Flowing Doom

I need to take a drink. But instead of doing what he’d only seen in movies and documentaries, he simply clicked a button on his shoulder and his thirst was supplied.

His ration had become lower and lower over the year. Even without measurements allowed he knew his applicator had become less and less effective. The subcutaneous nature of drinking now was so normal. Just inject and forget. That was the slogan they used to slowly move people away from actually swallowing their water.

“Division C! Head over to the cooling station for your shift.” His commander shouted. They were given an hour interspersed through the day where they could cool down in a cool room, ringed with blankets that made the air thirty degrees less than the stifling heat they’d all become accustomed to.

Growing up in a world where water shortages began, he never suspected that by the time he finished school there would be rationing. And then ten years later, a whole new system of hydration. A case of water would sell for thousands of dollars and the poor could never afford the real article.

And now his view was literally the largest body of water still standing in their part of the world. A vast vista of blue that shone crystal while reflecting the sun. But it was impossible to touch, and even more impossible to enjoy.

It was protected as a final piece of the government stockpile, something that not many people knew existed. Millions of gallons, designed to give the final people standing in the government something to survive on if they ever had to go off world or underground. Legal hoarding.

The view had taken some getting used to. Protecting something that could be used to save millions of people from slow death. All in the name of their leaders. Charged with doing whatever it took to keep it safe.

Half an hour passed like it always did, the cooling air welcome over their suits. Everything designed to manage heat and make sure that they could make it through a shift in forty degree weather without losing precious electrolytes. Something was different as he followed his compatriots back onto the wall. Nervous eyes.

“It’s a swarm. Bigger than any we’ve ever seen. Thousands.” He could hear the panic in the voice relaying the information. “Stand your ground. They cannot get through.”

Swarms happened all the time. Terrorists trying to get access and steal the liquid Fort Knox they protected. Even just people who wanted to see a massive body of water. All were repelled. With force if needed. That was the job.

“Check your weapons!” the commander shouted. Some eyes began peering over the walls and when they turned back, they were wide eyed and he could see fear. Was it a fear of what was coming, or a fear that they might have to actually turn arms against real people?

Desperate people. People who knew that if they didn’t do anything, they would die. And barely had enough life left in them to fight for one final push towards feeling satiated again.

“This is not a drill!” the voice had changed from desperate to scared. “Take your positions!”

He’d seen one or two stragglers attempt things in the past, and most times they were even driven off with the threat of violence. The largest group was about a hundred, and they were discouraged easily as well considering there was fifty of them guarding the wall all hours and days.

The surging movement of what was coming made his heart sink into his chest. It seemed impossible that so many bodies were able to occupy a space. One mass, moving like a sinuous animal. And fast. Fast enough to allow them to get close before anyone could muster a reaction.

The call to open fire sounded like a slow motion record that started playing. He reacted with instinct, having been trained for the moment many times. But firing at a virtual target and a real flesh and blood human were two different things.

He could see eyes. Hair. Sweat. Hear screams, both from in front and around him.

Their orders were to fire, and fire they did. Guns roared around him, deafening and vibrating while his own finger tightened again and again. Mindlessly they still came, too many sights to land on and process before he simply gave up and began pumping round after round into the swarming masses.

But there was no point. No reason. Just insanity. People pushed to the very edge of starvation for something so simple, that used to be in abundance and taken for granted. Now it was the only thing keeping them from a slow, dry death.

A wave was cut down and instantly replaced by more swarming bodies. Many of them barely clothed, rags hanging off them. Cracked skin, swollen lips, burnt skin. Almost as if radiation was the culprit, and in a way it was. The radiation of the sun that had nothing stopping it from scorching the earth anymore.

The gun in his hands suddenly cut out without warning. A small tendril of smoke appearing towards the barrel. Fuck. Jammed. There was no way to control it.

All he could do was watch now, a mass of bodies moving inexorably towards them. High enough to be a deterrent, but climbing masses quickly surmounted the barrier.

As if in slow motion, he was transfixed by a simple sight glistening in the sun. A locket, heart shaped and reflected with a strong beam. Hypnotizing him as it swung around the neck of a girl who couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, naked and red skinned. For a brief moment he lost himself there, thoughts flying into his mind through the din of the desperate firefight around him.

Surging bodies suddenly appeared around him, his gun being ripped away from his grasp and his body shoved hard to the ground. Breath gone. Randomly a flash of pain on an arm or leg or even his head as a body stepped on him. Then another.

Crawling was almost impossible. Somehow he managed to see the edge through the haze. As his head looked over the edge, pain closing his vision he saw the ones who had made it through the wall into the water behind them.

They were in the throes of ecstasy, even as the bullets cut them down. Red mingled with blue as the precious water filled with streams of the dying. He even saw one man smiling, his face lifted from the clear liquid as a shot then ruptured his head like a melon and spread his tissue into the churning maelstrom.

Tumbling now, his body rolling with the momentum of the damned heading towards nothing. Weightless, spinning and falling down over the side of what he had been charged to protect. Excitement overwhelmed him when he realized what he was about to fall into. The very same liquid he’d never been able to feel.

He fell into the wetness, soaking his body and couldn’t stop himself from opening his mouth and taking a long draw into his lips. The thrill of feeling moisture on his lips and the coolness covering his body was sexual, skin growing taut with the response.

As the world spun, his body floated to the surface, and even the churning maelstrom around him gave him a sense of peace. Nobody knew how to swim. There was no way to get out. His spinning head and choking breath told him to relax. It was easy to accept.

Slipping under the water felt like silk caressing his skin. And oblivion was something he never thought he’d move towards so easily. The thing that was supposed to give them all life was taking his. Somehow, he still smiled.