Karen Shaw once again finds herself swept up in events beyond her control that make her traumatic experience in the park that fateful morning and her 'stay' at the psychiatric hospital pale in comparison. As her cooperation is forced, she only begins to get the slightest inkling of her unenviable destiny when she first learns about project Eve 2.0.

By now, a sizeable portion of the thin women that populated this pricy gym were starting to gather around in front of the flat screens in the cardio area. They in stunned silence, most with their hand over their mouth, as they contemplated the implications of a horrifying “what if” scenario that no one wished to utter aloud.

With ear-buds now carelessly draped over their shoulders, everyone looked at each other during the commercial break, and as if it were choreographed, they pulled out their smart phones at the same time.

I decided to follow suit. I hit the speed dial button for my boyfriend William, but I couldn’t get through. I tried half a dozen times before giving up for the time being, figuring the system was probably overwhelmed by the entire city calling spouses, loved ones, and the like at the same time.

I cut my workout short and calmly got the hell out of there. In the ten minutes that had elapsed between the airing of the story and my exit, the room had filled up like a club on Saturday night; only in this instance, there would be no need for a fire marshal to enforce the max capacity rule. I anticipated an exodus of pallid and sweaty females very soon, perspiring more than they did during their workouts, as they rushed out with their phones glued to their ears, frantically hitting the send button over and over again, nearly as fast as their racing hearts. I know I was as I rushed down the steps.

I grabbed my bag from my locker and made a b-line for the exit. Everyone’s attention was as rapt down here as it was up there. I think I could have strolled out in my underwear without anyone noticing.

As I walked through the parking lot toward my car, my earlier sense of purpose and calm was destroyed. I was really starting to get scared now, just like all of the other women at the gym, just like everyone else on the planet. The sea of cars in the lot, the fast moving streams of traffic in the distance, and the countless number of lit windows on all of the buildings and homes represented all of the potential lives that could be destroyed if the unthinkable was able to sneak its way across our borders.

I got into my car, took a few deep breaths, and then hit the road. Since I left early, I figured I’d make myself useful and run to the grocery store to get a jump start on the week’s shopping. I needed anything to keep my mind occupied, but that didn’t include the radio. I didn’t dare turn on NPR. I was terrified of what I might hear next; instead, I listened to some classical music, all the while telling myself that there was no need to panic yet. However, apparently I was in the minority this evening.

“Good Lord!” I exclaimed, turning into the parking lot of the grocery store.

It was like Black Friday and pre-landfall Superstorm Sandy all rolled into one! I circled around the lot over a dozen times until finally getting lucky, and by lucky, I mean a space all the way in the back.

By the time I reached the doors, even the fire lane was filling up. I swear to God, it was a good thing I had my wits about me, because I almost got run over a couple of times. Pedestrian right of way had been all but forgotten in this mess, just like street signs were considered suggestions in rush hour traffic in New Delhi.

I navigated my way through the thick and frenzied activity. As I looked around, initially, I found it odd that there were so few manned registered this time of the day. I only saw two female employees, and the younger of the two was in a heated discussion with the store manager.

All that I heard was, “Then I quit! If you expect me to stay than you’re crazy. God only knows what the government isn’t telling us!”

The next thing I heard as I made my way back to the dairy section was an announcement by the manager. With strained composure he said:

All employees with any cashier training are needed immediately to the front end. Stockers, this includes you!

I forced a laugh as I neared the rear of the store. I was only thinking about dinner this evening and breakfast tomorrow, but everyone else looked like they were preparing for the end of the world. As you would expect, items like canned goods and bottled water were flying off the shelves.

I reached the cooler in the back, grabbed some milk, and headed for the seafood department. When I got there, I felt like I had found an oasis of calmness. While other shoppers were just mindlessly shoving items in their carts, I strolled like I was at a farmer’s market on a perfect day, perusing the selection of fresh fish.

A nice young man emerged from the back and his face lit up.

“Oh hi Miss Shaw. What can I get for you this evening?”

“Three swordfish steaks please Trent.”

“Coming right up!”

While he was wrapping my order in cellophane, he stopped his customary humming at the sound of an altercation breaking out, and stared over my left shoulder at two men that seemed like they were ready to come to blows over either canned chicken or tuna. I wasn’t sure.

He said, “Why do I all of the sudden feel like I’ve been living under a rock of something? I’ve never seen the evening rush quite like this before.”
“You...You mean you haven’t heard the news from the Mideast?”

