Idiosyncratic by Britt Nunes

Author:Britt Nunes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dieselpunk, teen, scifi, astronauts, non-space-odyssey
Publisher: Britt Nunes
Published: 2018-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

|Seventeen|

“YOU CAN’T JUST SAY something like that!” I snapped.

As soon as Oh’pol’s seizure stopped, Dr. Upton scooped her up. I followed him as he stepped back into the elevator.

“Say what? The truth?” he growled.

I didn’t know what he was going to do to her. I had to protect her.

“Don’t lie! You did this to her!” I screamed.

When the door to his laboratory opened, he ran through the corridor and into an examining room. He settled her on the bed and then rushed over to the far side of the room. I was about to follow when I felt a faint tug on my skirt.

“I...I...he...” She tried to speak.

“Try not to breathe, Oh’pol,” Dr. Upton shouted as he fiddled with a bulky machine.

“R...E...F.”

“Stop talking, you daft girl!”

“Stop yelling at her!” I screamed at Dr. Upton and then turned to Oh’pol. “I’m here, Oh’pol. I won’t leave you.”

Dr. Upton rolled the table that the machine rested on over to the bed. The device was so heavy that he struggled with it. He removed a large gas mask from the drawer and placed it over Oh’pol’s whole face. He then connected the rubber tube that protruded from the bottom of her mask to the device.

“She isn’t going to die,” I shouted. But then, in a voice I hardly recognized as my own, I whispered, “Right?”

Dr. Upton emptied a syringe full of a clear liquid into her arm. “Do you want me to spare your delicate feelings with a lie?”

“No.”

“She’s dying, and I don’t know if I can save her.”

There was a pain in his voice that actually made him seem like a normal person with emotions. A normal person who actually cared about her. A normal person whose heart was breaking too.

After emptying another syringe filled with an orange liquid, he flicked a switch on the machine. It roared to life, identifying itself as the source of yet another mysterious sound I’d heard while lying in my bed at night.

Dr. Upton rushed over to a sink in the corner and scrubbed his hands with quick, harsh strokes. He wheeled over yet another machine, pulling out tubing with two needles the size of writing pens at the ends of them. He inserted the needles into Oh’pol’s arm with a proficiency that only came from experience. He pressed a few buttons on the machine and it clicked to life, drawing out Oh’pol’s blood and then pushing it back in. Was it filtering it?

Dr. Upton started to examine her scalp, skimming his fingers across the scales over the side of her forehead. He lightly tugged at one, and instead of remaining firmly planted, it came away in his fingers.

“Too soon,” Dr. Upton mumbled.

He changed his focus to her hair, clutching her blonde strands. The chunk of tendrils came away with his tugs, leaving a misshapen bald spot on the crown of her head.

“Les’ette?” Dr. Upton said in a very controlled voice. “I need you to back away slowly...right now.”

A scream, a cry so loud and penetrating it didn’t sound possible, burst from Oh’pol’s lips.

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