To Kill a Cactus - Namaste part 1

Chapter 8

Namaste

Fast forward to six months.

Bruno and I had been working on the cure for quite a while, the time flew by. We had a lot of work, a lot of materials to read an analyse. Bruno was Christopher's cousin, they had met briefly before Christopher came looking for me and they had created the plan. I was the only one of the people they wanted to include that actually made it. Luckily Bruno had made a lot of progress already on his own. The lab, although somewhat claustrophobic at times, brought an odd sense of calmness to me, as if I finally was doing something with a meaning and what I did mattered to people, they were listening to me, they actually heard what I had to say.

We had the original diaries of doctor Norval himself, he had done endless experiments before reaching the result that he stuck with and the more I read the more insane he sounded, some of the things he put inside his magical potion, as he called it, were seriously harmful to the human organism, no wonder that it had such drastic results.

I turned to the last page of his diary. It appeared to be a moment of clearness for him, his handwriting was hasty, some sentences weren't quite finished and the ink was smudged at quite a few places, but I could still read out what he had written.

Date: March

Time: 6:10

I woke up this morning, didn't sleep well, the house was shaking. Children gone...The smell of blood overpowering...What have I done...Who am I? My skin feels dry, falling off...no hair, so much blood everywhere.

I think I know a way, I have a new experiment. Water.

Who am I?

They say that if I just do it, it'll end, I want it...but who am I? Must be a way, must be, must be, must be...

I hear them coming again, I know they'll make me, I know...who I am...

It's later now. Time: 15:24

I cleaned it all, they gone. I stay. I added two cloves of garlic. We need more sulphur. I am out. They say I must burn my own flesh, they say I must finish, but I can't. Insanity is a beautiful place to be. Drowning would be the most beautiful way to die...water

There were no more entries, I ran my fingers over the empty pages that followed. He had spaces during which he'd only write random words, then there were sentences and stories. I packed the diaries back together again. It was getting late and I saw Bruno sleeping by the research table. He had piles of papers around him. Although everything around us was high technology, they couldn't give us a computer. We had to handwrite everything and organise the files ourselves. 

In addition to Bruno and I, there were two women who helped us when needed, but they stayed more to themselves and rarely spoke. They were still a lot of help, but figuring everything out sometimes just gave me a headache and I wished I knew where everyone I knew was. I hadn't heard of any of my friends, my family, I feared the worse, hoped for the best.

It almost felt like everything around me wasn't real. Like I was in a computer simulation, being controlled by someone who didn't quite know what he or she was doing. 

With that thought I crawled into my hammock, which was a bed for me, pulled the blanket to my ears and attempted to fall asleep, the silent last words of Dr Norval echoing in my head.

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To Be Continued

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