Apocalypse Fighter

Chapter 42: Dr. Doolittle And The Giant Eye

       Lily Sawyer scowled at Wayne and said, “Don't you see that Dr. L is killing Richard? I have to save him!" Then, without waiting for a reply, she picked up a chair, summoned all her courage, and charged Dr. L.

       Before she had made it even halfway to her target, though, a black figure appeared from a corner in the room, and it was so fast that nobody could tell who or what it was. Lily instinctively raised her right arm to protect herself and she was scratched. The pain was sharp, and almost immediately, a stream of blood began to spurt from her forearm. “What the Hell?” she cried.    

“Is that the cat? Wayne asked. From where he was standing, he had noticed that the blur was white, which was the same color as the large cat he’d seen skulking about. When no one replied, he turned to Lily and said, “You are okay, aren’t you? Does your arm hurt?”

Lily sighed and said, “I’m okay. And, yes, that was a cat. I don’t know where he came from, or why he is behaving like this, though…”

The cat’s ears were exceptionally long, and they stood tall like those of a rabbit. There was a tuft of fine, fiery red hair on the tips of his ears, and except for the red highlight, it was completely white.  

“… He nearly scratched my throat,” Lily concluded. She was very scared, and her face looked pale. She turned to Dr. L. “Why did he stop me?” she asked. “Is he your pet?”

Dr. L chuckled and said, “Well, by now you know how dangerous I am. If anyone tries to hurt me, this little guy will tare their throats out.” He touched the cat’s soft ears. "Silly people,” he continued. “Did you really think that Captain Zoe was my only line of defense? As China's top biological expert, I own dozens of patents in biology. One of them is the biological genetic pheromone that can be used to control small animals!"

"Biogenetic pheromones?” Wayne looked puzzled. He used to study liberal arts, so he could not understand such big biological terms, or follow what was being said. “What the hell are you talking about?" he asked.

 Dr. L frowned and said, “You are so dumb. Why am I wasting my time trying to explain something like this to a neanderthal like you? The point is this: I produced a drug that can control animals. With it, I can control mutant animals like this white cat. If it weren’t for the end of civilization, I would have won this year's Nobel Prize for my research. Does that make sense?"

Wayne: “So, you are a bit like Dr. Doolittle?”

Dr. L thought about it for a minute, and then he said, “I suppose I am. The only difference is that I can control animals. I cannot communicate with them.”

As they chatted, Richard seemed to have momentarily slipped their minds.

Richard had failed to mutate, and his reaction to the drug had been horrific, but his pain was gradually going away. His mind cleared. He could hear a bee buzzing, but before he could figure out what the sound meant, everything went black.

A strange starry pattern appeared in Richard’s mind. It was splendid, mysterious, and deep – and it seemed to have no end. It seemed Eternal.

He felt a cold chill. Looking around, he could have sworn that he had never seen such a dense and brilliant river of stars. Together, the lights formed the most brilliant galaxy imaginable.

Suddenly, the stars in front of his eyes began to grow, and before long, Richard started to feel like his soul was being sucked out of his body. At the same time, though, he was not even sure that he had a body. It seemed like he was a part of everything, and everything was a part of him. Am I dead? – he wondered, and he hoped that he was. If this is what death was like, he would welcome it with open arms; if he had arms that is.

But where is God? – he wondered, and as if He had been summoned, a giant disembodied eye appeared. It was unlike anything Richard had ever seen, and yet he was unafraid. He sensed that the eye was good, and somehow, it seemed familiar to him.

"Who am I?” Richard asked. “And where is this?" He tried to reach out and touch the eye, but before he could, it blinked and a dust particle the size of a bean appeared between them.

"What is this?” Richard asked. “It feels familiar and intimate; like home." He wanted to catch the dust particle and observe it carefully, but he could not reach it. The dust particle began to slowly turn, and Richard quickly recognized a patter in its movements.

Suddenly, more dust particles appeared, and they began to move toward the original dust particle. As they combined, they got bigger and rounder. Some were as black as the universe, but others were gray, blue, green, red, etc. And still, Richard could not touch them or the eye.

The eye blinked again, and all the dust particles started to rise. The light-colored ones went the fastest, and the back ones went very slowly.

Soon, the light particles and the dark particles began to break apart and into each other. They were angry with each other. Before long, the light particles enveloped the dark particles, and they began to heat up. Then a black and white thing appeared, and Richard thought he recognized it. He wanted to shout out loud, but he couldn’t. It seemed that something was stuck in the throat. He could no longer speak.

Richard looked into the pupil of the giant eye. His instinct told him it knew everything, and he sensed that it was good. Thus, he was caught off guard when, after blinking for the third time, it began to boil.

Countless tiny shadows emerged from the eye’s pupil, and Richard was afraid. He recognized the shadows. They were Dr. L’s Eternal Bugs!

       What has that bastard done to me? – Richard wondered. And as that thought passed through his brain, the eye blinked one last time, and everything went black.