Chapter 7, Part I

Wenla peered from the overgrowth of thistles as the party went by, unaware of his presence. Who were these people who glowed with light – he had never seen such a sight before or even heard of such a thing! But something inside of him hated these people for that glow.

They were gone now, voices mere echoes in the stillness of the forest. But he still waited in his hiding until the last remnants of pleasant voices faded away into nothingness. Only then did he set off again toward the city of Netopia.

Wenla was still confused that he knew the way through the forest. He had never ventured into its depths. He had never been assigned to join a killing spree among an isolated people. And yet he knew the dark terrain of decaying trees and thistles like the back of his right hand. Perhaps, he reasoned, these new yearnings for freedom were the source of his new-found knowledge. Certainly nothing else had happened recently that could explain it.

But he never stopped to think whether he actually wanted what he was yearning for, which was exactly what It wanted. For if Wenla had truly focused on his dream to experience freedom, he would have realized that something was wrong if he sought so dutifully to see the city he was returning to in less than a week. The industrial province of Netopia City had never held any excitement for him in the past.

It was solely because of It that he continued on to fufill It's dreams despite the difficulties. Slowly, the chains of darkness were drawing nearer and nearer to an unsuspecting people ripe for infection.

    *****

Areola’s heart sank as the doctor explained the catastrophe through his blinding tears. Even now, he clung to the hope that somehow they might recapture the infected man, but overwhelming doubt took hold of his mind, a mind divided between three different feelings.

He felt contempt for the man who would sleep on duty, even at the peril of his people. What level of fatigue would bring a man to do such a thing, especially one sworn to protect Netopia? Because of the doctor, every citizen stood the chance of infection by a horrible disease without cure.

Areola also felt saddened for Wenla, a man driven to actions he would not want in his right mind. He knew Wenla – they had joined the military together, life-long friends and comrades. Now he was – well, a monster that needed to be tracked down and captured, strapped to a bed until he either died or healed from this horrific disease.

But a third, fatalistic feeling began to grow on him, one which he had not even experienced before. What was life, anyway? What was there to live for besides the political dream? It felt so depressing to think that his life was simply a course of unrelated events with no set destination. And now, it looked as if it was going to grow decidedly worse.

Areola broke his chain of thought as the doctor rose from his seat, trembling. “We have to chase him, Areola!” He looked pleadingly at the guard. “We cannot let him go free and contaminate the entire planet!”

Of course they could not – it would break every rule of morality and decency that existed. They had let the prisoner escape their grasp to flee to the outside world, and it was their moral responsibility to take him back. But what was morality anyway? And what defined it?

Slinging his heavy pack over his shoulder, Areola looked around at the room he had occupied for a single week. It was still shocking how much had happened in such a short amount of time, especially at a remote border outpost such as this. He would have never guessed at such a week before he experienced it.

As they entered the corridor, Areola looked vainly for signs of the escapee’s path. He could have exited the outpost any way he wanted to, reasoned the guard. Though if he still felt enough self-preservation to care, he would probably have gone through the ventilation room to avoid being traced.

“What do you think, Areola? Which way?” The doctor had calmed somewhat, but his speech still shook a little as he questioned his friend. Areola sighed.

“The exit in the ventilation room is probably the most secretive way one could leave the outpost, but Wenla could have simply used the emergency exit in a hurry to escape. There is no real way of knowing.”

Of course there was not, thought Areola as he opened a door and stepped into the cold ventilation room. There is no real way of finding him at all – it is a hopeless mission. And he felt hopeless too, but tried to mask his emotions for the sake of the already-unstable doctor.

The doctor stopped, his limbs shaking even more than before. Steadying himself on the wall, he looked pleadingly at his friend. “I feel sick, Areola. Could we – stop for just a moment?”

The guard could only nod, motioning to the corner. However much he hated the doctor right now, Areola knew that he could not leave without him. Cure or no cure, It would be better fought by a trained physician than by a simple guard. He watched in disgust as the doctor sank into the corner, shivering in the cold.

The military created men, not weaklings. And yet this disease, whatever it was, made stalwart guards into wimps without any conceivable explanation-

Diseased. The only explanation for the doctor’s strange behavior. The only explanation for his continual weakness. It could be nothing else – the man had spent an entire week caring for the infected, keeping them alive. If anyone would be infected, he would be!

He looked up a second too late to see the doctor spring to his feet and run to the main ventilation unit. The physician wrenched at the door, forcing it to open a few feet. Quietly he turned to Areola.

“It’s over, my friend. You made a good comrade.”

“NO!” Areola almost screamed as he protested. “YOU CANNOT DO THIS! Come back and we can-“

The doctor shook his head sadly. “Life is meaningless to me. I feel sick and worn by fatigue. This life is wretchedness and emptiness – I do not want to live any longer.” He smiled faintly and waved, slowly releasing his hold on the grate as the fan pulled at his body. “Goodbye, Areola.”