“No, I was on my break and listening to my…” He froze, as my casual the mention of the word Mideast thoroughly sunk in. His eyes went wide and I think his dark skin became one shade lighter.

“Oh my God! What happened?” he asked, leaning in toward me.

I shook my head and bowed it ever so slightly. “It’s terrible. The outbreak of that virus in Israel has gone regional. But that’s not the worst part. Only women seem to be falling ill and…dying.”

“You mean the men are immune?”

“Well, it looks like that’s the case, at least for now until it mutates God forbid. They’re not sure if it’s spread beyond Israel’s borders or not.”

“Oh my holy God,” he confessed. “Talk about one hell of a scary situation.” He pursed his lips before saying, “Shit…I’d better call my girlfriend…Oh, sorry about my language Miss Shaw.”

“Quite understandable. This is definitely the biggest ‘oh shit’ moment humanity has ever faced.”

He soberly acknowledged that truth with a nod, before handing me my order.

“Take care of yourself now Miss Shaw. You hear? Stay safe.”

“I will Trent.”

I finished my shopping and walked down the aisle to get in line at one of the automated checkouts, but the line, as it turns out, met me when I was only half way down the cosmetic’s aisle. I peered down the aisle, towards the front end, and realized that I was the only woman on that aisle. I almost laughed at the irony.

After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, it was my turn, and I quickly and efficiently started scanning my items, unlike the elderly gentleman behind me who was having some difficulty on account of his arthritis no doubt.

Of course, my cell phone rang in the middle of scanning, demonstrating Murphy’s Law in action. Given how quickly so many people had developed a chronic cough all of the sudden behind the elderly gentleman, who had just asked for assistance for a second time, I thought better of answering it even though William was probably stressed out of his mind. They hadn’t cut the old man any slack and I’m not sure if they’d cut me any at the moment either, even though I was a woman. Good manners seemed to have been swept aside like certain rights in post 9/11 America after the speedy passage of the Patriot Act.

With my three plastic bags in my left hand, and my iPhone in my right, I hurried toward those sliding doors as fast as during my release from that institution all of those years ago.

Like a pedestrian in a busy city, I waited to take the first tentative steps through all of the honking and weaving in front of me. I checked my messages while I waited. I shuddered as I looked at William’s text:

Please come home ASAP! Call me when you get this text.

I texted him back as I made my way to the back of the parking lot. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the gentleman wearing the blue sweat shirt who had been waiting next to me by the curb for politeness to prevail, was headed down the same row. Something in my gut told me something was wrong. He wasn’t even carrying one shopping bag. He just had a cell phone pressed to his ear.

I picked up the pace and I was even with the third to the last car in the row when it happened.

At first, I thought he was talking to me when he said, “Go now!”

Before I could whip my head around, I heard the screeching of tires to my left and saw the fast approach of a white van. I turned around to run, but the guy in the blue sweats was already on me. He ripped my phone out of my hand and it smashed against the back of the car about the same time as my bags slipped out of my other hand and the milk exploded on the ground.

I tried to slug him with my right fist but he ducked out of the way. As my momentum carried me, I was confronted with more than just the open door of the white van as I spun around. A taller and more muscular man had come out of nowhere.

“Grab her feet!” said the man in the blue sweats, now restraining me from behind.

I screamed and writhed, trying to free myself from their paralyzing rock hard grip as they carried me to the van. But it was to no avail.

They tossed me in, and as quickly as the door slammed shut, another anonymous man in dark clothes slapped some duck tape over my mouth while someone else shoved a bag down over my head.

As the van sped away to God only knows where, I started sobbing like that morning after I first awoke on that park bench as Karen Shaw; only I had never been this terrified in my life.

By the time the van finally came to a full and complete stop, the bag was clinging to my face from all of the perspiration and crying, but mostly from the crying. And I had no idea of how much time had passed. It could have been twenty minutes. It could have been an hour. I didn’t know. However, as I was ‘escorted’ out, one thing I did know was that this place smelled awful. There was this stagnant acrid smell that just hung in the air as they dragged me forward to my final destination. I winced at the sound of a door screeching as it slid open. It was like nails on a chalkboard.

“Jesus Christ!” declared one of the men. “As sophisticated as this whole op is, you’d think someone coulda’ bought some WD-40 for fucks sake.”

