The End Is Near

A warm rush of blood oozed out onto my fingers as I nervously dug the scalpel into the skin surrounding the bullet hole. I used the back side of my hand to remove some accumulated sweat on my forehead, exhaling deeply, before further carving along the metallic object lodged in the thirty-two year old man’s flesh.

“What would you say that is? .38?” Angela asked casually.

Despite the fact that I’d be working around these kinds of injuries nightly, I really wasn’t good with the lingo that accompanied the weapons involved. My eyes darted upward at her for the briefest moment before returning to the patient.

“I’m not really good with guns…I have no clue,” I admitted timidly.

“Well, in that case, sweetie, you might want to brush up on your knowledge. At the rate things seem to be going, something tells me we’re going to be seeing a lot more of these cases,” she noted grimly.

I swallowed the developed lump in the back of my throat before reaching for a pair of pliers to remove the bloodstained bullet. Once it was removed, I dropped it lazily on the tray nearby. The patient’s heart was still beating steadily, an undoubtedly good sign.

This was my first surgical procedure since being hired, and I was still trembling. I paused to steal a glance at Dr. Harris to ensure that I was doing everything correctly.

“Go ahead, Kathryn.” She nodded with a warm smile.

I reached for the thread and needle, beginning to stitch up the remainder of the wound. Some sort of misplaced amusement warmed my core as I watched each weave lessen the amount of blood spilling out.

Once the procedure was done, a couple of nurses entered the room and moved the patient onto a stretcher. “Nice work, kiddo,” Angela said, discarding the contaminated instruments and patting me on the back.

“Thanks,” I sighed. “For some reason I was so sure that I’d mess up.”

“It’s perfectly understandable. In a hospital, there’s always this constant pressure and risk when dealing with a life or death situation. The fact that what we’re doing is illegal only makes it worse,” she said.

“I really don’t know how you’ve been doing it for so many years,” I laughed in admiration, trailing her up the series of cracked cement stairs.

“You’ll get used to it in no time, especially with me helping you out…every step of the way.” Angela paused to glance at her watch. “Well, at least I’ll be getting home in time to wake the kids up for school.”

Surprisingly, it was already 5 AM. I nodded in response, still mentally adjusting to this new lifestyle. With a heaving sigh, I walked over to one of the unoccupied chairs in the waiting room, up in the “real hospital.”

St. Michael’s was one of the only hospitals in the country to have its own Underground Traumatic Revival Center. It was technically a hidden portion of the hospital, located beside the morgue, and very few staff members even knew of its existence.

As I leaned back into the rather uncomfortable plastic chair, I quickly discovered that I had been sporting my bloody latex gloves all this time – an amateur mistake. I held my fingers out, separated, and stared at the red liquid that seemed to devour the gloves.

Ten years ago, I probably would’ve shrieked and closed my eyes to shield myself from the awful sight of someone else’s blood. At some point or another, I realized that it was completely irrational to fear something so essential to my existence.

And somehow I ended up in Medical School, ironically enough. But that was before the country was reborn.

December 21, 2012 was going to be a horrible date, regardless of whether the world ended or not. Many people took the predictions to heart and feared for the worst, literal possibility. Few ever considered that the prediction meant that a great change would occur, a change that would be so phenomenal, it’d be as if the world had restarted.

Needless to say, the world didn’t meet its apocalypse. No, it received something much worse.

While everyone was hiding in their homes with their stocks of canned goods and bottled water, a sinister man named Shadows walked through the haze of paranoia and stepped onto the platform of absolute power.

Some people who witnessed the event in D.C. said that by the time he was done, the White House and Capitol Building were flooded with blood. Not a single politician survived. Not one.

Apparently, Shadows had been assembling an army in secrecy for the past four years, promising each one of them control of the state of their choice. That meant he had at least fifty men on his side. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more – there had to be more. How could just fifty men overtake an entire political system?

Aside from Shadows and his stately supporters, he had a “cabinet” of four men – The Reverend, Synyster Gates, Zacky Vengeance, and Johnny Christ. They have hidden behind their false identities, thus allowing no access to their true personalities.

Shadows assumed the position of authority, his reign immediately effective on December 22nd. He only had one law: if you break a previously established law, then you shall be slain.

Fear spread like a vicious wildfire through the nation. People began obeying the rules, unemployment dramatically decreased, and there was a nearly nonexistent poverty line.

All for the single price of bloodshed.

The city streets were absolutely barren. The only people that ever really left their houses were those who had a job or school to attend. The city looked as if it had been abandoned, and it was really starting to freak me out.

Not to mention there was a tremendous chill rolling through the air. I am really starting to regret claiming to be tired of the summer weather. I quickly zipped up my leather jacket, while taking strong, stretched strides, desperate to finish the horrible twelve-block tread home.

I’d kill for a car with a nice stereo and heat right now, but that wasn’t an option, never will be. Ever since what Shadows did to my family, I refused to go near an automobile.

My younger sisters had been running late for a volleyball game, which was a poor thing to combine with my dad’s notorious road rage. He ignored the ‘No U-Turn’ sign posted atop a median and made a sharp left. The traffic camera recorded the entirety of the event.

Two weeks later, some of Shadows’ men showed up and brutally murdered my sisters and parents, for making an illegal turn. I came home from college to find the house covered in my family’s blood.

It wasn’t a very happy Halloween that year.

I inwardly cringed, as the memory still seemed to pour heavy amounts of salt in the freshly opened mental wounds. Tears began lining my eyes, but I quickly blinked the saline droplets away. I hated crying in public, almost as much as I hated walking home at this hour.

Scanning the lonely sidewalk, I honestly found myself missing the typical perverts and drunks who used to roam the city streets. Now all I had to fear was Shadows’ watchmen. His men blended into society congruently, which seemed incredibly disturbing to think that such heartless murders were capable of posing as mere passersby on the street.

Shadows pissed me off to no end, which frustrated me because I felt completely helpless in the matter. Honestly, what could I do? I was committing one of the most illegal crimes of modern times!

The St. Michael’s UTRC was a secretive group of physicians, surgeons, and nurses who in accordance with Zacky Vengeance, one of Shadows’ right hand men, received near-dead victims and strived to keep them alive.

Then, the lawyers involved in the deed cooperate with what was left of the Witness Protection Program in an attempt to restore the victims’ lives. Saving the intended victims was like regurgitating food out of a desire to re-consume the meal; it defied all logic in post apocalyptic America.

Personally, I don’t consider myself efficient enough for the job. I didn’t get any thrill out of it – in fact, I felt like I was the one dying each time I stepped into the operating room.

I accepted the job because it was the only way I could fight Shadows and prevent my family’s tragedy from happening to others. Even if it would cost my life.