Drip, Drip

As the new experimental medicine flowed into me, I wondered if it would be enough, or maybe too much? It had to be enough. And if it was too much? Well, I was dying anyway. Maybe I could save the world before I did.

It had all started out so innocently, with the best of intentions, as is so often the case. I was a doctor for the CDC, an expert in my field of Epidemiology. More specifically, I studied interspecies plagues: what diseases crossed from one species to another. What viruses could be transmitted to humans from, say, birds, or bats, or mosquitoes?

My colleagues and I had set up our research lab in the depths of the Amazon jungles. Plenty of disease vectors to study there, from monkeys to mosquitoes. Naturally, we took all the precautions we knew were necessary to keep our study controlled, to keep our teams safe. And, just as naturally, all the precautions we took were not enough. Anyone who has ever watched a horror movie knows that something always goes horribly wrong.

And it did.

We still weren’t sure how it had happened, though we suspected that it was simply a case of a stowaway that we missed during the decontamination process we all went through as we exited the lab. Someone was careless, or impatient, or in a hurry, or had forgotten how dangerous our work really was.

How it happened no longer mattered. The question now was, what to do about it. What to do to save my life, now that the disease that we were trying to eliminate was trying to eliminate me.

I had been the first to show symptoms: fever, aches, rash. Textbook stuff. I was isolated immediately, relegated to a plastic-encased Clean Room while we tried feverishly - literally, since I was running a temp that ranged from 102 to 104 - to analyze my illness and find something to counteract it. We studied my blood, the skin cells from my rash, and anything else my body offered up that might teach us something.

Soon I wasn’t alone as a subject to study. Seth was next. Then Tracy fell ill. Tiny but tough, she had always been such a fighter, but the illness overcame her with terrifying speed. Within three days, she was gone. Seth was still alive, but we could see him weakening, losing ground, hour by hour.

I was no great shakes myself, but I was too big and strong - and stubborn - to admit defeat. I worked tirelessly. No point in taking a break, I told myself, no point in saving my strength. I was a goner if we didn’t figure this out - and fast! - and we all knew it. Desperate times called for desperate measures. We were as desperate as they come.

Finally, I had isolated what I thought was the trigger virus in my own blood. If we could target that little bugger, find something to kill it - and hopefully not kill me - we had a chance. A very tiny chance. A chance I was willing to die for.

“We need to test it, Jake!” Charlie argued. “We don’t know what the side effects might be!”

“We don’t have time to test it,” I countered. “I don’t have time.”

Susanna tried next. “Jake, it could kill you.”

I looked at her through the plastic sheeting. “I’m dead already. We all know that. If it doesn’t work, I’ll die. But if it does work - “

“You might still die!” Susanna snapped.

“But I might not,” I said quietly. “I might not. And,” I continued, “even if I do die, further development on this trigger might still provide the answer we need! A cure! A vaccine! A treatment! It might still work for others. It might save Seth. Or Charlie. Or you.” I held up my hands, pressing them to the plastic. Reluctantly, Susanna mirrored me on the other side of the sheet. I looked into her eyes. “Let me do this,” I pleaded. “Let me try.”

She turned away, wiping a tear, but I knew I had won my chance. A chance for me. A chance for them.

“Let’s do this!” Charlie challenged.

Drip, drip. Drops of death? Drops of life? Drip, drip.