The World of Man in the Hands of Children.
the entire story...
"I am going to tell you what happen, I am going to tell you why you are alone here, I am going to tell you why we had to do what we had to do, and I am going to tell you why you couldn't be a part of any of this until now."
In a country not too far from here, there is a big town, there are no people in the streets, even though it is half past five in the afternoon, rush hour. There are old cars from the thirties and the forties, shattered all around the main streets, they have been standing like this for the last twenty years or so, ever since the people started running. The town has a seaside as well, and there is a little beach, where many little shops stood, but they were all empty. Less then a five minute walk from the beach, there was a large grey building, with big blue windows, it used to be a hospital, but now all the doctors and nurses had gone. Inside the hospital building there was a large room, with beds and wardrobes, sixteen beds, all were bunk beds. In the room next to the bunk beds-room, there was a long wooden table, and lots of freezers and refrigerators, there was also a stove, but it didn't work anymore. Around the long wooden table, sat the only living people, that were left in the town, but they weren't doctors or nurses, or policemen or firemen, or lawyers or businessmen. They were all children, eight boys and eight girls, and now they were sitting around the big wooden table, listening intensely to the tape recorder, witch lay on the middle of the table. There was a mans voice coming from the tape recorder, he sounded sad and tired, but there was a gleams of hope in his voice, he had known what was going to happen, and now he had to tell the children, why he wasn't around anymore.
"But first I will tell you your names, just in case you have forgotten, now there is a number tattooed on your right arms, this was made because you were our so called lab-rats, so that we could keep an eye on you, one child at a time, but then we grew fond of you, and we gave you names. Number one is Jeffrey, your eleven years old, number two, three, four, five, and six, are Adam, Alec, Donnie, Marius and Edward, you are all ten years old. Number seven is Liam, and you are also eleven years old. Number eight is William and you are ten years old. Number nine, ten, eleven, and twelve are, Sophie, Vanessa, Julie and Joan, you are all ten years old. Thirteen and fourteen are, Lynn and Annie, you are eleven years old. Number fifteen is Theresa, you are ten, and number sixteen is little Eva, who is nine years old.
Thirty seven years ago, an adventurer named Johnny Carter Phillip Surremy, found a beautiful flower, when he was hiking in the Himalayas. He brought the flower back to England, to find out if it had a name, but the flower had never been seen before, so people decided that it should be studied. They named the flower Christally, and sent it to this hospital. I was one of the lucky scientists who had been chosen, for the 'Christally project', and we work like mad to try and find out, if the flower had any medical effects, and we discovered, that we had actually found something that could very well be the cure for AIDS. Unfortunately the so cold cure backfired on us, and all the people who were treated, died a slow and painful death, within five years after their treatment. we thought that, that would be it, that we could just forgive and forget, because what had happen, happen, and there was no turning back now anyways, but it wasn't so, the cure we made, became a virus, and it started spreading, first very slowly, but then Christally grew stronger and stronger, and in the year two thousand and thirty nine, over half of the all the people in the world were dying, and there was no cure. Everyone who wasn't sick fled, into the mountains, because a rumour said that the fresh mountain air would protect them from the virus.
Some of the other scientists and I, kept working on finding a cure, but it wasn't to cure AIDS anymore, now we worked on undoing what we had done, and I am ashamed to tell you that we used all the methods we could think of, even if it was illegal, who was going to stop us? The government had fallen apart, and the police had no power anymore. We even started experimenting on homeless people, whom we found wondering around the streets, they never even knew what hit them. Now you must understand that these are desperate times, and that people did horrible things to survive. we worked for seven years without any progress, then one day a woman came to us, she had caught the virus, and she had come to the hospital, to beg us to take care of her two sons, who were only five and three years old, she died on the hospital stairs before we could send her away, so we took the boys and buried the mother. later that same day all the scientists took a vote, and decided to run some tests on the boys, who sadly enough died from a fever four weeks after they had gotten to the hospital. But the results were remarkable, we had never experimented on children before, and it turned out, that that was what we should have done from the beginning. Because the two little boys had not been through puberty, they had not yet developed curtain things, which had made all of our previous test subjects immune to the cure. This was the breakthrough we needed, and we started researching the results, desperately trying to figure out a way to make to cure work on adults as well as children, but we had no luck with that. Then just as we thought that it couldn't get any worse, the leading scientist caught the virus, and there was nothing we could do about it. We all knew that he was going to die, and in the frustration of it all, two other scientists decided to head for the mountains, in hope of a better life.
