Short of Breath

The hard, thick rain hits him full in the face, seeping deep into his open wound.  Blood flows freely onto the mud and grime below.  His hands still cling to the grid of steel fencing, though ten thousand volts are surging through his body.  He tries to scream, but his jaw will not move, and his tongue flails numbly against the inside of his cheek.  The muscles in his legs seize and spasm until they finally give way under his own convulsing weight.

His hands do not let go until the flesh is charred and dead.  He finds himself sinking deep into an indistinct sludge.  Gallons of brown and gray liquid enter his gasping, heaving throat.  When his lungs can fill no further, he passes out.

Stanley Malthus awakes with a strange, ungainly instrument in his mouth.  Metal legs dig into his face all around, terminating in a tall cylindrical capsule extending from what feels like the back of his larynx.  His hands, for he finds that sensation has returned to them, move immediately to his forehead.  The bloody, gaping hole is replaced by something cold and sticky. 

And then he sees his hands.  Their surface is pure white and translucent, and inside lurks a moving, snake-like network of veins.  They swim as if in a sea of some invisible liquid, moving in and out of his visible hand.

Almost instantly, his body begins to heave, cough, and wheeze, and the mass of machinery extending from his lips emits an earsplitting groan.  He tries to cry out, but the shrill howl comes again with each attempted motion.

And then he sees a face before him.

“Hello Stanley Malthus.  It’s going to be all right now.  We’ve found you.  You are not going to die.”

Stanley finds his muscles instantly relax.  The kind, concerned wrinkles of that face put him at ease, somehow.  And the deep, abiding voice; it carries him away into a sea of emptiness.

“That’s it.  Go to sleep, Stanley Malthus.  Go to sleep.  When you wake up again, you’ll still be alive.  I promise you, Stanley.  I promise.”

Soothed and assured, Stanley groans out a few ecstatic syllables, his throat now free of any odd intrusion.

“I will still be alive.”

The wrinkled mouth speaks.

“That’s right Stanley.  Look forward to it.”

Stanley releases a euphoric hum from deep inside his body.

“I look forward to it.”

The wrinkled mouth moves again.

“Good, Stanley.  Everything is good.”

Stanley’s eyes grow wide, and tears of joy spill out onto his temples.

“Because… because I will live.”

The wrinkled voice appears no more, and all around him fades to empty black.

Stanley Malthus died of electrocution on January 8th, 2011.

Test C-1 is designated as a failure.