“NO! YOU CANNOT DO THIS-“

Areola fell to his knees, tears streaming from his eyes like a river. He was alone, and for the first time he felt it so deeply that it surpassed all other emotions, even the horror at the doctor’s suicide. Depression would be such a horrible understatement that it barely deserves mention here.

He looked up to the ceiling, eyes awash with tears. “There has to be something more than this! I cannot live life how I have, for emptiness and sorrow! Is there something more – something to hold onto? Answer me, whatever or whoever you are! If this is truly it,” he looked around at the dismal surroundings, “than I will follow the doctor to death, the only thing that can offer me relief from this aching empty feeling inside of me and all around me!”

He had nothing to live for, and nothing to die for. Just as if he was-

And then Areola finally understood. It is almost impossible to describe in mere words how he understood, or why he understood – he just understood everything as plainly as if he had known it all his life. Now everything made sense.

“I’m dead.” It was so revolting to Areola that he wanted to cease existing. His life – an illusion? His body, a rotting corpse? Looking around the room, the guard began to see things with a new perspective. None of this was real.

But even as he adjusted to this new reality, something else was there. Areola could not tell what it was, but it was so real to him that he could have touched it. Everything in the room seemed to shout it at the top of its lungs, even his very body joining the chorus.

And It was alive. Not the It that devastated men’s lives, but a different It, something that seemed to shout his name over the whir of the ventilation system. It was not an illusion – and it was calling to him to come.

It seemed to encompass everything, the filler in a world of emptiness. The only real thing – the only thing one could live for. Areola began to desperately wonder if It could possibly be for him, his last hope for life in the midst of death.

But as his heart leaped in his chest, another feeling of despair and condemnation began to weigh it down again. He was dead – dead men always remained dead. No man had ever risen from the grave to glorious, purposeful life. His mind must simply be playing tricks with him.

And then the voice spoke again, calling his name. His name, as if he had always been a close companion. The doubt pulled harder, trying to divert his attention from this wonderful, beautiful voice that knew him. Memories of the infected flashed before his eyes, bombarding him with the past. He could be infected, and who could tell the results of such disease if one was actually alive!

Suddenly he made his decision, pushing all his doubt aside for a brief moment. Areola did not care that he might be infected. He did not care whether he deserved It. He was going to take it, and whatever came would come.

A warm feeling crept over him, starting at his feet and slowly moving up his body. He was glowing! Areola looked in disbelief at his radiant skin, shining a pale white color. It seemed so – real.

Quickly, he looked up at the surrounding room, scanning the surroundings. There was the same room he had been in before the change, before his skin glowed. The same ventilation system whirring, the same metallic floor dully clanging when he took a step. But everything was viewed from a different perspective.

He was alive. Life now had meaning. What that meaning was, Areola was still undecided about, but he knew that he needed to follow It – the truth and the life. But before he left the compound, Areola knew he needed to do something he would have never done before his life. He needed to release the prisoners from their bonds.

Slowly, he stepped in the corridor and trudged to the ward, each step smaller than the step before. They were lunatics! Who knew what the infected men might do once they were released? Did not he and the doctor plan to track and recapture the escaped Wenla?

But who was he to judge them? If he left them here, they would starve to death, foul wretches though they were. And Areola knew that such an act would be contrary to the will of this life that he lived for. With that decision, he quickened his pace until he reached the ward door, which he opened slowly.

There were the beds, the occupants strapped down tightly to prevent their escape. Many times a day he and the doctor would check the bonds of the infected men, to reassure the strength. And now, after all the effort expended, he was to release every one.

A wave of sadness swept over him as he looked at his friend Beru, the diseased man’s eyes looking blankly at Areola’s face. So dead-looking – and he knew that it was not limited the outside body, either. Quickly, the guard whipped out his tactical knife and snapped the straps binding Beru to the bed. Without waiting for response, he moved to the next.

It was soon finished – every captive was now free. Areola felt horrible for his action. It felt so wrong, going against his second-nature military training he spent four years of his life learning. And yet he knew that somehow, this new life and what it defined as right was more important than the military’s demands.

Quickly, he ran to the door and entered the corridor, taking a glance back at the figures. He still was afraid of what they might do, even to him as a living man. Memories of the crazed Wenla still were as vivid as when they had taken place – too vivid for him to remain close to the men.

He strode through the hallway until he reached the emergency exit door – the point of no return. Areola’s identity card was sitting on a desk in his room, his only means of entering the outpost. This decision to leave everything behind began to mean much more to him than earlier. If he left now, there was no way of turning back to his former life.

Slowly, Areola stepped forward and opened the door, shivering as a burst of cold air blew through the opening. It seemed so radical – this decision to change everything. But he was a new identity, defined by his life. Not his occupation.

The lock clicked as he slowly released his hold, forever sealing him from his former life. He was free, a different freedom than Wenla’s several hours ago. It was a freedom to throw off the chains of his past and embrace this new life. It was freedom in the Life-Giver; the Unseen.

It was the only freedom that existed.