I’ve Got You

It was an unusually warm July night. Late was the hour as the increasingly frantic Doctor poured over his notes. His handwriting was becoming sloppy and his thoughts were becoming a haze of confusion. The lab director had given him several live specimens infected with a new man-made mutation of the rabies virus that had been created as a biological weapon in the United States to study. Transmission between hosts was strange and unlike anything he had ever witnessed before, and Its effects took complete hold of the host in a matter of hours. The symptoms seemed to also be amplified ten fold. They were unsure of what to name this new mutation, and getting it into the country to study had proven difficult. But they finally had it. And it was this virus that he had been studying intently, without rest for the past two days while his sweet wife, Adya was confined to her sick bed. A cure. He had to work on a cure. Adya had been diagnosed with Huntington’s disease a year after they were married. Her condition was worsening rapidly, by the looks of things she didn’t have long before her body and mind gave up on her. Doctor Indra wasn’t going to let her go. He couldn’t let her go. As if the thought of losing her snapped him out of his stupor, with a gloved hand he placed one of the rabies infected lab rats into a glass viewing tank and rushed to his desk on which sat three beakers. Each containing a possible cure. As Huntington’s disease is a genetic condition, many people in the medical field told him that to search for a cure was a fool’s errand. “Let nature run it’s course” they said. Indra chortled at the notion. As if he could just stand by and let his sweet Adya die. No. In one of these beakers was the key to saving her life. He just knew it. If only he could get the formula right. With gloved hand, Indra picked up the rightmost beaker and held the colourless fluid up to the light. The contents of this beaker seemed the most promising out of the three so far. Almost ready to enter the trial phase, Indra smiled to spite himself. He would save his Adya. He had to. “Indra? Indra I need you!” his wife’s frail voice called from down the hall “I’m thirsty” her frail voice added, shaking with the effort. Doctor Indra sighed “Alright, pet! I’m coming” he called back to her, fumbling with the open beaker as he set it down in his haste. He ripped his gloves off, followed by his coat, and scrubbed from his finger tips to his elbows before rushing to Adya’s aid. He was in so much of a hurry to ease her discomfort that he had completely forgotten to put a stopper on the open beaker. He had also forgotten to secure the latch on the glass viewing tank that housed the rabies infected specimens. He was in so much of a hurry, in fact, that he didn’t even notice that one of the specimens was crawling up the leg of the table upon which sat the open beaker, with froth dribbling from its tiny, open mouth. The area was at this point, contaminated. *** “Here you are, pet” Indra cooed as he handed Adya a tall cup of water, She smiled weakly at him and reached out for the sleeve of his shirt. “How’s the research coming?” she mumbled, swallowing thickly. Indra shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “This virus, the rabies? It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Transmission between hosts is rapid. And unlike it’s sister strain, it seems to live on surfaces without a host for several days before dying off. It’s rather concerning, but I am confident that-” Adyas left arm shot out wildly. Another involuntary spasm, emptying the contents of her cup on in to Indra’s face. Adya groaned “I’m so sorry... It’s getting worse” “It’s fine... I needed to cool down anyway” Indra lied, the corners of lis lips barely able to tug up at the corners. He gazed longingly at his sweet wife/ Her caramel skin had dulled somewhat in recent months, her once luxurious mane of ebony hair had thinned and become brittle. And her face appeared sunken. The only thing that seemed to remain unchanged were her beautiful, hooded, brown eyes. Which still burned with intensity and spark unlike any others. He put a reassuring hand on her knee and squeezed. “It’s very late, pet. I’m going to go shower, are you ready for bed?” she shook her head ”Almost. Can you come get me and help me up the stairs when you’re finished?” “Of course” Rising from the couch, Indra planted a quick, but firm kiss to Adya’s protruding collar bone, before shooting her one last worried glance and heading upstairs. Adya woke from her deep sleep as her legs began to cramp up and spasm. She groaned. She hated this. Her condition was worsening, she could feel herself becoming more and more confused and less in control of her own thoughts and body. She felt incompetent. She felt like a burden. She felt useless. Squinting through the darkness at her watch, she frowned. Indra had been upstairs for an awful long time. Perhaps he had forgotten about her and gone to sleep. Or maybe he had just decided to go back to his study, as he often did when he was restless. Gathering her strength she pulled herself up from the couch and stretched. “Indra?” she called. No answer. Adya walked stiffly towards her husbands study, using the wall to support her weak body as she made her way down the long hallway. The door to Indra’s study stood open, the light remained on, but Indra was nowhere