Hey guys! I received a prompt from this ages ago, but I never posted my story. Here it is! My prompt was 'At midnight, someone knocks on your door. When you open it, you find a man nearly bleeding to death on your doorstep. What happens next?'
Knock! Knock! I woke up. Ugh! I though, I really don’t want to get out of bed. I rolled over, looked at the clock on my bedside table. It was exactly Midnight. I got up, threw my robe on and meandered towards the door, at this point wary enough to be wondering who in the world was knocking on my door at midnight. I also was unsure whether or not to answer it, as I hadn’t answered the door in a long time. At that point though, I wasn’t awake enough to remember why. The house was quiet, my parents and sister were still asleep. I peered through the view hole on the door to see who it was that was knocking on the door at midnight. That’s when I remembered why I never answer the door anymore.
You see, I live in a very strange neighborhood. We get strange people at our our door all the time. Three years ago, just after we moved here, my mom answer the door, and there on our step was a cheetah cub! And it had been pawing at the door like a cat that wanted to be let in! Although, I suppose it was a cat. Anyway, we took the cub to the local zoo, and thought not much of it after that. The next year, just after my birthday, my older sister answered the door to find exactly what I had wanted for my birthday, but hadn’t gotten because it made no sense. A dragon. A real, live, baby dragon was sitting on our doorstep. Oh, and one more thing, it could talk! The dragon’s name was Alicia, and she still lives in the neighborhood. The next year, last year, in June, where their are lots of tourist, there showed up at our door a German man, who didn’t speak english. However, since my Dad had lived in Germany for a while he understood what the man wanted. Dad sent the man away after about a minute of listening to him. Later, my dad said that the man had wanted to sell us illegal drugs. Nothing quite that strange had happened yet this year, although there was a giant bunny found a couple houses down near Easter. Well, the nothing strange strange part had just changed, as there, on the doorstep, was a man that was covered in blood and looked as though he would dead in a couple minutes.
That’s when my family ceased to be asleep. I screamed. I mean, I wasn’t scared of the dragon, and I wanted to pet the giant bunny, and keep the cheetah cub, but I was scared of blood. I know, slightly strange, since I am made of it, or contain lots of it, but I just can’t stand seeing it not in someone’s body. At that point, my dad came running down the stairs, still wearing his pajamas, and saw me standing there, terrified. “The man,” I stuttered, “The man on the doorstep.”
“Oh, fun. What’s happened this year?” My dad said. He gently moved me over and peered through the view hole. Slowly, his face turned white. “Jessica! Get down here now!” He cried, and threw open the door. The man moved, just a little bit, and smiled. Then he passed out.
My older sister nearly passed out right next to him when she came down stairs, closely followed by our mother. Mom had thrown on her robe as well, and was carrying the first aid kit from the upstairs medical supplies. Maybe I should mention at this point, my mother’s name is Jessica and she is a nurse at the local hospital. She looked at the man, and quickly instructed me to go back to bed and dad to go fold down the examination table in the living room. Not only is my mother a nurse, she practically has the whole hospital right in the house! I don’t know what happened next, because my I followed my mom’s instruction and went back to bed. However, I did not get back to sleep for several hours.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! I was jolted out of bed by my alarm clock. Drowsily, I started to remember what happened last night and groaned. Well, I guess I better go and see if he lived, I thought. As I mentioned earlier, my mom is a nurse, so I am used to near death experiences for other people. I got out of bed, brushed my teeth, took a quick shower, put on some clothes, and grabbed my hairbrush to brush my hair as I walked down the hall towards the living room. The man was there, covered in bandages, still on the examination table, but breathing quietly. He was sleeping, and still alive. That’s good, I thought. I proceeded into the kitchen, my hair brushed, to have breakfast. My mother was standing there, washing her hands in the sink.
“Good Morning Mom,” I said, “Do you know who that guy is yet?” My mother looked up, and her face paled.
“Kristen!” She said, “You may want to eat your breakfast in the living room, sweetheart,” she added more calmly.
“Um, okay.” I walked over to the cabinet and pulled my cereal out. I reached over to grab a bowl from above the sink and just happened to look down at my mother’s hands, which she was still washing.
I dropped the bowl and screamed just as I had the night before. I stumbled backwards, and ran right into the counter. The bowl hit the ground and broke with a loud noise. I stood, panting, trying to calm down, as my mother turned her body so I couldn’t see her hands anymore. She was trying to wash blood off of them, but it was as though her hands were bleeding, since there was just more blood to wash off of them.
“Mom,” I said quietly, “what happened to your hands?” She sighed, and started to explain.
“Honey, I am afraid that the man that showed up last night had not just been wounded, he was infected with a disease.” She paused, and took a deep breath like she had bad news to breck to me. “Well, Kristen, I’m afraid your dad and I have both already been infected.”
“Well, that’s fine isn’t it?” Judging by the look on her face I was going to have to guess that it was not fine. “There has to be a cure, doesn’t there?” My mom shook her head.
“Sweetie, the man in the living room? That man is a scientist from Italy that had been investigated by the Italian government and kicked out for conducting inhumane experiments on people. It turns out that when he was deprived of others he tested his ideas on himself. I sent the virus to the hospital to be examined, and I already have the results back.” She paused again, and then continued, “Kristen, the virus was engineered by him, and there is not way that we have to create a cure. I’m afraid your dad and I have been diagnosed with just over a week to live, and I need you to not touch me.” She adds as I move towards her. The plague is not airborne, but it is spread by touching any liquid with the disease in it. Your father and I both touched the man’s blood last night while bandaging him, and so we have been infected. Now, I need you to go get your sister and have her take you to school today.”
I gasped. “Mom, you still want me to go to school?! That’s insane! Let me help you!” I reached for her again.
“No! You and your sister mustn't get the plague too. If the three of us die, then the plague will die with us and no one else will die. Now, go to school, you’re going to be late. I’ll talk to you when you get home.”
“Fine.” I walked slowly out of the kitchen and back into the living room on my way out the door. This time, the man was awake.
“Did I do it?” He asked, glancing at his bandages, “Did I do it?”
“Do what?”
“Why, create a population control disease?”
“What do you mean?” The man smiled.
“Why, don’t you see? Everyone on the planet will die sooner or later if we don’t get rid of a bunch of the people now. We have to go back to doing things in a sustainable manner, or everyone will die, and not just those that get the disease.”
“Then no, you didn’t do it.” It was was my turn to smile. “My parents and you will be the only ones to get the disease. You choose the wrong house to come crawling too, mister. My mom and dad already knew they were infected, and have already taken precautions so that my sister and I don’t get the plague you made. Your effort will only result in your death.”
With that, I stormed out of the room and went outside. My sister was already in the car, looking alright, just a little tired.
“Ready?” She asked, the word full of extra meaning. We weren’t just going to school, we were going away. Mom wouldn’t have let us leave if we were infected, so that meant that we weren’t and therefore couldn’t come back to the house. We would have to go with my sister’s boyfriend Joe, and I would probably have to get a job. Our as we knew them were over, but we would able to start again.
“Yeah,” I said to her, “Let’s go to school.”
Prompt for Psixi: Once upon a time, there was a small town of people that had developed in parallel to normal humans, but had advanced much faster. Now, what happens when that group of humans encounters normal people and starts to kill them?
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