Now we were only two left, mrs. Craft and me, but we would not give up, so we decided that if we could not save all of man kind, then we should focus on the children who we might be able to save, if we worked on the test results from the boys. But our test subjects were dead, so we went out to find children, Mrs. Craft and I, and in the next village we found an orphanage. There were 21 children in the orphanage, but the woman who was taking care of them was dying, rarely enough from age, witch is a privilege these days. Since the woman had no other choice, she agreed to let the children come with us back to the hospital, and that is how we got you. We worked on the cure for two more years, and in the beginning we only saw you as test subjects, but then we started seeing you as the children you were, your personalities, your humour, you innocence. It became harder and harder to bury the ones of you, who died in the process. And if you ever find the five graves by the sea, then you should know, that those graves belong to your brothers and sisters, who died, so that you might live, never forget that children.
I am dying children, I will probably be dead when you wake up and find this tape, because the virus has finally caught up with me, and I don't know if you remember it, but mrs. Craft died last week, so don't bother looking for us. I don't have time to tell you more about your past, and for that I am truly sorry, but you need to look forwards now children, you need to live your lives, and do what ever you want. I don't know if there are any other humans left, or where to find them, but if only one of you grows up, and survives this virus, then I shall consider my work done, and I shall be proud. This is the end of the tape, and I guess this is the end of me as well, goodbye children, and please forgive me for everything I have done."
There is a click from the tape recorder, and then it stops. The sixteen children are sitting very still, the slowly looked up at each other, were they really alone? Liam looks down at the number on his right arm, number seven. He stands up, the others all look at him, as he walks towards the door, Liam turns around and says "you want to go looking for the five graves by the sea?" a little smile runes across his lips, as the others stand up and walk towards him. This could be worse, he thinks, way worse.
In a country not too far from here, there is a big town, there are no people in the streets, even though it is half past five in the afternoon, rush hour. There are old cars from the thirties and the forties, shattered all around the main streets, they have been standing like this for the last twenty years or so, ever since the people started running. The town has a seaside as well, and there is a little beach, where many little shops stood, but they were all empty. Less then a five minute walk from the beach, there was a large grey building, with big blue windows, it used to be a hospital, but now all the doctors and nurses had gone. Inside the hospital building there was a large room, with beds and wardrobes, sixteen beds, all were bunk beds. In the room next to the bunk beds-room, there was a long wooden table, and lots of freezers and refrigerators, there was also a stove, but it didn't work anymore. Around the long wooden table, sat the only living people, that were left in the town, but they weren't doctors or nurses, or policemen or firemen, or lawyers or businessmen. They were all children, eight boys and eight girls, and now they were sitting around the big wooden table, listening intensely to the tape recorder, witch lay on the middle of the table. There was a mans voice coming from the tape recorder, he sounded sad and tired, but there was a gleams of hope in his voice, he had known what was going to happen, and now he had to tell the children, why he wasn't around anymore.
"But first I will tell you your names, just in case you have forgotten, now there is a number tattooed on your right arms, this was made because you were our so called lab-rats, so that we could keep an eye on you, one child at a time, but then we grew fond of you, and we gave you names. Number one is Jeffrey, your eleven years old, number two, three, four, five, and six, are Adam, Alec, Donnie, Marius and Edward, you are all ten years old. Number seven is Liam, and you are also eleven years old. Number eight is William and you are ten years old. Number nine, ten, eleven, and twelve are, Sophie, Vanessa, Julie and Joan, you are all ten years old. Thirteen and fourteen are, Lynn and Annie, you are eleven years old. Number fifteen is Theresa, you are ten, and number sixteen is little Eva, who is nine years old.
