" I ask, wiping the blood and guts off of me in disgust.
"Just a complication." Adam explains away as he casually cleans his clothes.
"That does not look like a good cure to me." grates Khalil
"It's just a complication." Adam repeats with angered emphasis. "I never said it was perfect."
"You never said it did that either!"
"My cures in development, Isabelle. You know that."
"I assumed that perhaps it was a touch ineffective! Not completely defective!"
"It still needs time to iron out the defects?"
"How much time would it take before it develops to the point where won't do that to your head?! ". I ask.
Adam's eyebrows furrow with contemplation."A couple years perhaps."
A couple years?! We'd have to work on it for hundreds of more days just to get it to the point where its fit for consumption? We might as well stick with Dubois bullshit in that case! Might we? Am I being impatient here? It does take a while to develop things like this. But we don't have a while. Look at how things have gotten already. Look at how things were just this morning! We'll be lucky to be here within the next year, nevermind few years. He can't be serious. That's an overestimation right? Please be an overestimation. I raise my brow as I look to him with begging eyes, urging him to say it ain't so. But it is. It is so. Khalil shakes his head at Adam then at me.
"I thought you were the one who was supposed to ground us." commented Khalil. "You're the last group member I'd expect to waste our time with something like this…"
"How was I supposed to-"
"We have all we need from this place. Let's find Grace and Michael and get out of here." Khalil says to Cameron and Lysandra. "We have nothing to do here anymore."
Khalil promptly leaves with Cameron and Lysandra. I'm not as quick to follow him, standing there, still processing my thoughts.
"Are you going to?" asks Adam, a tinge of sadness in the tone of his voice.
"Yes…" I answer regretfully. Adam clenches his jaw and nods downwards. He behaves as if I've made a grave mistake of sorts. I have, just not in the way that he thinks.
"Isabelle…" he calls out to me softly. "If you ever change your mind...come and find us.”
"I will if I do" I tell him.
What a pitiful state of affairs.
