Phobia
Part I
Jack was tired. Very, very tired.
He wasn't exactly sure why. Moonlight splashed onto his face as he quickly rolled over on the soft, bouncy ground, trying to fall back to sleep.
Something wasn't right.
Jack quickly widened his eyes. Something definitely wasn't right. He was in a small, padded room, with a lone window sitting high above on a steel ledge. His cold, bare feet shook against the plush floor. He ran his arms along his sides--no katana sword.
His raven-black hair hung past his shoulders, clinging to his slightly sweaty neck. Looking down, he noticed that his kimono had been replaced with a baggy, pajama-like attire, his left sleeve slightly raised. Raising a brow in interest, he pulled up the sleeve, revealing a large, white band-aid. He gently tapped the spot, the skin responding with a weak throb.
No! Let me out!
Fully awake and alert, Jack stood up, before slightly falling against the wall. Dizziness overwhelmed him before he heard the voice again.
Never! YOU'LL NEVER GET ME!
He limped across the room towards a sleek, white door. Three metal bars blocked the small opening at the top, Jack pulling himself up to look at the view.
A thin, blonde-haired woman ran by, eyes blood-shot, screaming in agony. Two, large cloaked men ran behind her, quickly grabbing tightly to her wrists.
"Calm down, Mrs. Weathers. Everything will be fine."
NO! You can't! Where's my baby? My Alexandria?! ALEX!
The woman screamed again, silver-like hair tossing to and fro, legs flailing everywhere. The left guard quickly, but smoothly pulled out a large needle. The thick tip pierced the side of her neck, her body slowly beginning to stop shaking, when she finally fell limp.
"It seems the testings have failed. Call for worker #501 to get her ready for the gas chamber."
Jack's eyes widened as he watched the woman being dragged by her feet down the hallway, before disappearing behind a corner. He quickly scanned the hallway, before setting himself down onto the floor. He pulled the shirt up loser to his skin, wondering if there was any means of escape. Perhaps the window...
A loud yell echoed outside the door; it flew open with a crash.
"GET IN THERE!"
The yells were followed by a muffled scream, and the drop of a body on the floor. Jack faced the guards, standing in a defensive position.
"What is this facility? What are you doing to the people here, and WHY am I--"
Jack felt a pull at his wrist; a small metal band shook on his left arm, tugging him towards the back of the wall. The writhing body on the floor kicked at the closing door, before rolling to the side.
Jack quickly pulled himself from the band's magnetic-like grip, and flung himself to the floor. His chest rose and he pressed himself against a wall, eyeing the figure on the floor.
The person sat on their stomach, twitching slightly. A thick, straight-jacket was tightly wrapped around their shoulders to their waist, where they wore thick, white pants similar to Jack's. He crawled toward the body and looked closer, seeing the back head of young African-American girl. A long, black braid went down her back, tufts of messy locks around her head.
"UMPH!"
She rolled over. Jack eyed a thick white cloth tied around her face, gagging her. He quickly tugged at the cloth for a few moment, before it slid past her lips to her neck.
"What has happened--"
"GET ME OUT OF HERE!" Her shrill scream made him cover his ears with both of his hands, a skeptical look of fear on his face. The girl screamed and cursed out into the room, thrashing madly against the jacket, shoving herself against the wall.
"I'm mad! MAD! SOMEONE HELP ME!"
Jack felt his chest pound suddenly as the girl screamed louder, eyes closed tightly. He only sat back and stared at the spectacle, watching her violently ram against the walls, curse, bite her lip, kick, and roll around on the paddings. After nearly half an hour, silence came to the room. Jack was pressed against a corner, watching the girl's body finally fall suddenly.
Carefully, he began to loom over her body. Sweat drenched her dark, round face, which was speckled with odd blue freckles. Her lip was slightly bleeding from her frantic biting from earlier, a thin stream of blood traveling down her cheek. Her chest heaved against the jacket, a low gulping noise emitting from her throat.
"The...spiders." She fluttered her wide, green eyes open at Jack, looking quite confused. Jack carefully attempted to wipe away the blood with the lower right sleeve of his shirt, eyeing her suspiciously.
"Umm." Jack crossed his legs and pulled the girl up against the wall. She only cocked her head, and exhaled.
"You're Samurai Jack."
"Could you please--" Jack frowned at her sudden calmness. She lolled her head around her neck, and looked at him again--a different angle.
"Why are you here?"
"I thought someone could tell me!" Sensing the annoyance in Jack's voice, the girl gulped, and began to speak.
The girl lazily closed her right eye. "You don't know? Silly man. You're in the Smithsonian Quarantine Institute."
"Quarantine?" Jack frowned once more. What was he doing in a quarantine?
"Yeah. It's for highly contagious diseases...Dur. Recently, for the new disease that's just came out. Drives people 'crazy'," she said with a certain emphasis, as if it really didn't matter, "so that's why they have these padded rooms. Of course, there's no laws for literally enslaving people against their will, so they know you can't do anything to get out of here."
Horror clouded Jack's face. The girl blinked slowly. "My name's Raven."
Jack bowed his head. "I'm sorry. It's just that..."
"Yeah. Having the disease can make any guy angry."
Jack looked frustrated. "So, I'm here because I have this...disease?"
Raven nodded gravely. "Yeah. Of course, I don't think anyone has ever cured. Which means, no one ever leaves."
"But--there must be a cure--"
"Yeah," she signed softly. "But I did hear from this one guy that the only way to be cured from the disease was to find the vector. But then again, he wasn't a very reliable source. I think he murdered a few people..."
Jack slightly shook.
"So...does this mean...That I'm going to--"
"Well, not exactly. There's still the symptoms. I seriously don't know what they call the disease, but they've got medicine for it. We take it once a day, which seems to fight off the disease enough to keep us alive. Before you can take it though, they give you this horrible shot that hurts like hell--"
Jack eyed the band-aid on his arm. Raven continued. "So, yeah, as long as we take the medicine, we stay alive. Some people aren't serious, and decide to not take them on schedule. They seem to be the only ones that die. But still, what's scary is that you can still get very hurt by the symptoms."
Raven yawned slightly. Jack looked towards the window and noticed the moon fading off into the night sky. "Some of the symptoms are kind of regular things...Like, achy, sore muscles, tiredness, and sometimes can really fu--excuse me, screw up your skin." She leaned towards him slowly, inches from his face. "Like these freckles. I've never had freckles before. But now I do. And they're freakin' blue."
Jack slightly smirked at the odd specks, but continued to listen. "But besides that, there's the nightmares. They've never explained the nightmares to us. After having my first nightmare, I'd ask others if they'd have the same ones, but they'd hardly ever answer. Once, a young girl had told me she had a dream about spiders biting her to death. She also had their weird little bumps on her face. It seemed that whatever seemed to happen to dreams almost seemed to happen to you in the real world."
The samurai was now the one to cock his head, eyes closed slightly. Raven only looked at him menacingly.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean like..." She turned her neck to the side and bent over, exposing a small scar on her neck. "Once, I dreamt I got my neck scratched badly by a branch, and I woke up with my neck bleeding. 'COULD Have been my room mate, he was kind of--"
The lights outside of the room quickly dimmed. Jack pushed himself awkwardly to the wall, awaiting for any other statement. Raven only turned over to her side, ignoring his protesting glare.
"It's sleepy-time, Jack."
"What?"
"We'll talk tomorrow, okay? We have to sleep now. You can't fight when you're all weak." She pressed herself against the wall and fell silent. Jack closed his heavy eyelids and drifted off into sleep, hearing a small, whispering voice.
"Don't let the bed bugs bite."