The Vestige

by Caroline George

The Scav pries apart my gums and forces me to gulp the liquid. It warms my mouth and eases my hunger pains. Then, a pressure washes through my body, and the world spins out-of-control.

  “Do not be afraid. You will go to sleep, that is all.” She cradles me in her arms and strokes my hair. Her face hovers beyond my lash-barred eyelids, a puzzle of brown, red, and white. “Shhh, Julie. Do not fight it. Embrace the rest, darling. You will not wake again.”

  ****

  Classical music resounds in the space surrounding my body, enhanced by the crescendo of an orchestra, a violin’s cry. Peroxide saturates the air with a poignant stench. Footsteps patter to the right, and then tread into silence. Why can’t I move? Should I be conscious? Are they going to kill me while I’m trapped in the dark, aware but not awake?

  Beep … Beep … Beep … Beep.

  Death claws its way into my chest and sits there, waiting. I didn’t know it would hurt this much. I didn’t realize all the good in my life would be emptied out by it.

  Beep … Beep … Beep. Flatline.

  Wait. What’s happening? Oh, I’m dying. Help. Please.

  Someone, bring me back to life.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “That’s why we have memory. And the opposite of memory—hope. So things that are gone can still matter. So we can built off our pasts and make a future.”

  Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

  I am almost dead.

  It’s not so bad. The darkness is brighter, and the only physical sensation I have is a tingling in the back of my head. I do hate limbo’s wait music, though. Flatline—it’s a steady, mechanical scream, a one-melody soundtrack. I’d like to press the universal skip button and listen to an eternal replay of Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan. Wait. What’s wrong with me? I don’t want music. I want to live.

  Stop. This is okay. I’m okay. My family is waiting for me. I believe in God and heaven. I believe in life after death, which makes this whole ordeal less scary. I’m not ignorant, optimistic, or religious. I just see the truth because in a world of layers, the truth is the only thing worth seeing.

  Pressure pulses through me, a sharp and relentless ache. Fingers imprint my chest, air fills an empty void—someone is trying to resuscitate me. Please, whoever you are, don’t stop. I know you’re there. Come on. Push harder. Fight for me, so I can come back to you.

  A beat ripples through the darkness and floods it with warmth, a steady pulse. I gasp when more air is shoved down my throat. Electricity vibes through me in a single wink.

  I claw at a metal tabletop when light penetrates my head like an axe, and the one-melody soundtrack fades into repetitive beeps and florescent buzzing. Ceiling tiles appear, their pattern broken by dark hair and cobalt eyes, a face smeared with dirt and tears.

  “Praise God.” Jack slumps over the surgical table, boxes me in a protective room of flesh, muscle, and bone. He slides his hand over my cheek, one finger anchored behind my left ear, and silences our jagged heaves with a kiss. His lips quiver between mine—they’re not a dream. He isn’t an illusion.

  Whatever has kept me together these past few weeks unravels into mush. I wrap my arms around him, gather wads of his t-shirt in my hands, and cry like a baby. I kiss his neck, his stubble-covered cheek. I hold him tight, but I can’t get close enough to satisfy the ache in my heart.

  “Geez, your lips are blue.” Jack kisses me again and then pulls back far enough to reveal medical equipment and glass cases. He dries his bloodshot eyes. “You were down for five minutes. I didn’t think I’d be able to bring you back. I was afraid you’d end up like…”

  “I’m here,” I whisper in a raspy, oxygen-deprived voice that sounds more like Abram’s than mine. “Where are we? What is this place?”

  How are you here? How are you real?

  Jack squeezes my hand. “The Human Reproduction Institute.” His cheeks flush white for a split second, and his Adam’s apple bobs. “They didn’t do anything to you, at least, not the kind of stuff they usually do to people here. The equipment in this room is meant for hormone extraction, you know, the stuff they use to make emotion injections.”

  “So they took my hormones and killed me? Those jerks…”

  “Your body will recover,” he says through a smile I didn’t think I’d see again. An electrical glow frames his face—he resembles a dream more than a living, breathing person. I can touch and talk to him, but a part of him is missing. Maybe it’s me. Maybe part of me is missing.