“Watch your fuckin’ mouth!” growled another man with a slightly deeper voice. “Don’t let him catch you takin’ the lord’s name in vain.”

“Right. Don’t want to upset the ‘prophet.’”

Our footsteps echoed as we walked across what I could only imagine was concrete. After a few moments, we came to a stop. The echoes faded just in time to hear the steady approach of footsteps that were scarily calm and methodical, unlike the clumsy movements of the thugs who had abducted me.

My heart skyrocketed once more at the sound of an equally terrifying cold voice

“Language gentleman. Language,” said my newest acquaintance of the day.

I could feel the bodies on either side of me stiffen, assuming unnaturally good posture for this sorry lot. This guy was definitely the alpha wolf.

“Mind your manners gentleman,” said the leader. “We are, don’t forget, in the presence of a lady.”

I heard barely stifled laughter on either side of me.

“Get him,” whispered one of the thugs. “That’s rich, aint it?”

The bag was yanked off just as forcefully as it was put on by the thugs. Even though the light in the room where I now found myself was dim, my eyes still stung as they quickly adjusted.

“Don’t be scared,” said the leader. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

His appearance was just as calculated as his footsteps. He was neatly dressed in slacks and a blue buttoned down shirt. He had a full head of jet black hair that was perfectly slicked back. He smiled a smile that sent a shiver down my spine as he slowly approached me from half a dozen feet away.

He peeled off the duck tape very gingerly as if he were a perfectionist removing painter’s tape.

“There,” he said. “That’s better.” He looked me up and down for a few moments before saying, “I have to say that I am impressed. You are far more lovely in person than I could have imagined. Quite impressive…Please sit down.” He pointed to a chair in front of a desk along the back wall.

Despising the pleasantries as much as the man offering them, I said, “I’d prefer to stand if you don’t mind.”

“As you wish,” he said.

“And another thing: you say you don’t want to hurt me, so what’s up with the guns?” I motioned with my head to beefy man standing guard by the door.

With a dismissive nod from the leader, the ‘muscle’ and his pistol gave us some privacy. The door remained ajar however.

“Well,” he said, “Since you won’t sit, I think maybe I’ll take a load off for a spell. It’s been one heck of a long day.”

“Tell me about it,” I scoffed.

He rested his thin but muscular frame on the edge of the desk. He looked around as he said, “Sorry we cannot offer you more aesthetically pleasing accommodations. I’m sure the ‘institution’ you briefly stayed at seems like a resort compared to this place. But if you cooperate, you won’t have to endure this depressed place much longer and you can go home.”

My eyes were still wide with shock at the mention of the psychiatric hospital.

With an annoying smirk on his face he said, “I know quite a bit about you Miss Shaw, but not quite enough as I’d like to about your involvement in a certain project as it turns out. And so we find ourselves here.”

“Project? What project?”

“It seems the hacker I hired wasn’t quite as up to the job as I thought he was, so I need you to tell me everything you know about project Eve 2.0.”

My expression went blank as quickly as it takes to delete a page in a word document. I shook my head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I quietly asserted.

“Mmm hmm,” he muttered. He sighed before saying, “This day is going to be a lot longer than I thought.”

He shook his head and started walking toward the door. His lips were pursed like an overachieving student who suddenly and for the first time in his life hadn’t gotten what he wanted.

His silence scared me and I started pleading, “I swear to God, whatever you think I know about this project, I don’t. I mean honestly, I really don’t.”

Still ignoring me, he loitered by the door, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. After chewing the situation over in his mind for a bit, he nonchalantly motioned with his head for the help to return.

“Looks like it’s plan B gentleman, or is this really plan C?” He shook his head again. “Like I said, it’s been a long day.”

Two of the biggest men approached me, one with a strange look of satisfaction on his face to be able to put it some overtime.

I began retreating to the corner of the room like a caged animal. These two guys who could’ve been former linebackers picked me up like I was a sack of rice. They dumped me in the chair, forcing me to finally take their leader up on his former polite offer.

As they held me captive, a man in a lab coat approached. He was holding a needle and a vial of some kind.

“Hold out her left arm please,” said the short middle aged doctor.

He prepped my arm, with the smell of alcohol burning my nasal passages like that damn acrid smell that still lingered in this room.

“This will only sting a little,” he said in a surprisingly gentle tone of voice, as if I was a kid about to get a booster shot.

I couldn’t watch as he brought the needle close to my throbbing vein. I looked away and struggled once more in futile desperation.

