Young Writers Society

The Man .1

Liquid. Amber, the colour of the tinted moss that crawls across the windows. The colour of the puddles that build beneath the chin on the floor. The sickly yellow, the healthy brown.

It tastes disgusting.

The boy let the second bottle fall to the floor. That was the last of it. His insides swam, and his head could not find balance even against the straight sills of the windows. He let the medicine bottles roll from his fingers, clinging only to the small cup in which he had carefully measured out each over dosage.

Why had he done it? What would make him so compelled to do something so stupid. A lesson children from any family were taught. There was a reason. One simple reason.

The man.

His body was broken, crippled within itself. His skin was tight and red; his limbs, lacking. His lips did not move, they were rigid and parting. He had spoken with his eyes.

His white, glassy, eyes. Eyes that lacked pigment, eyes that lacked anguish or fervour, but they told him something. Something only the boy could feel. Something he could never repeat from his tongue nor from the words in his mind.

But there was one thing that they boy knew for sure. The surgeon was going to put that man to death.

It had been impulsive, the decision to take the medicine. The sedative, the painkillers, everything needed before that man would receive his final injection. If the man drank these like it was intended, it would be his end; yet if the boy drank them on his behalf...

He could have poured them out. Poured them down the sink, out the window, but something, just something had told him. You must drink it to save the man.

The man had made for the open door, leaving the boy alone with the bottles, alone with the task of the medicine, alone with the imminence of the return of the surgeon.

“Why are you here little boy?”

That voice, muffled by the pale mask strapped across the face, solid and intimidating. The boy spun, the medicine glass still clutched in his hand, lowered from his lips. The bottles at his feet, rolling in the puddles of the liquid he had gagged and could not swallow.

At the sight of this the surgeons exposed eyes widened, rounding in a confusion of emotion, shock, anger, horror?

The surgeon lashed out at the arm clutching the medicine cup with the hand that held the scalpel. Whether intentionally or not, the blade chased across the boys forearm, the pain snapping up through his fingers, causing him to drop the medicine cup. It tumbled, smashing to the floor. The blood mixed with the cold amber.

“Wait, I...” The surgeon began, eyes darting to and from the boy to the medicine. They lost their target, and focused on the empty stretcher where the man had been strapped.

“My god, what have you done? Where’s the patient!?” The surgeon had lot the words that were initially to be said, and started turning around frantically, seeing nothing in the room but the boy. Words of anger began to spill from beneath that muffled mask, hands of desperation clutched at the boys shoulders. The furious eyes ate through his skull, ate through his heart, as the tone became more and more furious. The eyes of the surgeon were bright and red, the pupils were pinpricks, and the white was engulfing. The boys head still span.

There was only one thing he could do. Run.

The boy shoved at the assaulter, pulling himself backward toward the door and bursting out into the white washed halls. Today was a silent day. Today was an empty day.

He hurtled down the corridors, passing offices, labs, everything was white and brown, down the brief steps, around the bend. The double front doors were in sight. So close.

He could heart the surgeon running, chasing, the footsteps matching the thump of his heart. He slammed his body against the pair of doors. Usually they would be chained, stuck together with heavy metal bindings, but not today. Together they swung open with ease and the boy stumbled out, onto the unkempt brick path, onto the stringy lawn. He stumbled away, toward the road, his head growing only more heavy with every step. He heard the horn, he tasted the breeze, but he did not see the truck.

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The Second Kid .2

Splat.

Red.

Blood.

The great hunking truck, hurtling down the public highway at just under 80 km/h. The figure had come out so quickly, that even the brakes wouldn’t have been enough time to save it from the jaws of the grating.

The boy was on his knees, the force of the air pressure, and his inability to balance, had pushed him to the ground on the curb of the road.

On the centre line heaped something that could resemble a lump of meat. It was bloody and red. It was bare, stark, lacked clothing. It had the face that the boy had seen before.

The man.

The man had run out of the surgery just ahead of him, just in the sour time it took to be obliterated by the roaring truck. The man was dead.

The man was dead again.

The boy had seen that same face, that same flesh, scorched and burned, ripped and cut. Those same eyes, hundreds of times over, as the man had died again and again.

This had been the first time that the man had been found alive. It had been the only chance that the boy could get; the only chance to save him.

But now the man was once again dead.

The medicine... it had been consumed in vain, but it sill stirred in the boys stomach. Eyes were wobbling as he tried desperately to keep himself upright. Further down the road the truck had pulled to a stop.

There was a curdling scream.

The boy lifted his head and peered out from the prison of unkempt fringe.

Across the street was an insignificant bus stop. Not sheltered, nor built. It simply consisted of a bench and a sign. Atop the bench sat another boy, a kid about the boys own age. He had dark brown hair, combed neatly and short around his ears. He wore the uniform of the school public to the town, and beside him sat a black leather bag. He was screaming. Screaming at the sight of the mutilated body that had appeared in front of him beneath the tires of the truck.

This kid had witnessed it all.

The boy pulled himself to his feet and stumbled across the road, not caring for the blood his shoes stepped in as he heaved himself across to the bus stop. The surgeon would be from the doors any moment now... in this state the surgeon would find him, catch him, take him back inside. There was only this kid.

Could this second kid help him?

The features of that kid were almost indistinguishable now. Eyes were not wanting to co-operate. The kid himself would not stop screaming, and at the sight of this disillusioned, scruffy boy, he only picked up his bag and fled the stop. He ran down toward the forest park that lined the other side of the road. Not knowing what to do, the boy pursued him. The kind ran fast, and the boy lobbed on. He felt his legs were skipping under themselves but somehow he managed to keep up. He kept up to every pace until the world collapsed around him. The ground met his cheek, he reached out, pleading.

The kid stopped and turned around, facing his pursuer.

“Boy... are you alright?” The voice echoed lightly, fading from reality.

No, save me. No. Save me from the surgeon.