Less Than a Thousand Words

I hung up the phone, this journey was completely surreal. They chose me. They decided that out of millions of people I would be the first in the world to receive extension 21 or EXT. 21. 21 more years of life. It’s me. I’m the first. The first human trial. Years of progress, years of testing and my day is finally here. March 24th and I’d be living for a full extra 21 years. Of course the side effects would suck at first and for the first few months I’d be under observation in a hotel to make sure everything was going well. It made sense that they would choose someone like me who is older, but not so old that I would die of natural causes like getting a heart attack or embolism or stroke. Plus all my blood work had positive results.

“Alright. Any questions before we change your life?” Asked the doctor through his mask.

“Yes, why me?” I asked.

“Hah, we thought you would’ve guessed it by now,” he said in his deep voice. I looked at him expectantly. “Oh you have nothing to lose,” he said as his face change from entertained to serious. I could not help but my jaw dropped. I thought harder. I didn’t have a partner or spouse, I had no children, I am at a dead end job for the last twenty years, I was a home owner but now I rent. He was right. I have nothing to lose. Sure I’ve got five siblings and I am an aunt to fifteen children that I see all the time, but maybe he was right. I don’t have that much to lose because I did lose my house, I lost my husband but that was nearly ten years ago.

“So to re-cap you might feel a little drowsy, dizzy, you might experience vomit or diarrhea. All other symptoms that you are experiencing need to be written down in the notebook that we will give you, obviously we will be communicating through the glass here in case if something urgent comes up,” he explained. I nodded.

“Ready?” He asked I gave him a nod and then he asked me to count down and before I knew everything was lights out and black.

When I woke up there was this hideous noise coming from somewhere, it was loud and screetchy. I opened my eyes to find myself in a very nice room. Was that noise in my head? I look up and I see the scientists holding clipboards and noting one was leaning towards the glass.

“Henry you’re leaning on the intercom”

“Oh.” And like that was he screeching stopped.

Okay, that’s not a symptom. I sat up in the floral bed and suddenly the feeling of nausea came from my stomach and I picked the trash can next to the bed and vomited. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.

“Ms. Jean do you see the door to your left, that’s a bathroom, that’s the only place we don’t have cameras or windows on you,” said the intercom voice. I looked up the lab coats were jotting notes.

“How are you feeling?”

“Kinda dizzy, the nausea passed now, I think it was just an after effect of the anesthesia wearing off, same thing happened when I got wisdom teeth removed,” I told him they nodded and jotted more notes down.

I went into the bathroom and clean up and in the mirror there was a floating number above my head. What the hell? I thought to myself. 972 appeared directly above me.

“Umm…there’s” I started to say and the number dropped to 971. “ a number above my” 968. “Head.” 967. Why is it counting down? What is that number am I the only that can see it?

“Do you guys see it?” I asked and it dropped down to 962.

“We can’t see you in the bathroom, but yes the number was steady at a 1,000 when you woke up, we are getting a linguistic specialist over here,” said the window guy.

“Oh okay,” I stepped out and looked up the number read 961.

“Wait. Can you stay silent for thirty seconds?” Asked the scientist on the left. “That’s insane!” Hissed the third scientist at the end in the background. I counted to thirty.

“Okay, can you say something?” Asked the third scientist.

“Sure, I can say anything you want,” and they all gasped.

“This is important, you need to not talk until we instruct you,” said the intercom guy.

“What? What is happening?” I asked. Why were they not looking at me? They seemed to be in deep conversation one of the them was pointing to something the others were nodding. I threw a book at the window, they seemed startled. The intercoms guy turned to speak into the mic.

“Ms. Jean we have reason to believe there is an issue we did not think was possible. It looks like every time you speak the number goes down, we think that you only have a thousand words to speak…” he said slowly. I looked up the number was now showing 944. It was insane, but my gut feeling was telling me they were right. Despite me knowing this could be true I couldn’t help but ask

“What happens if I hit zero?” There goes another six words.

“We are not sure and we don’t want to…” he said.

“Find out? Isn’t that your job to research and find out what happens?” I finished knowing the numbers were counting down. 13 words I counted. I have to be the one to find out. Just like Dr. Getellman said I had nothing to lose. I live with no one. I can save more lives if we find out what happens.

“Come on I already signed the waiver away, I know the risks associated with this experiment a thousand words that’s all I get,” I said out loud and they just watched in horror as the numbers counted down. I looked up the number was at 903. “I am going to keep talking, you need to know if this is safe, I’ve got a horrible job that I hate, I barely see my siblings, trust me no one will miss me. We need to know what happens when that count down turns to zero. You know it and I know it.” 849. “I don’t want others to lose their life too because we never found out what happens if we hit zero,” I told them.

“Wait. Can you write something down in that notebook?” Asked intercom guy. I walked over and wrote down the word “something” I looked up and the number was at 828. Yup writing counted too.

“Looks like it counts, should I try sign language?” I signed thank you and the number decreased once again. “There’s no way around it,” I said and then idea came to me. I needed to write a letter in case if I were to die because what happens when I hit zero. We didn’t know. Someone had to know that I loved them. I started writing and the scientists watched from behind the glass as the floating number above my head started to go down and faster and faster the number rolled down. I finished writing the letter and I finally looked up after an hour of silence. 5 words. Famous five words. I counted out a few alternatives, they were only around four… it’s been great? Nope. Tell everyone it’ll be okay? But that’s not epic.

Then it came to me “tell everyone I was brave” I said it and at first nothing happened but then I couldn’t breathe my body fell to the floor and then everything went black.