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  Vincent wanted to say something but couldn’t at the moment. Instead I just shuffled past him and took a seat at the computer console. I stared at the blank monitors, dropping the gun and clips on the desk.

  “Do you have a mirror?” I asked.

  Vincent was confused but shuffled over to a cabinet.

  “What happened?” Vincent asked as he ran back over with a handheld mirror, placing it nearby. He looked frantic, excited, and beyond terrified.

  “Something…” I held up the mirror and looked at my reflection. I knew it. My irises had mutated just like the turnings. They were now a deep, purplish color. It was like looking at someone else. I wasn’t the same, but I wasn’t completely different either. Altered maybe, but the word changed felt wrong.

  The voices started again, frantic as Vincent. I tried to shut out the mass and listen to any coherent, single lines of dialogue. Something was happening. The entire horde was moving towards the barrier.

  “Shit,” I said, tossing the mirror onto the metal console. I got up and exploded through the door, into the dark world. Vincent followed behind, not knowing what to think.

  “Jackson, what’s going on?” he asked. He was examining me like a project, as if trying to understand the outcome of some hypothesis he was testing. He had to construct some sort of idea of what had happened down in the installation when the timer struck zero. But this wasn’t his expected outcome.

  “What does that timer say?” I asked.

  I remained fixated on the voices. They gushed like waterfalls, too many crashing over the others. It was beyond my control at this juncture to communicate effectively with any of them.

  “It, umm, it… ran out?” Vincent questioned.

  “It did,” I said without turning around. If I ran now I could make it to the barrier within maybe an hour. I could follow the voices there. They were excited. They understood the barrier was failing. Soon they would be released from the darkness that kept them trapped.

  “So, you’re immune then. That’s great!” Vincent exclaimed.

  “Not quite,” I said and turned around to face Vincent. “I can hear them. All of them. From this city to the next. Even the ones overseas.”

  “Huh?”

  “Vincent, I turned.”

  “You what!” Vincent scrambled backwards as if I would suddenly leap out and attack with my apparently hidden claws. He ran back inside and yanked one of the guns off the console. He aimed it at me, his hand shaking. I couldn’t blame him. He had lived in the darkness with the incessant screams of these creatures for too long not to arm himself when confronted by one.

  “And I didn’t turn. It’s hard to explain. I can feel them, hear them. But I’m really not one of them,” I explained.

  Vincent didn’t lower his gun. He kept it pointed at my chest. I walked back into the building and closed the door, hoping it would ease his mind.

  “Don’t move!” he challenged, backpedalling away from me.

  “Look,” I said. “We don’t have time for this. The power source is failing and that barrier will fall soon. The creatures will run rampant through the city. They will kill everyone. We can’t let that happen, now, will you help me?”

  “How can you stand here if you turned? You’re on the wrong side of the barrier!” He didn’t even hear my plea. The gun rattled in his hand. He wasn’t going to be able to help me like this. All he saw was a creature that was no longer human, even though I physically remained the same. I wondered if turning while within the barrier made me immune to the five thousand effect.

  “Put that fucking gun down, now!” I sneered. The instance my demeanor changed his aura also changed. I didn’t know if it was these new eyes of mine, but it was like he glowed yellow. His trigger finger retracted to the outside of the gun. The shock of my comment made him misstep.

  Within that instant, I was upon him, not even knowing I could be so fast, so precise. I grabbed him by the wrist and stretched his hand with the gun outwards. With my other hand I lifted him up by the throat and shoved him against the monitors.

  “Now is not the time!” I screamed. “I need your fucking help!”

  Vincent dropped the gun as I tightened my grip on his wrist. His eyes were wide enough for me to know my message got through.

  “Okay. Okay. Just let me down,” he wheezed.

