The X

The X

Insurrection

AXO-5S was manmade, which is why it was so evil.

The first sign of the virus was no longer being able to feel pain. Then, the pain you failed to feel for so long emerged all at once. Blood scorches skin like acid once it exits the body, and the bleeding is unstoppable. My mother’s brain was the first organ affected by AXO. She had hissed at the burning blood dripping onto her skin. “Someone is using a torch to boil my brain from my nostrils” was how she described it. Slight relief was given in the form of an Eosel, a thick rubber contraption fastened to bleeding cavities to prevent acidic blood from irritating the skin.

Nothing slowed the surrender to mortality, giving the virus the nickname "The X." The virus obliterated every sense humans had, painfully, until all the X-ed could do was exist in a hospital bed, scream, and decompose. The X inflamed every organ, one by one, liquidating them even after we perished.

Vaccines emerged almost as quickly as the virus massacred us. Death still took all the sick within the month of their first bleed.

The Narleens vaccine was the only one that worked, completely. It was the only one that cost, and it cost a lot. The Narleens owned nearly everything, and if they didn't own it, they were a large shareholder. They slithered their way into every minuscule or grand office that made decisions. Elizabeth Narleen wormed her way into the White House. The Narleens worked just like the virus did, quick and effortlessly. They were hated and feared. They weaved themselves into our foundation in a way that change was made impossible. Their vaccine was the only one that worked and was painless, linked to an elongated life, accompanied by a period of the first symptom of the X. The X-ed were invincible until they came down from the slight high the vaccine gave. It was perfection in a needle and people slaughtered each other for it. The Narleens’ church convinced people that if they drank the blood of the vaccinated, they would be immunized too; people killed to be immune.

The Narleen’s vaccine had a detonator. Six weeks after the release of the vaccine, every person who took it, or drank from someone who did, drowned in their acidic blood simultaneously.

People rioted, targeting the churches that enforced manslaughter, and every business the Narleens profited from. We were angry and all they wanted was for our anger to be contained. To fix our anger, they attempted to wipe out anyone who held it.

“They tried making us pay to die, Ania.” Kol says, quietly enough that none of the people in the surrounding seats can overhear. Kol’s eyes are locked on the colorful array of trash bags lined along the sidewalks and dipping into the street and the remains smudged into the ground due to some random animal. Bags were the best courtesy we were capable of giving with the number of people dying and the elevated prices of proper burials. The X took so many people that the bags overlapped on the sidewalks, and there was still no more space for more. People resorted to dismembering older loved ones to fit more people on the streets, the privilege of wholesomeness was conserved for children. The Narleens punished this “cheap” option, no one would come to pick up the make-shift body bags for weeks. The streets reeked.

“The epitome of evil.” I finally respond.

Trash became less of a priority when people’s loved ones stopped waking up. These loved ones were less of a priority when the Narleens realized they would make even more money if they charged more. They skyrocketed the cost of burial, coffins, cremations, and --later-- the trash bags themself. There was no cheap and respectable option.

Across the aisle of the shuttle bus, my Nana’s glossy forehead is pressed against the lightly tinted windows of the bus with Bex --me and Kol’s daughter-- cuddled into her side like a rollie-pollie. I stretch across the small aisle to massage the coarse coils growing out of my baby’s scalp, willing her to stay asleep so she doesn’t have to see the disaster outside the bus.

“Okay, everyone?” A woman at the front of the shuttle bus, outfitted like a stewardess, stands and gestures toward herself, “We’ve arrived at the bunker. A member will join the departing parties, don’t worry. You will be taken care of! Also, it is necessary to remind you that all cellphones should’ve been left at the rendezvous point. If, for some reason, there is an electronic device you have discovered or forgotten still aboard, please hand it to me before departing the shuttle bus. A new device awaits you.”

Nana is shaking my shoulder for my attention, “Ania, baby, you two better come back to that baby or I will haunt you.” She pulls me down into a hug.

I chuckle at her. “I love you, Nana.”

“Don’t be saying that sappy stuff!” she swats at my arm while we pull away.

Bex detangles herself from Kol, “Zaza, you’re acting like you did when we were at the hospital with granny!” Bex whines, pushing Kol away.

“Oh, baby.” I drop to hug my little girl. “ Zaza and I love you, okay? When we get back from the capital you can show us all the cool stuff the commune set up when we were gone, yeah?” Tears are welling in my eyes from the heart-shaped locket around Bex’s neck.

It was my mother’s. Resilient, my momma somehow found her way from that hospital, polished the locket that the X had caused her to bleed onto, and gave it to Kol. She told Kol that they needed to officially become part of the family marry me and. They did, the same orchid engraved in the middle of the heart was engraved in my wedding band. Kol just gave the heart to our baby.

