The Last Hope

A loud crash came from downstairs. I let go of the yellow crayon in my hand and froze, sitting at the desk in my room. My drawing homework from kindergarten was left on the desk, half-finished. The door busted open.

“Hope, come here, quick!”

My mother abruptly entered my room, calling out to me. Her voice quivered with fear that I didn’t know of. Seeing my mother like that scared me. Another crash sounded from downstairs, louder than the previous. Startled, I ran into mom’s arms. She embraced me in her arms, lifting me up, and dashing to the her room at the end of the hallway.

“Mommy, what’s happening?”

“I don’t know, dear.” She proceeded to lock the door and switch the lights off. The crashes and clambers stopped, soon replaced with the marching of multiple feet and clamber of voices. It seems as if the source of the noise was advancing up the stairs. My mother and I hid next to the closet in the dark room, frozen in anticipation.

“Hope, honey, could you do me one favour?”

“Yes, momma?”

“Could you stay completely silent until I tell you that you can talk?” she said, pausing for a moment. “Promise mommy that you will,” she whispered and held her pinkie out. I took her pinkie, intertwining it with mine as a sign of agreement.

“Pinkie promise. I love you mommy.”

“I love you too,” She responded, softly caressing me. We hugged each other tightly as the marching got louder. I could hear men shouting right outside our door,

“Search every corner of the house. Search until you find him!”

“Yes, captain.”

Suddenly, the door handle started pattering furiously. Someone was trying to get in. The men outside were knocking down the door with their feet. Mom’s grip on me tightened and her breaths got shallow. With a final crash, the door busted open and men started flowing in, spotting us at once. Debris and dust entered the room, making it hard to see and breath. Two tall men wearing gas masks and dark blue suits marked with the words ‘WATCH’, advanced towards me. One grabbed my wrists and tried pulling me away, but my mother refused to let go. I screamed in terror. Mom desperately thrashed her legs and held onto me, kicking the soldier hard in his ankle.

“Argh! Damn it!” the soldier let go of my wrists as he winced in pain. Then he threateningly walked towards mom. “Lady, it’s for your country. You hear me?” he snarled and slammed my mother in the face, her head hitting the side of the closet with a sickening crack and dropping down onto the floor. Her eyes dulled.

“No!” I howled at the sight, flailing and kicking my legs, trying to escape the man’s strong grip on my wrist. After a while, I realized it was all futile. I laid as limp as a feather and let the man carry me, drained of all my will to fight. The whole team of men exited the house.

“Cough, cough, cough.”

The thick, yellow dust outside made it hard to breathe. One by one, they all climbed into the large, black ambulances parked on the side of the street. The vehicles were also marked with the words ‘WATCH’ in bold, white letters. The man carrying me got in as the ambulance started moving. Through the rolled-down window, I watched my little house fading in the distance, far, far away. I close my eyes….

“Clink, clink.”

I wake up to the sound of metal equipment and familiar tang of disinfectant. To my left is a nurse, holding my body down. To my right is another, with a mask on her face and a syringe in her hand. The label on the syringe reads ‘Naturae Strain Sample (no. 5312)’.

“Please refrain from moving during the injection.” The nurse warns as she injects the shot into my arm. The needle pierces my skin and strange liquid flows into my bloodstream. It burns, but I’m used to it. Especially after you’ve done it for more than five thousand times. The nurse puts the injection down and grabs a notebook, jotting down some notes.

“Any reactions?” she asks without looking up from the notebook.

“Positive reaction. Heart rate constant, blood pressure constant,” the nurse holding my arm answers. Few moments later, they collect their equipment and leave without a word. I stare into the cold, blank, white walls, still struggling to accept a reality that I wasn’t able to for the past thirteen years. I’ve been confined in this room since I was five until now, at the age of eighteen. The rectangular room is unusually large, devoid of any colour or liveliness, with white cement walls, a tile floor, and no exit except for the impenetrable titanium door at the north of the room. More like a jail than a hospital room. On one of the walls is a huge glass panel without any handles or knobs. The glass ‘window’ reveals that this room is located on a tall, metallic 252-story skyscraper. The skyscraper towers over the entire city, making everything inside the city visible at one glance. A thick layer of yellow dust rests over all buildings and the grey streets of the city. There are twenty beds in the room —mine is the only occupied one. It gets pretty lonely in here.

“Hope.”

I silently mouth my name, the only thing that’s left of me after the incident. I don’t clearly recall what exactly happened and when. All I can remember is when I was around six, WATCH destroyed my home, killed my mother, and brought me to this room. WATCH is a large science and research institution run by our government. Or rather, it was. More than a decade ago, an unidentified virus hit the streets of this city, killing more than ten million people in less than a year. There were massive wipeouts, where people died at great numbers even the government couldn’t count. Among the casualties was the president of WATCH, which was the last straw for our government to take action. The government ordered WATCH to find the cure for the virus, no matter the cost. Their soldiers guarded every corner of the city, invaded homes, destroyed families, and massacred many people to find it.

The scientists called the virus the ‘Naturae’ and for a good reason, too. Those who get infected firstly adopt the physical traits of an animal. Then its psychological traits and behaviour, eventually changing to the point of no return. I’d seen enough half-human mutations to know that the Naturae was no joke. I remember their dripping, melted faces, disfigured bodies with stray limbs sticking out, morphed into a gruesome creature neither human nor animal. The longer you were exposed to the virus, the less you could think and act like a human. Soon, chaos took over the city. People were scared. They wanted a cure. Riots and turmoil flooded every corner of the city.

Fortunately for us, the government knew about a person. A very special person, at that. The only person truly immune to the deadly virus. He was the small circle of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. The last child left on the planet that could save us from complete wipeout.

It was me, their last Hope.