Fractured Souls (Short Story Collection)

The Flu

I was sitting at my desk when I saw the news flash across my com-screen: Crash in the Northern Sea. Glancing up, I saw the ocean spotted with ships that surrounded a mysterious crash.

That was four weeks ago.

Days after the broadcast, rumors filled the streets.

"Did you see the news?" the woman from the corner store asked me when I stopped in after work to get some pills. My husband had just flown home from a conference, the night before, and woke up with a migraine today.

"What?" I asked.

"That crash in the Northern Sea," the clerk said, leaning toward me. "It was something from the sky; they just released footage today."

I raised my eyebrows and nodded, "Sounds a little too tabloid-like for me." She handed me my bag and looked past me for the next person in line interested in talking about the story.

When I walked in the house, my husband was plastered to the com screen.

"Check this out," he said. I glanced at the screen and saw a blurry home video of what looked like a large object fall from the sky, into the sea.

"That could be anything," I said, getting him a glass of water and passing him the pills.

That was three weeks ago.

I had just put down the little ones for their afternoon nap and was sitting at my desk working. A flash of red ran across the bottom of the com screen: "Unidentified flying object crashed one week ago into the Northern Sea. Origin unknown."

It repeated itself over and again, but this time there was a new video paired with it, taken by a Northern local who witnessed the military bringing the object to their compound. I had never seen anything like it: long and cylindrical, smooth white metal with symbols along its sides and foreign letters marked across it.

The phone rang, and I jumped out of my stupor.

"Are you watching this?" my husband's anxious voice came from the other end. "They say its alien!"

That night a reporter came online from the site. "Terror in the North," flashed across the screen. My husband and I eagerly watched the show.

"We are not allowed in the compound," the reporter explained, "but reports have come in from the surrounding villages that a sickness has broken out. Is it related?"

Next day, the kids came home from school early with a temperature. I sent them to bed and checked on my husband, who said, "It's getting worse."

"Need stronger pills?" I asked.

"Not that," he said, "the news."

I clicked on the com screen and saw that the reporter had snuck into the compound in the middle of the night. Before he made it to the bunker, he was spotted, but the videographer managed to make it inside before being tackled. It wasn't the chase that was news; it was the small glimpse of a shadow behind a lit up curtain, showing a long cylindrical object.

My husband broke out into a fit of coughing, snapping me out of my stupor. I turned to him with the pills and checked his temp. "Looks like you're coming down with something. Less news and more sleep," I instructed.

That was two weeks ago.

I never saw a reporter on the com screen again, even though now alone in my townhouse; I found myself flipping the channels wildly for distraction. When I saw the hallowed words appear across the screen: "Cure on the Horizon," it was too late.

My husband went quickly, but I barely could process the loss before my children got sick. Within a week, I'd lost all three of the people I cared about most to me. People were panicking outside in the streets, breaking out in fights and vandalism as panic set in. Uncertainty hung in the air like a plague.

That was one week ago.

I started the sneezing and coughing three days ago. Yesterday I woke up with the watery eyes, feeling overly weak and tired. How long did it take to ravage through my husband again? Four days? Five? The only thing I am certain of anymore is that I am alone.

I remove all the boards from my front window. Who would dare come now? I want to look outside and see the unfamiliar figures left behind; I need to see that the loss isn't just confined to my small world, here in my flat.

There's a movement in the street, slow, but there. I wipe the grime from the window to take a better look and immediately wish I hadn't. One of them, the "turned", are out walking in the street. They looked confused. Who is it? A former neighbor? It resembles my husband in a way, but would I recognize him or the children anymore?

Maybe my hallucinations are starting? I feel my face and realize my fever has taken a turn. I leave the window and make my way down the hallway to the bathroom. In the final moments, I want to see myself; there needs to be a witness to my death.

I look behind and see I'm leaving a trail; it weaves from side to side, as if my body is melting. I pull myself through the doorway, slamming it shut, and feel frightened, but I have to see; I force my eyes up and stare into the mirror at my reflection.

I scream at my reflection; my once beautiful green, scale-covered body has almost all shed, turning now to a pale pink, exposing the raw skin underneath. I feel panic for a moment as my mind slips away. My vision disappears as the darkness fills the centers of my eyes. With my final breath I hear my voice, now unfamiliar as it wheezes, "I don't want to turn human." 

THE END