“Ma’am,” the stewardess motions toward Nana and Bex forward, “We are departing shortly, if you are meant to be at the first stop get off now, please.” A smile that barely hides the stewardess’s annoyance is plastered on her face.

I nod at my Nana before she does as she is told, gripping Bex’s hand and jolting the bus of the last people getting off at the bunker.

“To the rest of you, prepare for the capital, you need to.”

The shuttle bus turns onto the highway. It’s scattered with bodies instead of filled with them like the streets are. Plastic bags of numerous colors hide the damage the Narleens have caused. I felt a sense of happiness that Momma died early on, before the Narleens vaccine. We had given her the empathy cocktail once bleeding started, I was the one that had to watch the life rattle from her body.

“You should put your hair up, love.” Kol holds out their palm for my ponytail holder deciding to do it themself. “Ania, you know we could die right?”

“Momma did die, Ko. So many people died.”

“Yeah, but we don't have to be added to that list. We have a family to tend to.”

“In a world where there are genetically engineered viruses being used for political power.” I hiss at Kol.

“In a country.” They correct me.

.“Kol, baby, I’m okay with dying if you and Bex get to live a life worth living.” Kol raises their hand to my cheek and moves to speak. I stop them diverting their gaze beyond me and out the window of the bus. “I wanted to take Bex to the park and there were bodies on the slides.”

“Ania, this,” hands motioning to the bus, then the capitol building just in view, “is the deadliest way to get what we want. We just have to vote them out.”

“Kol,” a sigh falls from my lips, “I don’t know not one person that voted for the people that sit in office today. I work for the voting firm. It’s illegal for me to count the same name of the opposing party of the current president three times in a row. I have to skip until I find a lot of the same party. Do you know how insane that sounds? Our votes don’t matter when the people we are voting against run the companies that count them.”

“So, walk into the capitol building and, what Ania?” Kol hisses.

“All we are doing is letting them know we are angry. If things go bad we’ll get to the bunker, Kol. Fuck, look outside! Our baby can’t even go to school because this virus has taken half her class and the entirety of the street it takes to get there. There are fifth graders, Bex’s age, cremating dead bodies because these fucked up people harbor power. Everyone but us is exhausted.”

“I’m exhausted too.” There are tears welling in Kol’s eyes but they catch my wrist before I wipe them away. “One of us should have stayed with our daughter.”

I huff and turn forward.

The woman that ushered Nana and Bex off the bus rises. Clapping her hands together when she is fully standing. “I want to remind everyone that we are here for everyone the Narleens have taken from us. The goal is change.”

The bus starts to wobble again, shuttle passengers spill into the crowd that is thickly surrounding the capital building it spreads, letting the stewardess to the front. I pull Kol along to take advantage of the opportunity. The stewardess hands outs apologies “for the wait” as she scurries past. When we arrive at the front of the crowd, Elizabeth Narleens is on the capitol’s steps. Arms out as if telling the crowd to be quiet. “Calm down,” “Let us keep killing you,” “Submit.” Her voice is too weak to reach the pain within the center of our souls. Our pain is loud enough to be heard.

“We’ve been calm long enough.” The stewardess screams and reaches for Elizabeth Narleen who is begging us to turn the other cheek.

With a scream, Elizabeth vanishes into the opposite side of the crowd. A gunshot lurches the crowd toward the capital building but Kol pushes me the opposite way. Elizabeth’s screams mingle with ours. I can hear civilians begging the Narleens to bring back the cure, lower prices. Let us bury our loved ones. In return, the rest of the security attempts to close themselves in the bounds of a door too big for the few of them to shut. There's gunfire then louder yells, angrier. I can feel the anger in the soles of my feet. The crowd surges forward faster, the air launches from my body and so does Kol’s hand.

My glasses are lost in between the run-up the stairs and the stampede of people that get the capitol’s doors open wider than before down. The sea thins just in time for me to see the butt of a gun meets Kol’s temple, I reach for them with a shriek. The sound of wind breaking brings my attention to blurry triangles in the sky. Kol’s arms have found their way around me blood on my chest. It burns.

“Baby?” Kol looks up at me with one bloodshot eye.

“I think they may be spreading it.” Kol hiccups a sob as their hand is raised into my view, I try to pull it closer so I can see but they jolt back. They dig into their bag for a backup pair of glasses and hands them to me. My eyes follow a jet in the sky, it’s faster than I have ever seen them.

“Baby.” Kol is pointing toward the jet.

I look at them in confusion.

“That’s where the bunker is, Ania.”

A blob of black falls, I can smell metal before I see a dust cloud spiraling toward the capital.