Thirty seven years ago, an adventurer named Johnny Carter Phillip Surremy, found a beautiful flower, when he was hiking in the Himalayas. He brought the flower back to England, to find out if it had a name, but the flower had never been seen before, so people decided that it should be studied. They named the flower Christally, and sent it to this hospital. I was one of the lucky scientists who had been chosen, for the 'Christally project', and we work like mad to try and find out, if the flower had any medical effects, and we discovered, that we had actually found something that could very well be the cure for AIDS. Unfortunately the so cold cure backfired on us, and all the people who were treated, died a slow and painful death, within five years after their treatment. we thought that, that would be it, that we could just forgive and forget, because what had happen, happen, and there was no turning back now anyways, but it wasn't so, the cure we made, became a virus, and it started spreading, first very slowly, but then Christally grew stronger and stronger, and in the year two thousand and thirty nine, over half of the all the people in the world were dying, and there was no cure. Everyone who wasn't sick fled, into the mountains, because a rumour said that the fresh mountain air would protect them from the virus.
Some of the other scientists and I, kept working on finding a cure, but it wasn't to cure AIDS anymore, now we worked on undoing what we had done, and I am ashamed to tell you that we used all the methods we could think of, even if it was illegal, who was going to stop us? The government had fallen apart, and the police had no power anymore. We even started experimenting on homeless people, whom we found wondering around the streets, they never even knew what hit them. Now you must understand that these are desperate times, and that people did horrible things to survive. we worked for seven years without any progress, then one day a woman came to us, she had caught the virus, and she had come to the hospital, to beg us to take care of her two sons, who were only five and three years old, she died on the hospital stairs before we could send her away, so we took the boys and buried the mother. later that same day all the scientists took a vote, and decided to run some tests on the boys, who sadly enough died from a fever four weeks after they had gotten to the hospital. But the results were remarkable, we had never experimented on children before, and it turned out, that that was what we should have done from the beginning. Because the two little boys had not been through puberty, they had not yet developed curtain things, which had made all of our previous test subjects immune to the cure. This was the breakthrough we needed, and we started researching the results, desperately trying to figure out a way to make to cure work on adults as well as children, but we had no luck with that. Then just as we thought that it couldn't get any worse, the leading scientist caught the virus, and there was nothing we could do about it. We all knew that he was going to die, and in the frustration of it all, two other scientists decided to head for the mountains, in hope of a better life.
Now we were only two left, mrs. Craft and me, but we would not give up, so we decided that if we could not save all of man kind, then we should focus on the children who we might be able to save, if we worked on the test results from the boys. But our test subjects were dead, so we went out to find children, Mrs. Craft and I, and in the next village we found an orphanage. There were 21 children in the orphanage, but the woman who was taking care of them was dying, rarely enough from age, witch is a privilege these days. Since the woman had no other choice, she agreed to let the children come with us back to the hospital, and that is how we got you. We worked on the cure for two more years, and in the beginning we only saw you as test subjects, but then we started seeing you as the children you were, your personalities, your humour, you innocence. It became harder and harder to bury the ones of you, who died in the process. And if you ever find the five graves by the sea, then you should know, that those graves belong to your brothers and sisters, who died, so that you might live, never forget that children.
I am dying children, I will probably be dead when you wake up and find this tape, because the virus has finally caught up with me, and I don't know if you remember it, but mrs. Craft died last week, so don't bother looking for us. I don't have time to tell you more about your past, and for that I am truly sorry, but you need to look forwards now children, you need to live your lives, and do what ever you want. I don't know if there are any other humans left, or where to find them, but if only one of you grows up, and survives this virus, then I shall consider my work done, and I shall be proud. This is the end of the tape, and I guess this is the end of me as well, goodbye children, and please forgive me for everything I have done."
There is a click from the tape recorder, and then it stops. The sixteen children are sitting very still, the slowly looked up at each other, were they really alone? Liam looks down at the number on his right arm, number seven. He stands up, the others all look at him, as he walks towards the door, Liam turns around and says "you want to go looking for the five graves by the sea?" a little smile runes across his lips, as the others stand up and walk towards him. This could be worse, he thinks, way worse.