“It will only hurt more if you don’t cooperate,” said the Doc. “It’s not poison. It’s just something that will help you relax and clear your mind.”

The two men tightened their grip, and forced that part of my body to comply like the good girl I certainly wasn’t at the moment.

He depressed the plunger, and surprisingly, it hardly stung. Whatever the hell he had given me, I was feeling kind of good. It was like I had taken way too much cold medicine followed a whiskey chaser. I drifted into a floating awareness as the Doc checked my pupil dilation with a flashlight. Just like back at the hospital with Alice, everything was just washing over me.

My vision was now a little blurry, but as the Doc headed for the door, I could make out the face of the leader. He knelt down and leaned his face toward me.

He whispered, “If Karen Shaw won’t tell us what we need to know, then perhaps a certain Eric Campbell will. And as soon as we know, then the whole world will know about our government’s sick and immoral experiment.”

The last thing I remember, either than thinking he needed a breath mint, was him pointing to a camera on a tripod in the corner of the room.

“It’s show time Eric,” he said.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the darkness, feeling disoriented with something soft conforming to the contours of my sore back. I immediately knew I was inside at least. There was no breeze, just that stale air making my throbbing headache even worse.

Before the acuity of my vision sufficiently improved to take in my new cramped quarters, something that sounded like a really loud firecracker jolted me out of the disorienting fog I was still swimming in.

The next loud pop had me practically levitating off the bed. And that pop was followed by several in quick succession. I didn’t have any military training, and I didn’t need any. It was the unmistakable sound of gunfire and my heart dropped in my chest at that realization.

My heart raced as I raced around the room in a desperate fumbling effort to find a way out or at the very least, some place to hide. But all I found besides a bed surrounded by what looked like cinderblock walls was an equally thick door that just wouldn’t budge.

I retreated to the corner and listened to the desperate muffled confrontation playing itself out on the other side.

I heard a ferocious burst of gunfire, and then nothing. The eerie silence had me shaking like a leaf in the corner, wondering who had won, and if it really even mattered whether or not the anonymous aggressors had prevailed.

I started to make my peace with God. I had never really been that religious, but as they say, there are no atheists in fox holes.

A pounding on the door sent my heart rate skyrocketing even higher.

“Karen Shaw?” asked a deep male voice.

I simply froze.

“Miss Shaw, this is Captain Hicks. My team and I are here to rescue you. Miss Shaw. Do you hear me? Are you okay?”

I cleared my throat and in a raspy voice said, “I’m here. I guess I’m okay.”

“Look,” said Hicks, “We’re going to have you outta there in a hot second, okay? But I need you to listen to me very carefully. We don’t have the key and we don’t have time to go around lookin’ for it. We’re gonna have to blow the lock. What I need you to do is to get to the far corner of the room and…do you have anything to shield yourself with?”

“Ummm…There’s just a mattress!” I hollered back.

“Good. Now get to the back corner and shield yourself with that. Tell me when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready!”

I closed my eyes and gripped the dingy mattress for dear life.

“Cover your ears Miss Shaw! Fire in the hole!”

Boom!

Seconds later, the door opened and the light sifted in through the smoky haze, stinging my eyes. Still clutching the mattress, I peered from behind it. A heavily armored soldier walked over, kneeled down and extended his arm. The warm smile on his dusty face was the most beautiful I’d ever seen.

“It’s okay Miss Shaw. You’re safe now.”

My shaky hand met his and he helped me up. With legs feeling rubbery and unsure, I leaned in and gave him a big hug.

“Thank you! Thank you so much for saving me! When I heard all of that gunfire, I thought I was done for.” I started wiping away the tears that were starting to flow.

“Everything’s going to be alright.” He extended his arm and said, “Right this way. Let’s get you the heck out this God forsaken place.”

“Hey Doc!” shouted Hicks. He waved for him to come over.

“I’m fine,” I lamely assured.

“No Miss Shaw,” said Hicks. “You’re not fine until the Doc says you are.”

As it turns out, I should have taken Hicks at his word. I was fine for about two seconds until I caught a glimpse of the aftermath of the battle lying on the ground to my left. There they were: two of the men from the van riddled with bullets. I immediately winced and averted my gaze, but all of the residual adrenaline pumping through my veins branded the image into my mind’s eye. The numerous streams of blood oozing out of them onto the cold floor were like tributaries, merging into an impromptu river that was coursing its way toward a cracked depression in this awful place.

