Patient 23

Just a little idea I had for an end-of-the-world urban fantasy. I'd love to write in this genre, but before I can run I need to learn how to crawl.

The patient lay upon the bed, dressed in a medical gown and wearing an identifier tag that marked her as “23”. She had been discovered a mere three hours ago, unconscious, near a supermarket on the outskirts of Nottingham and was immediately taken to a secret facility whose location was known to a select number of personnel with the right level of clearance. The government had known what to look for since the early hours of yesterday morning, and were now monitoring all calls to the emergency services to look for signs that mirrored the others.

Even today, with all the advances in modern technology, the cause of what had happened to 23 was still a mystery. She was going about her daily business one moment, acting irrationally the next, and then collapsed. It was not entirely out of the ordinary, except for the faint nimbus of light that clung to her as she lay there. The colours of which shifted rapidly through the spectrum, never lingering on one for too long, and were barely detectable at all until the paramedics moved in close enough.

Their account of her discovery was delivered in tones of disbelief. None of them could explain it. It was precisely for this reason that they took so little convincing to keep quiet on the matter; they didn’t want to believe that something so out of the ordinary could appear out of nowhere. They were probably just seeing things anyway, they told themselves; stresses of the job.

They were right to be concerned, though they wouldn't know for some time the true nature of the specimens being collected. She was number 23, but in an hours time that number would nearly double. By the time anyone realised the danger they presented it would be too late, and storing them side-by-side in a disused aircraft hanger would only compound the severity of what was to come.

Unaware of her surroundings, here she now lay, flanked on all sides by equipment that looked more at home in a nuclear laboratory than in a medical facility and soundly asleep. The doctors came and went as they performed test after test to find out the cause of her illness, taking with them samples of her blood, saliva, urine and a variety of other tissue samples from various places in her body.

None of them seemed to expand on the initial brain scans that were taken shortly after her arrival. It was clear that she was in a coma, but the images of her brain were displayed on a back lit screen behind her head. Each one was taken exactly thirty minutes after the previous, and the reason for this became apparent when they were looked at side by side.

The first image showed a healthy human brain, except for a distortion, really just a blemish, upon the left hand side. The doctors believed something was wrong with the machine, so they took another image; it was atypical of any sort of tumour or lesion they had seen before. It remained. Scar tissue did not account for it, nor did anything ever encountered by the specialists being paid exorbitant salaries for their expertise. Modern medicine had never encountered its like.

The later images showed something more dramatic. The shape of the brain was changing inside the cranial cavity. It began to resemble a solid mass, and the blemish was now located towards the centre.

It had taken on a more recognisable shape by this point; an hourglass. The images of her brain continued to be taken at regular intervals but no change occurred. Whatever was happening had reached its conclusion and all that remained was to see what state the patient awoke in, if she awoke at all.

Author's Note

Any thoughts and general feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!

Reviews

[MaliKate]

WOW. For the life of me, I haven't read something so complex and compelling. I'm completely baffled as to what exactly this "hour glass" shape in her brain was.

I'm thinking something to do with aliens and invasion. But then there might be an anatomical reason behind it. Something different and unusual, like spontaneous combustion, say. I'm going to stick to my alien theory, though.

I'm not sure why you haven't got reviews. This is an awesome piece of work and you're very artistic when it comes to description. I really wouldn't mind answers though before I'm up all night thinking about it.

- Mali

[jamesemaj89]

Thanks very much for your positive feedback, it's always fascinating to see how other people view what I've written. I don't want to give away too much too early because this was meant to be a prologue to a much bigger project that covers an even bigger time frame.

Oh, and keep working on your theory. You're heading in the right direction, but the 'threat' is not of alien origin in any sense that we're familiar with. ;)

[MaliKate]

Oh! That explains my headache trying to figure it out then.

Alright, well I'm beyond keen to see where this goes. It's really only because of the fact that it's posted under story rather than book that I thought that this was where it ended. But there was so much to figure out that I had my suspicions.

And thanks for your last lingo right there, totally set my mind at ease. -_-