The Death Clock: chapter 12

 

12

Dr. Bram handled all of the blood work for Isaac. As he expected the virus had struck him. But it was impossible. It was too early for him to even be effected by it. "Holy mother of God…" Dr. Bram said before he rushed to the room where the doctors were about to examine Isaac.

As he reached the hallway he shouted, "Don’t touch him! Don’t lay a hand on him!" Bram was too late. He heard the yell of a female doctor. He reached the room and looked inside. The other doctors, three men and four women, were crowded around a woman on the floor. He pushed his way to her.

The woman was holding her arm and crying in pain. He gently held her hand and looked at it. It was severely burned; the material of her glove was melted. "A-all I did was t-touch him," the woman sobbed.

"Get her to an emergency room and have her treated. We can no longer touch this patient, Isaac," Dr. Bram said with authority.

"Wh-what happened? It is as if his body…" a female doctor trailed off.

"I figured out what is wrong with Isaac. His cellular structure is accelerating rapidly. That’s what made the virus multiply so fast. It also explains why his body is so hot. The cells are accelerating so fast, they’re super-heating him from the inside out."

"How? It’s not possible." Another doctor said.

"I don’t know, but we need to cool him down. Somehow, we need to get him on ice. Stat! No arguing, just do it. Don’t touch him with your hands, use… Use something metal, I don’t care, just do it before he dies," Dr. Bram truly had no idea why Isaac’s cellular structure was moving so fast, only that it was.

"Dr. Bram? The patient, Isaac, his temperature spiked again. His surface temperature is one-ninety-five. He is too hot, he’s melting the ice. There’s nothing else we can do. If his temperature rises anymore, he’ll endanger the lives of everyone here. As it is, we cannot move him, and we also can’t keep him cold anymore," said Jasmine, a cute nurse. She was new here and Dr. Bram knew that she liked him, he could tell by the way her heart beat. The other doctors thought she was charming, still wearing the pink outfit of a nurse in training.

Dr. Bram sighed. He’d been afraid of this. Isaac had been on ice for two hours and his temperature had risen three times. "We’ll have to put him down. We can’t move him and by the time a group gets here, Isaac would be dead."

Jasmine was shocked. "D-doctor! You’re talking about murder. We can’t kill a child!"

"We have no choice. We can and we must. If his temp rises any more, he’ll ignite and cause an inferno. Everyone here will die. I’ll do it myself. I have already prepared a needle full of high potency sleeping drugs. It’ll be a peaceful death." Dr. Bram lied. The needle was full of liquid nitrogen. It was extreme and could kill Isaac if he was wrong about this. If everything goes alright, Isaac’s temperature would drop enough to be moved. If it went wrong, he would freeze to death.

Jasmine was scared. She looked at Bram with horror. He planned on murdering a child? She turned around and went to look for someone to stop Bram.

Bram took off to Isaac’s ice-box, the air so cold inside the room that Bram could see his breath. In the middle of the room was a large metal tub full of quickly steaming water. Isaac lay in the once-ice-water.

Bram brandished the needle and his hand hovered above Isaac’s neck. "I’m sorry, Isaac, but if I’m wrong you will die."

　

Isaac

Darkness. I had fallen into darkness. Everything was evil. The evil blackness that whispered the evil word, ‘die.’ It was everywhere and I couldn’t escape it. Then I heard it. A new sound. A familiar voice. Cat? No, a different voice.

The voice said, "-You will die."

Whose voice was that? Who were they to say if I could die? I would prove it to them. I wouldn’t die.

I saw something move in the darkness. I ran after it. It was hard to see but I was catching it. I reached out and grabbed something. Suddenly, I could see it.

It was a vibrant double-helix. It stretched upwards and downwards forever. It was colorful, bright blues and deep reds, acidic greens and shining whites. I was holding onto one of the sides. It grew hot under my touch. I let go of the vibrant thing.

Where my hand had been were, there was a question. "Do you want to live?"

I did. I wanted to show that voice that I wouldn’t die. That voice couldn’t decide my future.

Before my eyes, the words changed. It now read, "Then, do you accept my power?" I wondered what its power would do. The words changed again to say, "My powers will help you live."

I thought that if anything could help me, then I should accept help. The words changed again. "Before I help you, why do you want to live?" I thought about it. Why did I want to live? It wasn’t just to stand up to the voice, was it? No there was something else. A promise. I had to keep a promise to a friend. But who was that friend? Before I could remember, the words changed.

"Good. Then I will help you, to help others. Here is my first gift. Use it well…" The words and the thing began to blur and swirl with the darkness into a massive blur.

Bram

Dr. Bram moved to put the needle into Isaac’s neck. Rapidly Isaac’s eyes snapped open and he bolted upright, water pouring down his shoulders and dripping from his hair.

"Clock of Creation!" Isaac yelled. Dr. Bram could distinctively hear two voices overlapping his. One was a deep gravelly voice, as if heard from deep within a cave. The other voice was more astonishing. It was light and angelic. Dr. Bram’s thoughts went to Cat when he heard it, the voice sounded so much like her.

Dr. Bram fell to the ground as a fierce presence filled the room. Slowly a large shape appeared behind the metal tub. It solidified into a large, smooth black disk. Around the edge of the clock at even intervals, the roman numerals one through twelve appeared. The color of each number was different. The four at the top, bottom, and both sides were larger. The twelve was a bright royal blue. The three was a shining white. Six was a bright red. Nine was a black that looked like the night sky, complete with miniature stars.

A long clock hand stretched outwards from the middle. It was an intricate metal arrow, words and pictures carved into it in nearly every form of writing since the dawn of mankind. A smaller arrow lay on top of this one. It was hard to see due to the fact that it was never the same for more than a minute, flowing from form to form like water.

This smaller hand stretched to another circle of shapes. It was different from the outer ring. It was a pattern of two symbols repeated six times. Below the numeral for twelve was a sun with an egg in its center. Under the numeral for one was a skeleton carrying a scythe. Both symbols repeated under the numerals; a sun and egg under the evens and a skeleton and scythe under the odd numbers. Both drawings were made using simple shapes, triangles, lines and circles. As Bram watched the arrows began to spin.