As the doctor met us halfway, I started to feel like I did that time in the shower back at the hospital, only worse. My eyes became blurrier than after that injection, and my ears started ringing as well. It’s not like it is in the movies, because in the movies there isn’t the smell to go along with experience.

“She doesn’t look so good,” said the doctor.

“No shit,” said Hicks.

“She’s going into shock,” said the doc. “Give me a hand with her sir.”

Now, instead of being dragged, I was being carried out like a wounded football player through the scurrying activity of the rest of the team.

“Hurry up with that stretcher!” shouted the doc. “Come on Karen. Don’t you pass out on me. You can make it. We’re almost there honey.”

I just kept saying, “I just need a minute. Just give me a minute and I’ll be fine.”

The stretcher met up with us, but not before I turned my head and vomited, getting a fair amount on my shoes and Hick’s boots as well.

“Sorry about that sir,” I said. I gave Hicks a weak salute as they helped me onto the stretcher.

As some color started returning to my face, the last thing I saw before I was wheeled across the threshold toward the Humvees parked under a twilight sky, was a medic treating him. The leader was still alive, but just barely by the looks of things. However, his current state notwithstanding, he gave me the iciest stare I’ve ever had the displeasure of being on the receiving end of.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” he asked, the echo of his voice spilling out into all of the commotion associated with the post-operation cleanup. You should have let me kill that thing that you’re wheeling out! She’s an abomination! She’s an abomination before the eyes of God!”

Hicks looked over at the Doc. “What the hell is that crazy fuck going on about?”

The Doc responded to the anger burning in Hick’s questioning eyes with a shrug of his shoulders. “He’s a religious nut job. What do you expect?”

Hicks held my hand and smiled. “Look, I’m sorry about the language, but no one should ever, ever, talk to another human being like that.”

“Thanks,” I said, still trying to recover from the sting of those hateful words, words that made the word faggot seem like a term of endearment. I glanced back at the warehouse before observing, “And judging by how much he was bleeding, I don’t expect he’ll be around much longer to talk to anyone like that again.”

“As much as I’d like that to be the case, we still need the bastard for questioning. We still…”

His eyes landed on something to my right and he proceeded to stand at attention nearly as fast as my fainting spell had come on.

“Sir!” said Hicks.

The well decorated officer to my right saluted back. “At ease Captain.” Ignoring the Captain’s heroic effort for a moment, the officer looked at the doctor and asked, “How is she?”

The Doc placed his flashlight in his pocket and said, “They seem to have taken pretty good care of her. She’s unharmed…Physically at least. It looks like they gave her some sodium pentothal, but until we get the blood work back, we won’t know for sure.”

He looked at Hicks and said, “Excellent work Captain. I can’t even begin to tell you how pleased I was when I was informed that your team suffered no casualties.” He extended his arm and the two shook hands.

“Thank you sir,” said Hicks.

I sat up and raised my hand.

“Whoa Miss Shaw!” cautioned the Doc. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

The officer finally acknowledged me in the first person. “Yes, what is it Miss Shaw?”

“When do I get to go home?”

The smile on the officer’s face in response to my overexertion disappeared at the mention of the word home. He looked at me for a few seconds before letting out a sigh. Just as he opened his mouth, his phone rang.

“Excuse me Miss Shaw, I have to take this call…Yes sir. I was just about to call you sir. I have good news. The asset is alive and well.”

I looked at Hicks with questioning eyes. “Asset? What does he mean by asset? He’s not talking about me is he? I’ve been called many things but never an asset.”

“Sorry,” admitted Hicks, rubbing the back of his neck. “That info is on a need to know and is way above my pay grade.”

Then, it dawned on me: Does this have something to do with project Eve 2.0? It must!

I craned my neck to try and glean any more information regarding my role as an asset, but the Officer had strolled farther down the perimeter and was just out of ear shot.

“Damn it!” I exclaimed, lying back down. “I just want to know when the hell I can go home. My boyfriend is probably worried sick about me! Oh Jesus, I can’t believe I forgot about him. I must have really been out of it for a while. You need to call him and tell him I’m okay, or better yet, just give me a phone and I’ll call him myself.”

Hicks grasped my hand once more and his calm voice brought the rapid beating of my heart under control.

“Relax Miss Shaw. If he hasn’t been informed yet, I’m sure someone is in the process of notifying him right now.”