  “I need to get to them as quickly as possible. What’s the quickest way?” I set Vincent gently down.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t left this room in years.” He coughed and rubbed his throat. He remained timid, and flinched as if I would strike him. “But I have something that might help. It’s outside.” He pushed himself away from the monitors and walked through the door. I followed as Vincent kept close the building, still afraid the creatures would leap out of the darkness.

  I found myself wondering why I could still stand on both sides of the barrier. There were no effects from either side as I crossed the threshold. Somehow I had adapted to the five thousand effect. When I turned the effect must have canceled out somehow. Maybe that is why there were a couple of walkers down in the installation.

  Vincent stopped near the corner of the building and pointed at a garage that sat a few dozen yards away.

  “Inside there. She should run. Gas is in the tanks sealed up behind her. That’s all I got for you,” Vincent said, breathing heavily as he walked passed. “Keys in the ignition.” He continued without a goodbye, returning to the station. Not long after, I heard the door slam shut. I wondered if this would be the last time I saw Vincent.

  Running across the darkness felt different now, as if the thousands of voices of this city reassured me that darkness was home, even though they wanted to break away from it. It had become second-nature, this strange, unnatural twilight. Even though they resented the night they’d still lived within it for years.

  Thunder rang overhead. The antenna above blinked red. There wasn’t much time left. I had to get to the horde before the barrier fell.

  I hadn’t driven a vehicle in so long, though driving wasn’t something you forgot. The truck was nimble for its size as it rumbled down the streets. The headlights cut a clear path through the damaged city. Crossing over the center lane to avoid the overturned wreckage of an eighteen wheeler, it was hard to imagine how this city had survived, or at least grown into something so different.

  Some creatures started running alongside the truck. Their screams roared over the engine, but they also ricocheted through my mind. They couldn’t understand how one of theirs was controlling such a thing. Some scraped at the truck’s sides, claws dragging across the metal, though they made no real attempt to attack. I kept hearing them shout that the truck was too loud in their quiet atmosphere, and in fact terrorized them. They all felt the same fear. The millions who were connected shuddered in the same horror, and soon it massed into a riot.

  I took a right turn and zoomed past the dark, dead park where I’d been earlier. Onward I roared passed the glass lawyer’s office, Dylan and Dylan, and crossed the long bridge. I retraced my steps by following the voices like a guide. They were pointing me exactly where they were.

  None of the voices had a recognizable idea. They all screamed in an illogical mess. Their fear was constant in my thoughts, even though I wasn’t the one afraid. But their emotions were becoming my own. It was hard to displace them from my own feelings. They were more human than I’d anticipated, but they weren’t capable of maintaining humanity for long. They screamed in pain that ascended to madness, turning to anger and rage.

  “Kill. Run. Free,” the words rattled through my head, overshadowing the more non-coherent statements. They all howled in questions and millions more responded. I had only been linked for less than an hour and I was already starting to lose it. They had been linked for years.

  It was no wonder they were crazed, or attacked anything that wasn’t the horde. Their actions may not even be their own, not really. Thinking about it, these other creatures could be directing them fro
m afar, even overseas. Though directing was the wrong term. It was more like losing oneself to the madness of hearing so many voices scream in the darkness.

  I crashed headlong to an SUV and banged my head against the steering wheel. Dazed, but maintaining a bit of composure, I tried the key in the ignition and heard only a click. Smoke started to billow from beneath the hood.

  I jumped out of the door and hit the ground running, sensing the way I needed to go. I knew there wasn’t much time left. That power source was going to fail soon enough and, in turn, that barrier would fall. Even though I didn’t have any idea what I would do when I caught up with the crowd, I could at least get in the middle of them. Maybe I could say something.

  Several other creatures ran beside me, screaming and gasping with each breath. It was strange to be so connected as I looked over one of them. Yet the worst feeling was that I had brought this horror on them. They used to be human, used to have families, dreams, ambitions, and a future, until I ripped it away. The creature closest to me still had hair on her head. She must have turned recently.

  A frightening realization overtook me.

  “Eve?” I thought.

