(Aïsshean)
I had managed to return home, and still being alive. That was already above average luck on our day I had figured out.
I removed my gasmask before I started vomiting heavily again. The strain hurt my eyes, tongue and throat in harsher ways than normal.
The fluids that escaped me in the middle of the living room began to rot the flooring at surreal speed.
I coughed, struggling, but alive. My head feeling on fire, but still focused on how to stay alive a while longer.
I went to rinse my mouth and face. I tried not to think about all those deaths I ran into or stepped around on my way to return here. I know it's a transition. This won't last...
Most of them had been afflicted by some form of diseases I knew nothing about. My own symptoms clued to nothing clear. But at least I was alive still. Checking my pulse, my look in a mirror, and all my medical signs I could think of.
I tried to reassure myself while waiting and praying for my family to return.
A long time ago, and every even year since, our grandmother made us swear an oath, to look after one another.
That sounds simple, but we all knew families where brethren become bitter enemies, because of outside love, faith or money.
So our grandmother made us swear repeatedly. She was vehement.
No kinder love to keep us apart, no amount of money to turn on one another, and no god to demand that we act differently to each other.
Before our younger brother could talk, we were already pledging our loyalty to one another and family name.
And afterward, we all pledged to protect our brother as well just the same, as we all grew together.
Now I cough some of my health away, a part of my mind dearly worrying about my brethren and our parents being a long way from here. Another part of my mind is trying its best to gather data and build hypothesises over what happened this morning.
The white wave has passed, yet I still feel electric shocks hitting my brain.
And all along the road I took, I saw people struggling, yelling their pain, ripping their own eyes out. I saw them die from frightful symptoms, and their yells continue to echo in town and inside my head.
Something toxic probably still fills the air. I put back on my mask and try my best to breathe steadily. I'm not convinced it will still save me.
I try to switch on another computer.
The statics are different, but it's still glitching badly. Was it a powerful solar flare? An event strong enough to wreck everything relying on electronics, piercing the Earth's electromagnetic shielding.
And an impulse strong enough to shower everyone and everything with a ridiculous amount of ionizing rays?
I'm not knowledgeable enough about star physics to say. All I can see as a biologist is that some aspects in the environment have changed apparently, and every organism I've come across in the vicinity was reacting violently.
And if the change is not reversed, given the severity of the symptoms outside, a great many people will continue to die.
I was still far from realising how much that was true, the first time I thought about that.
We were too far away from my plants and microbiological levels of homeostasis.
And I couldn't figure which set of parameters in reality could change to cause such dreadful effects on human bodies in such a short time. The only thing that came close I could think of was maybe, just maybe, a massive radiation outburst.
I heard more screams and went to look outside. I feared it might be someone dear to me now.
Some young men were running away clumsily from a weird animal in the street. The teenagers stumbled repeatedly, as if seriously drunk, suffering the same sort of illness as I.
The beast on their track was irregular, in shapes ever changing or not quite clear. It stumbled a lot too, appearing in dire pain and exhaustion or confusion as well.
And then it leaped suddenly, leaving a trail of liquids behind. It landed on a boy, crushing over him.
The terrified survivors fled in every other direction. I gazed, horrified and unable to understand.
The monster had no mouth nor jaws to eat, only its weight and odd number of unsteady legs.
It collapsed there over its prey, and burst in a boiling puddle of liquids. The person it caught and crushed was dissolved there as well.
I held my mouth and nausea, but I still watched, trying to understand what was reflected in my eyes. These events defying all I knew, and all logic I experienced.
All around the streets and walls, I saw sudden growths of mosses and lichens, and other stains of mould.
We don't have any pets so I could check on them, but I noticed our house plants haven't significantly changed however. Are plants generally more stable because of their lignin?
I climbed unsteadily the stairs and entered my little sisters shared room. I headed to their window to check from above over our neighbour's pond. And I gasped. The fishes are probably gone now. Something evil standing there turned its head toward me almost immediately.
~
I hear banging at the rear door. I'm pushing a shelf to barricade it in panic. An arm that no longer appears human crushes the window, gouging itself and trying to get in. I scream, jolting and stepping back. The noises are horrifying.
I lock the kitchen door behind me, and repeat the operation of barricade.
The groans along the sounds of broken glass rapidly decay however. In a matter of minutes, it just dies. Silence returned, and a puddle spreads below the door against which it just died.
As I reopen the door, an impromptu weapon in hands, all I find is the scene of a violent crime. There's drying blood along every surface. A skeleton, slightly deformed and broken on places, lies in the pool of foul smelling goo at my feet. It's horrible.
It looks like it clawed its way trying to get help... It wasn't probably trying to feed of me like a zombie. It was looking instinctively for something else. I open the doors and begin cleaning out the decaying flesh outside, like mere filth.
A part of my empathy just vanished I think, as I see myself cleaning the floor with a cold pragmatism I don't recognise in me.
I think someone just died and turned into crude oil in a matter of seconds in my kitchen, and I don't really care that much anymore. I do cough repeatedly, even through the mask, as some smelling compounds eventually make their way through the filters.
I want to understand what is going on before my entire self also melts like that person...
And I thought about our family oath as well, like a reassuring bell. I turned around when hearing a familiar voice and then recognising my younger sister and brother entering the living room.
They had thankfully also made their way home and alive. Even though they also looked as terrified and shocked as if they'd also lost a part of their mind along the way.
I removed the mask and went to hug them as they stood there in shock, holding hands but trembling. They remained stiff and terrified between my arms. I was so happy they were alive I shed tears.
Even though a softer emotionless shroud was beginning to cloud my mind. At that moment all I could feel was relief they were alive.
~
Aïssheas and Aïssheah held hands still, and were trembling still, when I helped them sit. They were soiled all over as I had been, finding their own way home as they could in the chaos.
Them too had seen and experienced shocking and incomprehensible events. I tried to caress their heads but my hands were sticky and the colour of my skin was beginning to change there.
We exchanged worried gazes.
Before me and our eyes, the skin of my hands stopped flowing to recover some solidity and its natural colours.
As if the simple fact of watching over them was enough to change something metabolic.
It's not a behaviour I'm used to observe in biology and I doubt Attie will contradict me when she returns...
As - Is she coming back? Will she return?
An - I'm sure... I'm sure of it.
I lean to their height. They're not children anymore, but they're shaking and unsteady.
For our grandmother... I raise my hand while keeping an eye on it and touch their hands holding each other.
My head burns me and the lingering scents from the kitchen make me sick. I feel like I'm about to pass out suddenly.
I ask them to wait for me here for a moment. I step aside and rush before collapsing into the bathroom I reach.
I feel the veins inside my arms and chest twitching, moving. I felt spasms coursing through my body as if it wanted to abandon me entirely.
No...
I contracted myself and my resolve to hold a little longer.
Not yet...
~