“I just wanna make sure, because if the situation was reversed, I know I’d be going out my mind, pacing back and forth on the carpet and probably wearing a rut into it.”

“He can meet you at the hospital,” assured the Doc. “Then, after we’ve done some tests and kept you overnight for observation, you can go home.”

“That sounds good,” I said.

But what wasn’t good, was the tail end of the conversation I caught as the officer walked back toward us.

“Yes sir. I agree. At this point, I think prayer isn’t such a bad idea either…Okay then. I’ll report back when she’s in the air and en route.”

I looked at Hick’s and said, “What is he talking about? I thought I was just going to be admitted to the hospital and then released.”

The officer hung his head in his hands for a few moments until he regained his composure after hearing whatever devastating end of the world news he was privy to.

“Change of plans Miss Shaw,” he said abruptly. “Suffice it to say that we need to assume worst case scenario and take every precaution.” He glanced at his watch. “We have a chopper en route to pick you up and take you to an airstrip. ETA is about fifteen minutes, just before dawn. From there, you’ll be taken to a safe location at a military base.”

“Where exactly?” I demanded. “I need to know. My boyfriend needs to know.”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that because it’s classified. But what I can tell you is that he has been informed that you are alive and well and that your welfare is being well attended to. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some other business to attend to.” Before I could say anything further on the matter, he said, “Good luck.”

Hicks was at a loss for words as much as I was at the moment.

“What are you involved in?” he finally asked. “Are you some kind of scientist or something?”

I simply smiled and shook my head. “I really never considered myself that important.”

“Well, from where I’m standing it certainly doesn’t seem that way to me. I mean, did you see the way he was looking at you, like you’re our last hope or something.”

“Yeah. Talk about weird…Hey Hicks, can I ask you something? Since…since I was abducted, how bad has it gotten?”

He pursed his lips and shook his head.

“It’s okay,” I reassured. “I’m not so shaken up anymore that you can’t level with me.”

“Well there isn’t really anyway to sugar coat it. A lot has happened in almost thirty-six hours.”

“Thirty-six hours? I thought it was tomorrow morning!”

“I guess you would have found out during your debriefing,” he said.

“Well, thanks for the FYI,” I said. I cleared my throat before continuing. “So the virus has spread

He nodded.

I braced myself before asking, “How far?”

“Too damn far. It’s spread like wildfire across the Atlantic. Right now, cases are being reported throughout the entire Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe…Don’t know about Australia though. Last I heard, some women had fallen ill, but there isn’t any confirmation yet. Same deal here in the US. On the west coast, some people have been admitted with flu like symptoms, but no confirmation.”

“So it’s just a matter of time then,” I said.

He paused before soberly acknowledging a rapidly approaching truth. “Probably.”

“I guess two big old oceans on either side can only buy you so much time.”

He didn’t even lift his head to try and force a smile at my lame joke.

“Oh my God,” I said. “I’m so sorry. Are you married or is she your girlfriend?”

Without looking back up, he said, “Engaged actually. Looks like the wedding planning is going to be put on the backburner for a while, huh?”

He wiped away a couple of tears from his dusty face before regaining his composure enough to greet me with some remnant hope on his face.

He smiled and said, “But all is not lost yet. All we can do now is be vigilant and hope for the best.”

I stood up and looked to the heavens, but not to pray. A bright light on the horizon caught my eye, but I knew it wasn’t a star. The first rays peeking above the horizon had already drowned out the rest of the feeble star light. The helicopter on its way. Soon, it would land and I would have no choice but to get in; just like I had no say in going to the psychiatric hospital; just like I had no say when it came to contacting my boyfriend. Well I sure as hell wanted to have a say at that moment. After all I’d been through, I deserved to have a say, for I had far, far, too much to leave behind now.

With arms akimbo, I thought of Alice and wondered if perhaps she was right about what she had said about futility when she was still had that dark cloud hanging over her. I would hate for the painful trial and error portion that characterized her long struggle toward the light to end up being in vain. I decided then and there, that no matter how far away they took me, I wouldn’t give up on her, even if I had to die trying to save her. She was too young to have her beautiful light extinguished.

But for now, all I could do was summon the courage to go on, to face the unknown that lie ahead, just as billions of frightened people across the globe were doing right now. The sun may have been rising, but it felt like a lasting darkness was descending. Just like Alice, humanity had a long and painful struggle ahead of them toward the light.