❛ SURVIVOR'S HEART ! ❜
chapter fifteen ―― test subject 19
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ AFTER THEY ALL FINISHED EATING, Jenner led them to the big room where all the computers were, he walked over to one of the computers and put his mug down before hitting a button. The others all followed him, stopping at various points in the room. Charlie made sure she was nowhere near Shane and she looked around to make sure he wasn't near Lori.
"Give me playback of TS-19."
"Playback of TS-19." The same computerized voice said as the big screen at the front of the room came on, pulling up what looked like brain scans.
"You okay?" Mason asked, his voice a whisper as he leaned closer to Charlie who had her arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against one of the rows of computers.
"I'm fine." She told him, she even managed a smile but he knew she wasn't. He just nodded – knowing it wasn't the time to ask – as he leaned against the computer next to her, then he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
"Few people ever got to see this." Jenner stated as she looked around the room. "Very few." He added as an outline of a person showed up on the bigger portion of the screen – the inside of the person's head was all lit up.
"Is that a brain?" Carl asked, looking over at the doctor.
"An extraordinary one." He nodded. "Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for E.I.V." He said, talking to Vi.
"Enhanced internal view." The voice said as the picture zoomed and turned to the person lying on its back, then it zoomed in more, right into the person's brain. A bunch of blue lights danced across the screen, shooting through various lines.
"What are those lights?" Shane asked and Charlie shifted on her feet a little.
"It's a person's life –" Jenner answered. "-experiences, memories. It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you. The thing that makes you unique. And human."
"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asked, his arms crossed over his chest and Charlie chuckled a little to herself but she bit her lip to keep it in.
"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages." He tried to explain a little better. "They determine everything a person says, does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."
"Death?" Rick asked, making his way towards the doctor. "That's what this is, a vigil?"
"Yes." He answered, his eyes on the screen. "Or rather the playback of the vigil." He corrected himself.
"This person died?" Andrea asked, her eyes on the screen. "Who?"
"Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected. . . and volunteered to have us record the process." He explained. "Vi, scan forward to the first event."
"Scanning to first event." The voice stated, then a loading bar showed up on the screen before disappearing. The person was still on the screen, but the brain looked different – darkness had taken over what was once bright blue light, coming up from the spine.
"What is that?" Glenn asked.
"It invades the brain like Meningitis." Jenner pointed at the screen as the person started moving, couching a little. "The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shut down, then the major organs." He explained, then the entirety of the brain was taken over by darkness. Charlie shifted a little closer to Mason but she couldn't peel her eyes off the screen. "Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be. . . gone."
"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked, looking up at her mother.
"Yes." Carol nodded, wrapping her arm around her daughter. Jenner looked over at Andrea, who had tears in her eyes as she turned away from the screen.
"She lost somebody two days ago." Lori told him, and Charlie looked down at her boots – it felt like it had been longer than just two days. "Her sister."
"I lost somebody too." He made his way over to the blonde. "I know how devastating it is." He told her before looking back up at the screen. "Scan to the second event."
"Scanning to second event." Vi told him before a loading bar pulled up on the screen again.
"The resurrection times vary wildly." He continued, as though he was teaching a class – at least that's what Charlie thought. "We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute, seven seconds."
A red glow formed in the middle of the brain before spreading up and out, but the darkness never went away. "It restarts the brain?" Lori asked.
"No, just the brain stem." He told her. "Basically, it gets them up and moving."
"But they're not alive?" Rick asked.
"You tell me." Jenner motioned to the screen.
"It's nothing like before." Rick shook his head, his eyes scanning the screen. "Most of that brain is dark."
"Dark, lifeless, dead." Jenner nodded. "The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part – that doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell. Driven by mindless instinct." The person started to move around, but it didn't go on too long before there was a flash before a rip showed up. It went clean through the forehead and out the back of the head. Charlie jumped a little, a gasp leaving her lips as she tucked herself into Mason's side and he tightened his arm around her.
"God. What was that?" Carol asked.
"A bullet." Charlie mumbled.
"He shot his patient in the head." Andrea explained further. "Didn't you?"
"Vi, power down the main screen and the work stations." Jenner ignored her question.
"Powering down main screen and work stations." Vi stated as the screen cut off and the computers whirred down.
"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea asked, her arms crossed over her chest as she looked up at the doctor.
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."
"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui asked.
"There is that." He agreed and Charlie pushed herself up, pulling Mason with her as she left the room and Shane, as well as a few others, watched them go.
-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ CHARLIE SAT ON THE COUCH, her legs stretched out across the cushions as Mason sat on the edge of the cot he had gotten from storage the night before. The girl hadn't said much and he didn't bother asking, he figured she'd talk when she was ready. And he knew that what Jenner had shown them was bothering her, so he waited.
"Do you mind getting me some ice?" She asked as she looked over at him and his eyebrows pinched, that was not what he thought she was gonna ask. "My ankle's sore."
"Yeah." He nodded as he stood up, placing his hand on her shoulder before he left the room and Charlie let her head rest against the back of the couch, her eyes closed.
She sat up when the door opened and the blue eyed boy smiled as he held up a bag of ice. "Thank you." She smiled up at him as he sat down on the cot and handed her the bag, she leaned forward and placed it on her ankle, winching a little at the coolness of it. "I slept with Josh." She mumbled.
"Yeah, I know." He nodded. "Everyone knows."
She groaned as she covered her face with her hands. "We were drunk."
"Why are you explaining it to me?"
"Because I. . . I don't know. I just, we were drunk and I don't know exactly how it happened. My head is all fuzzy."
"Do you regret it?"
"I don't know." She shook her head. "I know that it shouldn't have happened."
"Why not?"
"I mean, Josh is cute and he's sweet, but I don't feel that way about him. And even if I did, I'm not in the right headspace for a relationship."
"Maybe you should talk to Josh."
"I don't wanna."
"I know, you've been avoiding him since breakfast." He smiled a little as he patted her head. "But you should talk to him. He's a decent guy, he'll understand." She nodded, sighing a little then the air cut off and the two shared a look before looking at the ceiling as the lights flickered a few times before cutting off.