DEATH TWITCH

Jeremy Urbano Rosete (Bad Ronald)

I'm lying there on the hospital bed, my frail, degraded, viral-ridden body shuddering with wracking breaths. Stale air barely makes it way through the atrophied tunnels of my lungs before I exhale it out again. My red-rimmed eyes, looking out from the plastic translucent breathing mask secured on my face, is a clear sign I'm supposed to be sleeping.

After all, I'm too old and I'm too tired and I've got no place in this world, not anymore. My usefulness has dried out long ago. But I can't sleep. Because every time I close my eyes, my heart shatters into a million pieces. Every time I close my eyes, I find myself thrust into the old times, the times when I was the best, and worse yet is the yearning, the desperate wanting to go back, back to the war, the endless, eternal war. And I can't.

Instead, my glazed eyes swivel about like they've been doing for years on end, looking every place and no place at once. My eyes, roving unsteadily across the room, finally settle on a murky black shape on the wall...

And my heart skips a beat. Then it starts hammering uncontrollably in my brittle ribcage, with what could be the last drop of adrenaline left in my system spreading throughout this false vessel that is my dying body. My hands, always shaking, become still for the first time in a long time, the old familiar steel-blue feeling creeping back into my fingers. My mouth, once cracked and dry and constantly quivering, presses itself into a tight, narrow line. My eyesight, forever unsteady and fuzzed over with haze, clears up back into the eagle eyes of old, every detail of the black shape jumping out at me, every loving stitch of that beautiful uniform, my uniform, my true skin…

Crimson eyepieces glare back at me, the florescent lights of this sterile room reflected on the edges, winking surreptitiously at me. The insectile design of the black gas mask, the silver lining of the filter canister, it makes my chest ache with a burning passion. My face. I thought I lost it forever. My fingers stretch open, unconsciously reaching out for it, the black gas mask with the red-tinted lenses… my old face. My real face!

Below my old face, pinned on the wall, is my old skin, the uniform battle-hardened and ready for action, the BDU belt webbings, the clip pockets, the pads, the red-and-white symbol displayed predominately on the shoulder pads. The hands and the feet are there, black leather gloves and steel-toed boots, the laces tied up just the way I used to do it.

It's all there. It's all back.

There's a burning in my chest, shearing so hot I can't stand it, my insides feel as if they're boiling. My heart quails again, roaring for the war. It's unbearable. I can't stay here. I can't stay in this bed. Not with my true body looking back at me. Not with my whole identity calling my name. I have to go to it. I have to go to the war.

So I do. At first, the leather straps binding my wrists and ankles hold me back as I try to sit up. They hold me down and I can feel myself sinking away into the soft bed, away from my real body, away from the uniform, away from its beautiful war cry. Gritting my teeth and ignoring the jagged softness that I feel inside my mouth, a bitter reminder that I have only a cluster of front teeth left in my gums, I utter a ferocious war cry of my own, flexing my muscles as hard as I can, pushing my frail, false vessel of a body past its limits, and the restraints snap away as if they were paper.

Still in the bed, I reach out for the uniform, and the mighty strength of old leaves me, rushing out of my body and I sink back into the bed, unable to even blink away the hot tears swelling up in my crusted eyes. Following the loss is this damn crippling vertigo, the room spinning rapidly into a kaleidoscopic frenzy, the uniform looming over me, swathing from the wall over the ceiling, becoming huge and demonic. I crumple back into bed, wheezing, my energy leaking away through my dry mouth, the poison in me coalescing behind my breathing mask. I rip it out because this is not the mask I want, it's not the face that I so badly need back. I look at the real mask, seeing it stare coldly back at me, the two red-tinted circles shining in the light.

The light grows, brighter and brighter, overtaking the entire room. So I'm forced to close my eyes, knowing that if I do...

I'll go back…

NOTES: This was actually an old idea of mine, but the tone was vastly different, and his character was the complete opposite of what he is now. When I read it years later, I just had to completely rewrite it, because the idea, though it was so great, was sadly wasted by my amateurish writing.

This chapter was short, but the next will be pretty long, basically a retelling of the 4th Survivor scenario on Umbrella Chronicles with a couple of liberties. However, I busted my ass to make it an enjoyable read, So wait up for that one...

Please read & review. Especially review! Please! I worked incredibly hard on this one (I think you can tell, too), and I really do want to know what you think.

C'mon. Just press the little 'go' box next to 'submit review.' You know you wanna...