  “If we don’t get your blood circulating, your limbs may die.” He unstraps my wrists and ankles, and then helps me roll over. “You have to move no matter how much it hurts.”

  There is death within me disguised as weakness—I hate its weight.

  I moan as pain pulses through my head, ripples up my calves like fire or shots from a nail gun. I writhe as Jack bends and extends my legs. “How’d you find me?”

  “Nash hacked into the City’s security system. He was monitoring the video footage and saw you here. I was a few blocks south with Tally, Missy, and Abram when he radioed. I was close, which is good because if I’d arrived any later…” He rubs his neck as if trying to massage away the thought of losing me and then steps over a collapsed man in a white lab coat.

  “What’d you do to him?”

  “I whacked him on the skull with a centrifuge.” Tally appears in the open doorway with Missy and Abram at her side. Most of her hair has fallen out, leaving bald patches. Dark circles encompass her eyes. “He didn’t go down easily, though. Screamed and kicked a lot.” She leans against Abram and clutches her rifle, out-of-breath. “I’m glad you’re not a stiff, Stryker. That’d freaking suck.”

  “Back at you.” I smile. Tears blur their figures into silhouettes. “Why are all of you in the City?”

  “The Vestige is making an attack,” Abram says. “We’re waging war.”

  War? Now?

  “Come on. We need to leave.” Jack lifts me to a standing position. I cling to his arm, shaky and barefoot. My legs struggle to support my weight as he leads me to the laboratory’s exit.

  “You don’t, by any chance, have a change of clothes with you? Or an extra pair of shoes?”

  “Sorry. We left our wardrobes at the Underground.” Tally smirks. “Couldn’t fit all of our panties and boots in our backpacks.”

  We move through the Institute, down stark corridors and flights of stairs. The electric lights seem brighter. They reflect off the floor, the walls, everything.

  “The Vestige has entered the City. Hundreds of Purebloods have already joined our effort,” Jack says as we leave the Institute and rush through the old space station. He checks his wristwatch. “We have t-minus five minutes until the District explodes.”

  “What? How’d you manage…?”

  “One of our spies was able to plant a bomb in the building’s basement,” Abram says. “In five minutes, Severance will be without a government. And once that threat has been annihilated, the inner dome’s generator will be shut down. Our mission is on the verge of completion.”

  “Don’t forget about my treatment,” Tally shouts. “I’m going to die if I don’t get some sort of cure soon. Do you see these oozing bumps? They aren’t freaking zits, people!”

  “We’ll get you the treatment, Tally. Don’t worry,” Missy says. “That’s where we’re headed now, right, Jack? To the hospital across the street?”

  “Yeah, but we need to hurry. All hell’s breaking loose.”

  I touch the slide of my handgun and inhale until my lungs are on the verge of exploding. We’re almost there. We can’t give up. The dream is collapsing. The truth is an uprising. Reverse. Reverse the end of the world. So close. We’re so close.

  We reach the space station’s ground level and stride across the cramped, colorless lobby. The security guard at the front desk commands us to halt, aims his gun at the back of Abram’s bald head. An explosion sounds, followed by a puff of red mist. The guard slumps forward, dead.

  Tally holst
ers her firearm and snickers at my expression. “Get used to it, Stryker.”

  Jack takes us outside where the sky has turned to shifting steel, where the surrounding skyscrapers and asphalt pathways are flooded with panicking Purebloods. Aircrafts, serrated jets, surge overhead. Gunfire, smoke, explosions—the City has transformed into a war zone.

  I wait on the crowded curb while tanks weave through the congested traffic, unclogging the thoroughfare like a colossal plunger. The letter ‘V’ is spray-painted on the machines.

  Aerial war machines buzz like a swarm of bees, twist into an aerial plunge and fire bullets in our direction. We lurch into a mad sprint as ammunition ricochets off the asphalt beneath our feet. I duck my head and dodge the flying shrapnel as Jack leads us across a vacant, overgrown lot. The pavement scratches my feet. I cringe from the ache in my pounded chest.

  “Get down.” Abram does a belly flop behind a rusted dumpster. We follow, concealing ourselves milliseconds before the jets fly past. Missy emits a single, nervous sob. Tally wheezes and slumps against my shoulder.

