Infamous: Raising Hell

A faint clatter echoed somewhere nearby, and in my restless slumber, replicated the sound of something coming for me. A creature made of shadows slipping through the vents, curling across the floor, up the bed railing and to my chest, where it hovered over me, suffocating me -

I took a deep breath and my eyes shot open.

I jerked upright, but with all the wires and tubing, was restrained to the headboard. My breathing went straight into overdrive, and then I realized, I'm breathing... It doesn't hurt or burn, actually... It feels like it was never there at all.

Panic shook my chest, and I pressed my back further into the blankets. My eyes flashed up as the door pushed open. A woman that looked like she was in her mid-twenties stepped in. Her eyes flashed and she smiled, "You're awake." She greeted. I took note that she wasn't dressed in a hospital smock, or even nurses rags. She wore a simple, off shoulder white sweater that was beginning to unravel. On her left upper forearm, was a white band with the red medical cross.

"You've probably got a lot of questions..." She sighed and went to the windows beside the bed and pulled open the curtains. Instead of bright, blinding light pouring in like I'd expected, a dull, dim light illuminated the little hospital room.

I watched her carefully for a few seconds. I noticed her right hand at her collarbone, twisting a small pendant around absently.

She turned back to me, and looked down at all the hospital equipment.

"My name is Trish, I've been your nurse slash doctor for the past week."

I took notice of her tired appearance, and suddenly, that made a lot of sense. In fact, I thought nurses were supposed to be, y'know... Clean, always ready? She was the complete opposite. Her skin was stained in blood and dirt, hair greasy, and looked like she hadn't slept a bit.

"We thought you'd be asleep a while longer," She paused to check the heart monitor. "Without any professionals around, all we've had were volunteer EMT's. So we weren't sure if you had a concussion or not."

She had a distant, careful look in her eyes. It almost completely overwhelmed the soft, kind glow they had.

"A lot of people have died..." her eyes shifted to the floor tiles, anger flashed in her eyes for the briefest second. "I almost lost my husband... Almost." She scoffed, and looked back up. "Here, drink this."

She brought over a plastic tray with a glass of water, and a small plastic container with a few different colored pills. "They'll help with the pain."

I took them silently, and as I did, I noticed a few more things about the woman. I don't remember ever being this alert of someone's appearance. It was bizarre and surprising to me. She watched me very carefully, and hid the small bit of fear in her eyes well. It concerned me why anyone would be scared of me. I was pretty much just a kid - nineteen years old, a graduated honor student, on my way to collage. I'd never so much as drank a drop of beer or experimented with a cigarette.

She turned quickly when our eyes met, and she set the tray aside, and took a deep breath. Her voice came out pressured and fearful. "How on earth are you still alive?" She hissed in disbelief, her back to me.

I opened my mouth, not entirely sure I could even speak. "I- I'm not sure." I croaked. My voice came out light and wheezy.

"You were burned alive, scorched in that fire by the parking complex..."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I whispered in confusion, my mood became wary as I analyzed her carefully.

"It means you shouldn't be alive - no normal person could ever have survived that." She glanced at me from the corner of her eye.

"What are you implying? That I'm a freak or something?" I wondered in confusion, looking back up at her. She sighed, and took in another deep breath.

"No... I'm just saying, you're not the only one."

"What?"

"The only survivor that's been brought in like this... In this condition." She explained, glancing out the window briefly, "Whatever that bomb was... Whatever it did, caused this. I'm certain of it."

"Bomb? What bomb?" I demanded, sitting upright, fighting with the tubes in my arms.

She turned back to face me, and there were tears of uncertainty and fear in her brown eyes. "There was a terrorist attack on the Historic District a week ago... Destroyed everything, everyone, within a seven block raidius. Except for a rare few, like yourself. You're all... Immune. Painfully harmed, almost dead when brought in. I had my doubts about all of them - especially you. Your heart stopped several times on that first night, your pulse was gone for nine minutes, you had no vital signs when Cole brought you to me. You were dead on the operating table, but you were still breathing. That was the only sign, the only thing that kept us trying. You were completely unresponsive, flesh burned to a crisp, no pulse, no nothing, but look at you now, sitting here before me, talking." She gestured a hand my direction.

