Harsh Realities

Harsh realities.

When I open my eyes the first things I see is a fuzzy blob floating in front of my face. My head is still not entirely clear and the blob is irritating so I give in to impulse and lunge. The blob disappears and I realize that I’m strapped to the cot I’m lying on. A growl of irritation escaped even though I know that growling is really counterproductive in this situation. Someone grabs my hair wrenching my head back and I feel a needle jabbed in my throat. Gods be damned! I hate it when they do that.
I come too again still tied down but this time I can actually see the room. Anderson is glaring at me, I guess he was the blob I tried to rip to shreds…oops. Not that the bastard doesn’t deserve it shooting me up with all kinds of crap under the excuse of protecting the public!
I might be a security risk but I’m not stupid, like I would try and bite anyone at the compound while lucid. They can’t blame me for acting on instinct when recovering from a blow to the head. Anderson will be bitching about this for at least a month!
Twisting around I see Gregory leaning against the wall and grinning at the proceedings in the room. My partner, who needs enemies when you have a partner like that. Never mind the fact that everyone in the room should have know better then try and approach an Infected…
The world had gone to pieces a few years ago. And with WW3 there came a few surprises. Like unexpected mutations from the bio warfare. It turns out vampirism is a virus. Ingest the blood of someone who’s already infected and suddenly your body can’t produce red blood cells any longer and you have to get them somewhere else. If you are only bitten by the carrier and survive then you don’t get enough of the virus to be considered ‘turned’ but you do start developing certain characteristics: like your baser instincts coming closer to the surface and a preference for raw, bloody meat. With enough iron injections you can live a happy and well adjusted live for years but always keeping in mind that two more bites and you will be on the extermination list before you can say ‘hell’. In short drink the blood or get three bites from a vampire and you are dead. Or you end up at the Institute: the research facility that is trying to exterminate the disease for years now. And now they are getting desperate the government has finally caved and gave permission to use human test subjects. That’s where Gregory and I come in. Being infected already we are the perfect hunters for the Institute. They need others like us and they don’t want uninfected humans to be at risk. We needed to stay alive and inexperienced on. Making a deal with the proverbial devil seemed like the right thing to do. Anderson and Hawkins are our supervisors, they make sure we take our medicine and don’t attack the nice doctors who come to poke and prod us anyway when we aren’t out hunting the door bastards how will be cut up in the name of saving humanity.
After a lecture from Anderson I finally get untied and can get off the metal slab that serves as a cot. We’re getting a vacation since no one knows why I suddenly blacked out at the end of the hunt. I can smell Anderson’s fear and Hawkins’s as well when he finally shows up. The only person in the room who isn’t freaked out is Gregory. Why am I not surprised? Gregory is pretty hard to freak out. I’ve seen him drag children in to the Institute and sleep peacefully the day after. I don’t know what he did before the Institute got him and he doesn’t know what I did. That’s the way things go here. No one has a past any more, we aren’t the people we were before the infection.
Hawkins led us back to out ’rooms’: two bedrooms attached to another empty one that could serve for training as well as function as a very barren sitting room. Usually we were the only ones to enter them except for out keepers. This time I could hear another heartbeat. Gregory heard it was well, from the corner of my eye I could see him twitching and shooting curious glances at Hawkins. Of course there was no point in asking what was happening. We would never get a straight answer any way so why bother? At the door Hawkins stopped frowning before opening the door.
“A little present for the both of you since the director is so pleased with your efforts.”
With those words he locked us in.
There was a young man chained to the far wall of the training/sitting room. He looked healthy and strong and like after every hunt both Gregory and I were feeling the hunger for blood more keenly. The young man wouldn’t leave the room alive. As double edged as this reward was we were going to take it. I didn’t even have to look at Gregory before moving towards our surprise. I felt him moving beside me approaching our reward from the other side. The young man didn’t smell infected, we were getting the pure fresh blood that we already craved despite the fact that we had not yet been ‘turned’. During our hunts we drank from our victims from time to time when the urge became too great. But tainted blood just wasn’t what we needed. I pressed against the youth from the left as Gregory did so from the right grinding him in to the wall. The youth tried to struggle but that was of course hopeless. We are stronger and the youth was chained to the wall. Gregory was the one to grab him as I tried to calm the youth down a little. We didn’t want to hurt him, we just wanted to eat. The young man’s head is pulled back and kept immobile by Gregory’s grip showing off a pale pink expanse of unmarred flesh. I lean down and lick the skin tasting the salt on it. The taste exploded across my tong and suddenly I wonder why being the way we are is wrong? Every species has a natural enemy why can’t we be the natural enemy of humanity? Why can’t we be left alone instead of being caged and experimented upon?
I push those dangerous thoughts away and look up at Gregory. I know he knows what I am thinking, maybe he has been thinking thoughts like that for a long time too. Still holding each other’s stare we lean down simultaneously and sink our teeth in to the pale pink throat that is bared to us. Hot, wet and spicy blood shoots in to my mouth and all the thought of the last few minutes are forgotten. Fresh, healthy blood in stead of the synthesized crap we usually get is like taking a sip of the fines wine imaginable after having been forced to drink the most inferior stiff for weeks. I hear a moan and am not sure who it came from. That thought disappears as well as together with the blood I start tasting the young man’s memories. A happy childhood, the family dog, playing with friends out in the sun, his first girlfriend, his first detox experience. The blood is running out, the memories fading and I start understanding why he had been given to us. The corps at our feet had gone through detox for a second time in prison and had been forced to remain clean ever since restoring his body to a more or less healthy state. With all the pollution in the world nowadays he could count as healthy, he even smelled like it. He would have died anyway as soon as he was released from jail and so someone higher up had decided that he was expendable and a good gift to placate us. Such double standards the saviours of the human race handle. I refuse to feel guilty for this death or any other death that I have caused. Nowadays I only act as my nature dictates and don’t bother thinking any further then that. Gregory pulls me away from the corps leading me along to his bedroom. His bed is bigger and I feel like company. Bed might be a strong word it’s more of a nest of blankets, pillows and sheets. Really comfortable and roomy we can both spread out and sleep. The company is comforting too. I start thinking about the hunt today and why I can’t remember fainting. I want to ask Gregory about it but he is already fast asleep when I turn to do so. Just my luck as usual. I can’t even get an answer from the man who is supposed to watch my back. Faced with the situation I do the only thing that will help: I pull the blankets tighter around me, snuggle deeper in to the nest and fall asleep. Maybe I’ll get some answers in the morning.