  Jack checks his watch. “Two minutes.” Sweat soaks his t-shirt. His muscles flex. “The hospital is up ahead. If we hurry, we should be able to find some sort of treatment for Tally’s radiation poisoning.”

  “I can’t run,” Tally says between gasps. She gazes at us from her dark eye sockets and purses her boil-lined lips. “Go without me. I’ll only slow you down and … you can’t risk not reaching the rendezvous point.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic. I’ll carry you,” Abram says. “Nobody gets left behind.”

  I prop my back against the dumpster. Laughter wells within me, but I hold it in. I’m shoeless. Again. People I love are dead. Again.

  “The perimeter is secure. Move out.”

  With Tally draped across Abram’s back, the five of us travel through what was once downtown Atlanta. Traffic is thick. Cars swerve as we sprint across the main intersection—some wreck and explode. Abram carries Tally to the opposite curb, and Missy follows. I dodge the vehicles and trip on my own feet, which is stupid and totally like me. I fall forward and slam against the pavement. Tires squeal. A taxi slides to a stop inches from my body.

  “Do you have a death wish or something?” Jack drags me onto the median. His heavy breathing drowns the City’s metropolitan roar. “Did you trip on those big feet of yours?”

  “Shut up.” I lean against his chest, his heart.

  A tremor washes through the City. I turn to confront the cityscape as a plume of fire lifts into the sky. A cloud of ash spools over the District, black with soot, red with sparks.

  The Federal building crumbles into a pool of screams and rubble.

  I am a panning camera—I see myself, Jack, the horror on our faces as we observe the grand act of war. I savor the stenches of burning rubber, molten metal, and flesh. Flesh. We killed our enemies, but in the process, we stole innocent lives. Innocence. I think I’ve lost mine.

  I think I’ve lost my mind.

  Purebloods flee from their vehicles. Tanks blast jets from the sky. A transit bus crashes into a nearby building and disappears into a cloud of fire. Death. Destruction. Heat and debris.

  Jack slides his hand into mine. This had to be done, his expression tells me. We didn’t have another choice.

  The vibrations intensify as the dome flickers with pixels. Like an opening door, a splitting contact lens, the force field dissipates.

  We’ve removed the Third Layer.

  “Let’s go.” Jack leads me to where Tally, Abram and Missy are stationed. “Dad will arrive with the second regiment in a matter of minutes. With the dome and government gone, it won’t be long until a full-fledged war breaks out. The hospital is just up the block. We’ll have to move fast but … we can still make it there and find the treatment.”

  “Things are already crazy,” Tally says. The dark circles around her eyes have blackened. More of her hair has fallen out.

  “If we don’t reach the meeting place, we’ll be sitting ducks when the second regiment attacks. Jack … Sergeant, you know we can’t risk not being there. Missy has to join her squad. They’re in charge of retrieving the virus from the labs. Without her, they won’t be able to complete their objective. And what about you and Abram? You’re leading the advance against the Pureblood army.” Tally coughs. More of her hair drops to the ground. “We. Cannot. Afford. To. Take. Risks.”

  “Yes, we can,” Abram says, “for you.”

  “What’s our timeframe?” Missy asks.

  “We have ten minutes max.”

  Abram nods and remounts Tally on his back. “Then I guess we’ll have to run.”

  The City has morphed into a lethal, unorganized deathtrap. Bombs detonate. Smoke fogs the air. Purebloods swarm the streets like ants fleeing from a stomped anthill.

  I weave to avoid chunks of building, severed limbs, and shattered glass. I block the bloodcurdling screams and sirens from my cognizance. I enjoy the run because running is the one thing I can do without feeling dead inside.

  Jets battle each other overhead. They twist and plunge, fire endless rounds of bullets. Shrapnel rains down from their aerial attack. I cover my head and gasp when a plane collides with a skyscraper, knocking down the building as if it’s nothing but a flimsy house of cards.

  “The Vestige commandeered several of the Scavs’ aircrafts,” Jack says as we sprint through the masses of frantic civilians. “Our guys know which planes belong to us. They can distinguish friend from enemy. The aliens aren’t as fortunate. They’re firing at everyone.”