I looked down at my lap, where my hands were folded in my lap. Yes, they still looked God-awful, but not blackened to a crisp like she mentioned. They had welts and patches of firey pink, scarring flesh, but nothing that looked like a week old burn.

"So, what is it? Rapid healing?"

She nodded slowly, "Everyone has exhibited the changes differently, either one had a pulse, but wasn't breathing, or another was blinking, but not breathing. Like the life was trapped inside of them."

"But they are all recovering?" I inquired slowly, trying to wrap my head around the possibility.

"...Yes." She sighed at last.

I fell back into silence and contemplated that. It sounded like an impossible phenomenon.

"You said you had no professionals, are the doctors all dead?" I couldn't help but wonder what she'd been refering to earlier.

She sighed a little in defeat, "Yeah, well, most of them. Not because of the bombs, though, I'm afraid."

my eyebrows pulled together in confusion. "Why?"

She pursed her lips and walked to the bed, and unplugged my heart monitor, and wrapped an arm under my shoulders and helped me to my feet. I wobbled a bit, and gripped the nightstand for support as she guided me to the window.

I gasped at the sight, and almost fell back on the tile. "What?..." I trailed off, hardly able to recognize the very town I'd grown up in. The Neon district was a mess. There were burned out buildings, smoke across the pier on the other islands where large fires were burning, the sky was a permanent shade of ashy grey from all the smoke and pollution.

"Militia groups," She continues, staring out the glass emotionlessly, "Call themselves The Reapers, they were in the explosion, too. On the further blocks from the blast, though. They didn't get it as hard, but they gained superpowers of sorts from it, or at least, they think so. They think they're invincible, and now..." She sighed, "They're kidnapping people, taking hostages, parading them around the island, then executing them in the streets. Most of the doctors were evacuated, are hiding, or were killed." She concluded with a grim expression.

I had no reply. It was awful...

"And the police aren't doing anything? Hasn't there been any Government involvement?" I demanded in disbelief, hardly believing they'd let this just slide under the rug and let it happen under their noses.

"That's the problem," She says in exasperation, "They put up guards on the pier, no one in or out of the city."

"Why?"

"With that bomb, came some sort of plague. Whatever it is, they want to wait it out until it just wears off, then they'll send in help. They don't want this illness to go worldwide."

"That's fucked up..." I muttered in disbelief, looking back out the windows.

"So we're just trapped in here with the psychos?" I asked bluntly.

She sighed and shrugged, turning to lean up against the windowsill, "That's one way to put it, but yes. People are dying faster because of it, like a purge, people are going crazy, and there's not enough officers in the area to do much. They're all holed up at the prison, looking after the new freaks that come in every day. There's no one protecting the streets."

"Sounds like you need your own militia." I say, and then I wonder to myself how long it would take to organize a group of determined residents to form our own, and protect the last of the sanity in Empire City.

She laughs without humor, "You could say that again...."

"How many people ended up in here?" I wondered after a moment. Empire City was a big city, there had to be tons around the blast area. Historic District was the most active.

"Daily or overall?" Trish replied with a hint of sarcasm.

"That bad?"

She nodded and looked down, kicking the toe of her tennis shoe against the white tiles.

"How many dead?"

"More than I can count."

Dead...

For a second, a light flashes in my mind, and it's not a flashback of me burning like it'd been for the last few days... It was a flash of people being torn apart by an invisible force. Like bullets riddling their bodies, ripping the flesh right off their bones.

I took in a deep breath, and the vision ended.

"Are you okay?" Trish shot up in concern. I leaned over, clutching the IV stand with white knuckled fists. I squeezed my eyes shut, and I could see it again... A courtyard, full of bodybags, filed in fine lines...

My eyes shot open again, and I caught my breath.

"The courtyard..." I whispered with determination I had never felt before, "Where is the courtyard?..."

"Out back." Trish replied in confusion, "You need to rest." She continued to try and persuade me to get back into bed, but I wasn't having it. I needed to investigate this strange feeling.

"No, no, I need to see them." It sounded crazy, but I just felt it in my gut, crazy as it sounded, I needed to see the bodies.