to be seen. Adya smiled to herself, folding her arms over her tiny waist as she leaned against the door frame. “So he did forget about me” she thought to herself, slightly amused. Adya leaned in to the room to turn off the lights, when three beakers on her husbands work desk caught her eye. The one on the right in particular, for it had a label on it which read: “HUNTINGTON’S- batch #323 trial ready” Adya’s heart swelled. So this was why Indra had seemed so distant since her diagnosis?. Adya had begun to think it was because he had no interest in being bound to a terminally ill woman. Or that he’d been seeing someone else. She felt foolish and silly. He wasn’t distant. He was exhausted. Along side his work in virology he had secretly been trying to develop a cure for her. Adya shuffled to the desk and poured over the barely legible notes attached to the beaker that had initially captured her attention. From the notes she gathered that it was to be taken orally in liquid form under medical supervision, 15 ml per dose, three times a day, period of treatment and success rate to be determined during clinical trials. “Indra you little genius” Adya mused lovingly under her breath. She picked up the beaker and put it to her nose, catching a whiff of the sickly sweet smell of synthetic strawberry flavouring. Of course he would make it her favourite flavour. The smell was reminiscent of the strawberry flavoured cough syrup her mother used to give her when she was a child. The kind that kids used to fake coughs to get their hands on. Excitement filled her, and something else, something she hadn’t felt since she received her diagnosis. Hope. A somewhat devilish desire to taste her new-found hope took over any ounce of good judgment she possessed and before she could stop herself, she dipped her pinky finger into the colourless liquid and tasted it. It was sweet. So sweet it almost burned her tongue. Adya felt giddy. If her body hadn’t of been so weak she would have skipped out of that room and up the stairs to kiss her husband and thank him for his efforts. But as it were, she would have to settle for a slow stumble back to the couch and a kiss when he came down in the morning. Turning out the light and shutting the door behind her, Adya settled herself back down on to the couch. She was so happy that she felt as if nothing could put a damper on her mood. Not even the persistent itch that had developed on the souls of her feet that kept her sleep light, or the beads of sweat that rolled down her neck that seemed to aggravate the spasms in her limbs. *** Dr Indra woke late the next morning, still wrapped in his towel from the night before, and laying with half his body hanging off the edge of the bed. When the realisation that he’d forgotten to help Adya upstairs for bed hit him, he cursed under his breath, secured his towel around his waist and flung himself from bed. Guilt consumed him as he hurtled down the stairs. What if she’d tried calling for him and he hadn’t heard her? What if she’d fallen?. “Adya?!” he called as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Indra was greeted with silence. “Pet?” Indra rounded the couch and found it empty, save for the visible pool of sweat on Adya’s pink pillow. Sweat and something else. Streaks of red and orange. Blood. Indra felt panic rise in his throat. “Adya?!” he screamed. This time he heard shuffling from within the kitchen, followed by short, shallow panting. “Adya? Are you alright?” Indra hurried for the kitchen, opening the sliding door with a little too much force, and what he found made his blood run cold. His dear, sweet Adya was crouched on the kitchen floor, her back to him, blood pooling around her feet. Her shoulders shook as she panted, her head twitched to the side, as if she was alerted to his presence. A hard lump seemed to form in Indra’s throat, his voice came out sluggish and strained. “Pet, what are you doing?”. Having finally caught her full attention, Adya turned to face him. Her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed red. There were long, deep scratches on her arms, legs and face. Her foaming mouth was slick with blood. Her fingers were chewed down to stubs. Similar to The first live rabies variant specimens in his study. Indra wanted to scream. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to cry. He wanted to turn heel and run. But before he could force his body to obey any one of these conflicting commands, Adya was shrieking. And then she was on top of him. Knocking him to the cold, slate floors with a speed and strength that should have been impossible in her condition. Adya growled and spat like an animal, Snapping jaws dangerously close to Indra’s face as tears flowed freely from his eyes. “Pet please! Stop this!” Indra begged, although he knew any pleas he made would fall on deaf ears. This whole time he was so worried about losing Adya to Huntington’s disease, only to lose her to something else entirely. Something far darker. His Adya no longer existed. Her once lively eyes were pale and dull, almost as if there were a film placed over them. And as the light had left Adya’s eyes, so too had the fight left Indra. His strength left him as her teeth came closer and closer to his face. Indra squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered what he knew would be the last thing he would ever say. ”Adya, I love you”.