  A hospital comes into view. Ambulances crowd the curb, flickering with warning lights. Medics roll survivors through the main entrance on stretchers.

  “We made it.” Tally sighs.

  Mechanical squeals echo through the City, and the hiss of dying turbines follows. We stagger to a halt as a jet spirals over downtown, burning, smoking, falling at a steady decline. The plane hits the hospital like a missile, exploding in front of us, blotting our destination into oblivion.

  I curse and scream as Tally’s last hope burns to the ground. Why? Why must everything I care about be taken from me? Is this some kind of sick joke?

  “Move!” Jack leads us into an alley as blocks of rubble are tossed from the eruption. Detritus flattens cars and cracks sidewalks—a young boy is stabbed in the throat by a metal shard, an elderly woman is knocked down and leveled by a concrete chunk.

  “It’s gone.” Tally sobs as Abram lowers her gaunt frame to the pavement. She squirms in my arms when I try to hug her. “I’m dead.”

  I hold her tight. I can’t let her go. If I do, she might never come back.

  “No.” Jack paces the backstreet with his arms stretched behind his head. “This is just a setback. There must be other places that have the treatment. We’ll keep searching.”

  “The radiation is destroying my system at rapid speed,” she yells. “Even if we somehow manage to find the treatment in a few days, it won’t work. My body is shutting down. I’m dying and … there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it. You know I’m right, Jack. My fight is over!”

  “No,” he shouts. His bottom lip quivers. He ceases motion and stares at her, quieting his voice to a protesting murmur. “No. You are not going to die. Not you, too.”

  “There must be another way,” I say.

  “In the labs, there’s probably a treatment for radiation poisoning,” Missy says. “When I go with my squad to retrieve the virus, I’ll look for it.”

  “Yes. See. You have a chance.” Abram crouches next to Tally and touches her bony arm.

  She shakes her head and turns to Jack. “Sergeant, I am asking to abort the mission. I also request to be discharged from active duty, due to my state of health.”

  He stares at her. There’s a lasting pause between them, and I sense their wordless communication is the depths of Jack’s and my third-space. She loves him and in a different sort of way, he loves her, too. I accept their emotional bond because T
ally deserves to be loved before she dies, if not by her friends and future boyfriends, then by Jack.

  “You can’t waste time trying to save me. I’m a soldier, your soldier … and soldiers die in battle. This isn’t something worth fighting. It can’t be fought. I have a week or two until my body shuts down. That’s time. I have time.” She hesitates as if her tongue has said things she doesn’t fully mean. “I want to live … but that’s not really an option anymore … so this is how I choose to die. Please. Give me the freedom to make this choice. You gave me a life, Jack. Now let me choose how it ends.”

  “Affirmative. You are relieved of your current station, Lieutenant Mason. I thank you for your service to this country and humanity.” Jack clenches his jaw until his dimples become deep crevices.

  “You’re going to quit?” Abram yells and kicks over a garbage can. His mouth is angry, but his eyes are sad. “I’ve lost Sutton, Ezra, and Charlie. You will not join the list, Tally.”

  “Don’t be a freaking idiot. You can’t command me to stay alive. That’s not how this whole death thing works.” Tally sighs and leans against my shoulder. “At my funeral…”

  “We’re not having that conversation right now,” Jack says. “When the war is over, you and I can talk. Okay? We need to start moving again. The rendezvous location is several blocks south.” He lifts her from the ground and onto his back. “Hold on tight.”

  Tally and I want the same things: life, Jack, to open our eyes and breathe in the clarity of a mask-free world. She doesn’t hate me for gaining what she has lost but loves me in her own sarcastic, hidden way. I’ve known many types of love in my life, none of which have ever been as selfless as hers. She proves people are different from how we perceive them, that love can be demonstrated in hidden, undramatic ways every day. She proves sacrifice isn’t always a kill myself to save them circumstance but a relinquishment of something personal to aid someone else, an unapplauded choice to swap life to give others time. She is a hero. She is brave. And I wish with every fiber of my being that I could pump her dying body with life and sacrifice for her like she is doing for me.