Cycle of Consciousness

I stumbled through the hospital corridor, leaving red handprints on the clean white walls as I went. I could hear the footsteps, tens of hundreds, trampling over each other in the stairwell behind me. I stayed focused, searching desperately for the operating room. I passed one door, then two as the screams began to echo behind me. I turned a corner and increased my pace, aggravating the wound on my ankle. A wild gunshot rang out from down the hall behind me. My eyes widened and I saw the sign ahead of me, three doors to my salvation. I heard them slamming into the wall trying to turn the corner. Another gunshot rings out followed by a cacophony of screeches and howls as they lay eyes on me. I burst into the O.R. and slammed the door behind me. It only took a second for them to crash against it. Through the thin window I could see them, the twisted things. One pressed its face against the glass. it was an exact replica, down to the little mole under my earlobe. 

We all were, down to the bone, identical, I had gathered that much after week one. I rummaged through the room and found some antiseptic and gauze. After clambering onto the operating table, I began dressing my wound. Thoughts raced through my head. My fingers were twitching. By week two I had begun to understand their patterns, their… herd mentality, if you could call it that , but their motives are well beyond me. I poured the antiseptic onto my injury and winced. They were wild, feral, single-minded in the goal to not just kill me, but devour me, as I learned this week.  I can’t accept this reality, I can’t even understand it. 

The window shattered, arms reaching through, writhing in search of my flesh. I finished binding the gauze to my ankle and hopped off the table, remembering to stow the extra supplies away in my backpack. Adorning the back wall of the room was a large mirror. I pulled my rifle off my back and  shattered the mirror with the stock, revealing an observation room hidden behind.

Exiting from the observation room back into the hallway, I took off my shoes so they wouldn’t squeak as I snuck away, looping around back to the stairwell and elevator. I reached for the call button but hesitated before pressing it. The elevator would likely chime upon reaching this floor, alerting them to my presence, and even if the doors closed in time, it would chime again once I reached the ground floor, alerting any stragglers stuck down there. 

The stairwell door suddenly swung open again, allowing another flood of them to pour onto the floor. Luckily none of them noticed me, now curled against the elevator door, as they ran to join their companions. There was no counting how many were in the stairwell now; the elevator was my only option. I reluctantly pressed the elevator button. Switching the safety off my gun and checking the magazine revealed approximately twelve rounds remaining. I got to my feet and prepared for the signal, which came just a moment later. 

Ding!

I leaned hard against the door as the screams began anew. They rounded the corner as I stepped back into the elevator, hitting the close door button as I did. I knew hitting the button repeatedly had no effect, so I focused on aiming down my sights. Shots came down the hall at me with little precision, and I returned fire with more fortunate gains. I counted four incapacitated by ten rounds.

One lunged forward, diving to the ground and crawling like a spider with frightening speed. I fired my last two rounds at it to no avail, proving itself too agile to counter. It pushed me to the floor and bit into my neck. I stuck my fingers in its mouth and pried it loose. I pressed my foot into its gut and threw it off, buying myself enough time to aim my gun at it and pray to any and every god that I miscounted the bullets. I pulled the trigger, and to my elation, one final bullet stormed from the barrel, tearing through the things chest.

I breathed a sigh of relief, taking this reprieve graciously. When I tried to stand, however, I found myself too weak to do so. I pressed my hand into my neck and found a copious amount of blood leaking out. I paused and thought for a second, and that's when the clone struck again, its breathing ragged from the hole I had punched in its lung. It flipped me on my stomach and grabbed me by the hair, slamming my head against the descending elevator floor, again and again.

Crack!

Crack!

Crack!

I could feel my mind going blank.

Crack!

 I struggled, exerting all my energy in a desperate attempt to throw it off my back, to no avail.

Crack!

Crack!

 I stopped resisting after I felt my skull split open. In another lifetime, perhaps I would uncover the truth. I found myself out of time before I could come up with a proper last thought. 

I don’t know how long I was unconscious for after that, but I awoke to the sensation of thick dried blood in my sinuses. I was caked in the stuff, sitting in the elevator alone. To my left was a corpse, head split open and hollowed out. I was unfazed, although I wasn’t sure why. Where the hell am I, the hospital? No wonder I’m covered in blood.

It was logic better suited for a dream, and I was indeed in a dream-like stupor. As I stood up a sudden pain burned in my chest. I felt for an injury, but found nothing save for a small hole in my shirt. I wavered out of the elevator in search of a bathroom.

It was unseemly, but I stuck my pinky up my nose, trying to dig the remaining blood out of there. I washed my hands for what felt like the fifth time before trying to add some kind of style to my hair, just enough so that people wouldn’t point and laugh at me for looking so downtrodden. I stared drearily at myself in the mirror before heading to the door. I nearly bumped into the man waiting in line outside. He looked so familiar, but in my state I didn’t quite recognize him. I also didn’t quite comprehend his hands reaching for my neck.