  She’d been shot. I watched her die. Or did she? Could these creatures be killed, or had she simply been stunned? Either way, it was definitely her. She suddenly stopped running and looked around blindly, as if not understanding the name.

  “Who?” Eve answered. Thousands of voices rang in response, spilling, falling over the others. In that moment I saw her lose part of her humanity.

  “Just listen to me! No one else!” I screamed. I could hear my own voice echo in my thoughts, shutting out the others that still screamed. “Come on Eve, hang on!”

  “I’m trying!” she said. The response was so loud. It was decidedly human, decidedly Eve’s. As if on cue, the others stopped completely.

  “Okay, just hold steady on my voice. Do you understand me?” My voice continued to echo even if the creatures tried to rant over it.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Good. Now Eve, do you remember who I am?”

  “Noooooooooo…. Who is Evvveeeee….” Her voice began to stretch like the others. She would have been in the darkness for about a week now. It was beginning to transform her thoughts as well as her speech. Some of the voices started to rise from below as she lost a bit of her grip.

  “Eve!” I shouted. The echo sounded between the hordes, killing their rise. “That is your name!”

  “It is? I mean, it is! I’m Eve!” she cried back. “Where am I?”

  I wondered if this was a split personality of sorts, or if she was just losing herself altogether.

  “You’re here. With me. Just follow my voice. We have to go,” I said, out loud this time.

  She didn’t disregard the statement, but simply followed the order. We both started running, allowing myself to reconnect to the horde while somehow keeping Eve removed completely. Never had a voice remained disconnected in this manner, and it was like death. She was wholly gone and the void was unable to be filled. I myself felt the same disconnection every time I had to tear myself away from the strange link as I switched between the horde and Eve.

  We passed the diner from earlier in the night. Looking at it gave me the chills, which somehow transferred to Eve. Even though she was blind, she understood my emotional distress at seeing the exterior of the building and the car I’d hid in during my hallucination.

  “What is it?” she asked telepathically.

  “Nothing,” I answered. I pushed away the memory since it might drive her into an emotional craze.

  I switched my mind back to the horde and their screams rose again. The thousands upon millions of others protested back to their original ideas. They wanted to be free from the darkness, free from the pain. I tried to share my concern, but for some reason my voice didn’t have the same echoing ability from before.

  Moving closer, we approached the others. They were as close as they would get to the barrier, which was probably still a few hundred yards off. Even from this distance it was completely black.

  I didn’t know how to start, but I needed to gain some control over the situation.

  My eyes started to morph colors as I looked back toward the center of the city. I saw a red hue pulsate along the ground, which I assumed was the power emitting from the core. It moved through the ground, keeping objects powered. But the pulsating was slowing. It was happening. It was happening now.

  “Damn it!” I screamed. There wasn’t enough time, and my shout bounded through the horde and caused a panic.

  “Listen to me!” I thought. My voice fell on deaf ears now. The sound of so many screaming was too loud to hear my plea. I wouldn’t be able to get through to them now, not like this.

  I thought about things for a second, how things were about to get worse, how those who needed me to handle this situation were about to be let down. And I thought of Olivia. How I ruined her life. Destroyed her future. All I ever wanted for her was the best, but I committed the exact opposite. She died, scared and alone.

  A deafening quiet shook through the crowd. Millions were watching, feeling, and seemingly understanding what I was going through. I could hear some of them crying. Some chanted the name Olivia. They were sad because I was sad. It overrode their need to be free, at least for the moment.

  My mind pushed further on. I thought back to the moment when the board approved the cure for more testing, even in my protest, even with all the evidence saying it was fatal to humans. The horde cowered in shame and anger. That pain ran rampant. They shook with nervousness and even a few ran to take cover from this grouping.

  In my mind’s eye I could see the test tubes filled with the ‘Cure’. When I’d first discovered it, these were the only samples of the virus. I could have destroyed the samples after the first human testing. My hands shook over the button that would have incinerated all known evidence. The entirety of the horde, millions of them, felt the agony as I waivered to push the button.

