And we're back! I have internet (just in time, I must say), and now there are only three chapters left. Although I did far too much research about hypothermia, keep in mind that we are entering Questionable Medicine.
Enjoy!
It was a common dream, and Barry had never been exempt: in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, zombies slunk through grimy streets and his legs were stuck with glue. Not literally, of course. There was nothing physically impeding him from sprinting away from the flesh-eating monsters, but a breakdown in his muscles at a molecular level made his legs burn with sluggishness. He moved through invisible muck, his adrenaline never enough to save him from extinction.
Now, he wasn't sure which he was—lethargic victim or living dead. Maybe both.
Even his arms, draped over Caitlin and Cisco's shoulders, were not enough. His legs simply would not support him, though every few steps he tried to re-plant his useless limbs on the ground. Mostly he was dragged. Carried, he preferred to think of it. Dragging was something you did to uncooperative dogs on a walk, or an overstuffed suitcase.
Caitlin and Cisco were doing their best, he knew, to keep him upright and supported, and he clenched his teeth to keep from alerting them to his discomfort. However, the further they got down the gray, post-apocalyptic hallways, the more his body betrayed him, the more he felt like he was decaying from the inside out. Most of his body was still fairly numb, but numb in a way that felt like pressure, like suffocation, and each step worked to jar him back into the knife's edge.
It occurred to him that he was merely hallucinating. It certainly felt that way as he managed to lift his head and really watch what was happening in front of him. It was something out of a sci-fi flick: every so often, people dressed in black would stagger down the hallway, but a man made of fire would burst in front of their eyes. Barry couldn't see what happened to the men in black, but he did know that Caitlin and Cisco quickened their pace each time this happened. Occasionally, Cisco would wheel around and aim his sonic gun at a soldier approaching from behind, and the hallway would echo with a scream. Sometimes, they would pass soldiers still on the ground, unconscious or clutching their heads. Barry remembered the feeling, how long it had taken for the ringing in his ears to stop.
"We're almost there," Caitlin muttered beside him, though it was unclear who she was speaking to. "Just through those doors." Her grip on his arm had tightened exponentially.
Barry wasn't sure how much time he had passed since being taken. It had felt like an eternity, but, knowing that to be unreasonable, he'd mentally settled on at least a day. Maybe two. When they'd begun their escape, and particularly when Caitlin muttered he words—Just through those doors—he expected sunlight, the promising burst of day that would welcome him back to the world. After so long between dingy gray walls and frost, he expected sunlight to be his savior. However, when they burst through the main doors of the complex, he was forced to blink a few times. The world outside was still dark, tinged gray and blue from an approaching dawn and smudged with pink clouds on the horizon. Had it really only been one night? The thought disturbed him more than it ought to, and the darkness of the sky solidified in his stomach.
Then it erupted.
"Look out!"
Caitlin's warning crashed over the roar of a revving car engine. Barry looked up, instinctively afraid of the sound, and saw two jeeps full of soldiers screeching toward them. The lights surrounding the complex had gone out, but the headlights of the vehicles tore through the grey velvet air and through them.
Ronnie—Stein—Firestorm—took to the air. "Go!" he shouted.
They ran, Caitlin and Cisco hauling Barry forward, his own feet tangling over the ground. The open air burned his skin, filled his icy lungs with foam. A familiar white van lay just out of reach, doors still opened around bits of a destroyed fence. It waited, patiently.
Pop, pop, pop.
He knew that sound, too. The air around them sizzled with heat and tension. Caitlin screamed, and the three of them dropped. Instinctively, Barry twisted, landing on his exposed arm, the relatively uninjured one. Still, the impact jarred his wrist and hand, momentarily wiped his senses from existence, dropped him in to a vat of ink.
He came to only a moment later, too out of breath to vocalize this new, intense hurt, and Caitlin and Cisco were already dragging themselves out of the dirt. The popping of gunfire lessened, the shots echoing sporadically. Barry could not stand. His friends heaved him forward, desperately, violently, no longer caring about short-term preservation, all the way to the van. Barry watched, as he was thrust inside, the bursts of fire and light that colored the night outside. Arcs of red and orange and yellow like solar flares. A thought, which somehow struck him in Eiling's voice: We are at war.
The van door closed and he could no longer see the lights of the flames, but the rumble of the vehicle under him was something of a replacement.
The two conflicting voices in his mind sparred back and forth, forward and backward.
Safe.
War.
Safe.
Triage, Caitlin thought. Triage.
Everything was blurry around the edges, every thought interrupted by Barry's sputtering cries as he dove in and out of consciousness. The floor of the van absorbed every bump in the road, every pothole, and each one launched her out of focus.
Triage.
It was impossible.
However, when she heard the stutter in his breath, the low whine of too little oxygen, her emotional self was so terrified it fled, leaving room only for her professional self. Flooded with purpose, she placed a hand in the center of his chest, against the familiar lightning bolt that was now blackened, ruined. Bracing herself after another bump in the road, she began her compressions.
"Stay with me, Barry Allen," she said as she worked. "He didn't beat you. I won't let that happen."
After the first set of breaths, Barry's lips crusty with blood against hers, Cisco finally chanced to look back and realized what was happening.
"What can I do?" he asked, panicked, his unintentional swerve causing Caitlin to lose the rhythm of the second set of compressions.
"Keep driving," she said thickly.
And he did, revving the engine as he went.
Three sets of compressions and breaths later, once Caitlin was confident Barry's breathing was back to normal, she passed her fingers again through his hair.
"He's too cold," she said.
"The heat's broken in this van," Cisco reminded her. "Wait." In a flurry of movement, he ripped off his jacket and flung it back. Their eyes met for an instant, his saturated with unbridled fear.
She knew they were reflections of her own.
Barry had visions, half-dreams, none of which he was convinced was reality. The images were too confusing—swirling faces and gray carpets, a tingling across his body, a rush of breath and the panic of choking.
"Just a few more minutes. Almost there."
Always the sensation of speeding. Speeding while motionless. But never fast enough.
In the empty cortex, a lightbulb flickered out. It had been sputtering for a few weeks, but nobody had bothered to change it. Now, burnt out, it cast half of the space into gray shadows.
A cup of coffee, going cold, sat next to one of the computer monitors. On screen, a news stream murmured through the dimness. A ticker tape of blue words. A burst of red.
"One year since the mysterious disappearance of The Flash," the news anchor said, "and it seems Central City has a new savior. We are coming to you live from the press conference, General Wade Eiling of the US army has just taken the stage."
"I am sure we are all still mourning the loss of our greatest hero, but we Americans will not settle for defeat." Eiling's drawling voice dripped onto the floor of the lab. "We strive to be better, to protect ourselves the best we can. Today is the dawn of a new age. We were all inspired by the Flash. We can now deliver on that imagination. Ladies and gentleman, I bring you a new breed of soldier, a new breed of super soldier. Our research, our development, is complete." He grinned. "America, allow me to introduce our protectors for a new age. In this world of ever-evolving threats, the Flash alone was never going to be enough.
"Now—we are better. We are faster. We are enough, and this is only just the beginning."
We're out of the woods! Or are we?
I've done some rearranging of chapter material, but I'm really happy with how the next two will fall out. Hopefully one update later this week, and the last one next Tuesday. As always, thanks for reading, and let me know what you think! You guys rock.
Till next time,
Penn
