One Step Too Far

My crimson handprint in the dirt was my desperate plea against the encroaching darkness. My vision blurred, the world dissolving into an agonizing kaleidoscope of light and shadow. A shuddering breath escaped my lips, the harsh rasp echoing in the desolate wasteland. Then, a sound. Something snapped. Hope, a flicker in the dying embers, flickered to life.

It wasn’t the child. The thought sent a jolt of terror, but this sound…it was different.

My mind, heavy with exhaustion, struggled to recall how I’d arrived at this place. Images surfaced, fragmented memories fueled by a yearning for freedom that burned brighter than fear. A life spent working as a researcher in a medical facility under the suffocating control of humans and bots, a place where our lives were a secondary consideration to the work we did, where personal emotions were deemed a weakness and in some extreme cases managed by mandatory infusions, this life had driven me, like countless others I’m sure, to dream of an escape.

Thoughts of my escape began with a whisper heard from where I can’t remember, about a hidden commune, where people lived off the land, made their own clothes, found food in lush unimaginable places. Their emotions were a vibrant tapestry woven into carefree lives.

Then came the child.

Emaciated and ragged I began to see this child everywhere I went, her eyes held a desperate plea that ignited a protective instinct within me so cautiously I approached her. She spoke of a past shrouded in mystery, and of a group called the Collective that had killed off others like her. I began to consider the fact that the child simply had a very overactive imagination, but the way she looked defied that claim.

She also told me about a commune she had belonged to. Her story and descriptions of the commune filled with  happiness that resonated deeply with my own desire for a carefree way of life. I didn’t press her on the details of what happened to her family and how she survived, I didn’t want her thinking about anything that would upset her any more than she already was.

We began to speak at length whenever we could, which by itself should have seemed odd to me since everything I did everyday was monitored, making sure my quotas were filled, my records in order, but I completely dismissed those thoughts. The child’s voice was filled with a yearning so profound I couldn’t stop listening. She  mirrored my dreams so exactly that I could feel a sense of rebellion simmering inside me, something totally forbidden here, but yet again I could not let go of the beautiful visions of life this child inspired for me.

When out of her presence, in the far reaches of my mind I knew there was something…off about all of this. Her fear, when she spoke of the Collective, at times felt manufactured, almost theatrical. But curiosity gnawed at me. When she mentioned a hidden location supposedly linked to the commune, a seed of doubt took root. Though apprehension gnawed at me, her convincing pleas eventually convinced me to go there with her. Looking back, that was the exact moment I took a step too far.

I had followed the child through what seemed like an unending maze of rooms filled with what resembled abandoned machinery. There were no stops for water or rest, there was only the fierce determination of a child getting exactly what she wanted on her terms no matter the cost to others, and my own unquestioning obedience.

Then suddenly in the blink of an eye the room changed, I was looking at nothing but row upon row of what looked like large and small mounds of gray dirt and rocks, spreading as far as the eye could see. Tired, hungry, I felt a storm of rage building in my mind, but too weak to continue standing, I sat down heavily next to one of the gray mounds.

The child turned toward me, her emaciated frame a chilling contrast to the insatiable hunger in her eyes. Looking around I tried to understand where I was, why the promise of a beautiful life had lead me to encounter a child that would lead me to nothing more than an abandoned wasteland. Had my thoughts of a better life been detected somehow, it wasn’t something I ever spoke to any one about, had my thoughts been read and now this is some sort of punishment – how could that even happen, or, was this something totally different.

And like that, everything became crystal clear. The child wasn’t real, the child was a predator in human-like form. After all the scientific advances made over the centuries one of our greatest achievements was the eradication of disease, but a relic virus must have remained in our bodies and became something more complex than anyone had ever imagined. 

A new strain that didn’t just exploit a physical body, but a strain learned how to weaponize emotions and convince someone to walk straight to their own death. The child was a virus, a virus in my mind that I could not unsee. 

I took a deep breath, my terror building. Inside my head I screamed “no!” and reached down away from the now glowing eyes of the child and began to write “virus run”. Others will need to be warned, these mounds were all individuals once, and just like me had been falsely lured by the virus and left to die. Someone will come, someone that will have recognized the child for what she was and followed her only to find the real truth, my words will be confirmation.

As I took one last ragged breath, a long shadow fell over me, and another sound cut through the air – a muffled voice, faint but getting closer.

With a final surge of energy, I viciously scraped my hand back and forth in the rocky gray dirt until it bled, then pressed a crimson handprint in the gray dirt next to my words, my desperate warning for others.

My vision blurred, darkness crept back in. But before it swallowed me, a flicker of movement caught my eye. It was too large to be the child. It had to be someone else.

Hope, once a flickering ember, flared anew, maybe all will not be lost.

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About the author:

Feb 4, 2024

Sue, a graphic designer and web developer by profession, has never ventured into the realm of writing stories—until now. Traditionally, she spent her leisure time merging fine art textures with photography to craft dramatic still life and landscape images. However, as AI technology began to make its mark, Sue was drawn to explore MidJourney, an AI-driven platform.

Captivated by the evocative images produced by the AI, Sue felt that some of them were begging for narratives of their own. Motivated by this idea, she printed several images, choosing one that resonated with her the most as the starting point for her creative writing journey. The process was unexpectedly intuitive; the image seemed to guide her, almost scripting its own story. “Giggle” emerged as one of her first pieces, showcasing her newfound synergy with storytelling.

Giggle:
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