  “Whhhhatttssss gooooinnnnngnggggggg onnnnn!” Eve Shouted.

  “Just keep watching!” my voice echoed back in my mind.

  I recalled seeing the plague spread from city to city on a television set. Countless dead. The others, the ones who turned, began to slaughter all of those who remained immune. War broke out. The television showed the pure and utter annihilation that the world was going through. The horde shared in my blame, shared in my sorrow. The silence was unbroken. Now was the moment to speak.

  “Listen to me,” I thought. I spoke with earnest sorrow and commanding authority. I needed them to realize what was going to happen. “We don’t need to be afraid anymore. We are one. Stay with me. And focus!” I shouted.

  Only a few voices stirred, but they were drowned out in my echo.

  “Stop,” I ordered those few lingering voices that tried to overthrow my command. Those who refused to quit were soon silenced.

  “I’m here,” Eve moaned. She sounded near hysterical, but resolute.

  “Good,” I sighed. “Now let me show you what you need.” I don’t know how I did it, but I let them see through my eyes. All at once, a million blind creatures were able to see what they’d lost. I felt the million souls linked to me, staring, gawking as if their vision was mine, and mine was theirs. We were one.

  “Stay with me!” I screamed in my mind. Millions replied in one single, enduring cheer. Finally one of them was directing, and it was me. I felt connected to them like they were my children. Together we found the chains to hold us together, and we understood one another. From here on out, never again did they have to exist without a voice to guide them.

  I looked at the ground. The red pulsating of the core had stopped. We felt the barrier drop throughout the crowd. Daylight started to break through the darkness. A high-pitched whine sounded deep within the center of the city, followed by something like an explosion. The core had finally run out of power. Thunder and lightning burst out as if they would only do so
for one last time. The beginning of the end was underway. What happened in the next few moments was completely up to me.

  Epilogue

  If my memory serves me, and my math is correct, today is August 18 of 2020. As I write this it’s been a long six months since the barrier fell. A lot has changed, yet some things remain the same. There is no cure for the Alaco Virus and the transformation process still takes place on a person’s twenty-sixth birthday if they aren’t completely immune. Thus far, I am still the only one who has turned but remained physically the same.

  We still are forced to live in this broken city that is still surrounded by an unending desert. Life remains difficult. Things I used to take for granted back before The Forgetting are everyday difficulties. Water especially. But even more-so with the dark walkers living among those who haven’t yet turned of age.

  The transition for the “unhuman”, I just can’t call them creatures anymore, has been rough to say the least. There was a lot of fighting and warring over what many called beasts, demons, and monsters. The few dozen, out of hundreds, left Downtown refused to accept my unhumans from beyond the barrier. Instead, I led them Uptown, where fewer people lived. We carved out a niche, trying to exist without chains. It wasn’t easy for my kind to be accepted so quickly. Though they realized after a time that they were, after all, human before.

  “Jackson,” a shrill little voice came calling. “What are we doing today?” I looked back. The dirty blonde-haired girl stared at me with a smile that could melt any heart.

  “Give me a few, sweetheart. Then we’ll go see how our friends are doing,” I replied.

  Olivia nodded in agreement and bounded out of the room.

  Olivia is well, has been ever since I left her in the care of our dearly departed Susan and Kyle. That reminds me, I should at least recount for her few weeks without me. Her boldness never failed, and in fact, was the only thing that saved her life in the end. She managed to follow my tracks Downtown when I hadn’t arrived that night like I promised. She even tried her hand at the rope bridge on the highway. Thankfully, Glasses found my girl before she got the chance to take the full crossing. She had been in his care ever since. Also, Glasses is completely okay. He never really explained what happened that day down in the alleyways, but he never really had to. All I knew was that Olivia was okay, and I found my renewed vigor to exist.