Creed slept for eight
weeks straight after giving himself the injection, the toll on his body from
the vaccine brutal. He was lethargic,
often times unresponsive, and his body’s inability to keep a consistent temperature
was disheartening to both Brynn and Dallin.
“Dallin,”
Brynn said, walking into the bedroom where Creed was sleeping.
Dallin,
sitting in a chair next to Creed’s bed, looked up. He nodded at Brynn before
refocusing on Creed. He stood and leaned over Creed, slowly, methodically
touching Creed’s face and neck to check his external temperature. Dallin took
Creed’s pulse and logged the reading on a notepad dedicated to Creed’s vital
statistics. “He seems to be stabilizing a bit.”
Brynn
sat down on the bed next to the one occupied by Creed and sighed, “It’s been a
long road.”
“It
has, but I assure you, it will be worth it,” Dallin offered in a calm, almost
eerie tone. Dallin cleared his throat, the noise prompting Brynn to look at
him. Her head started to spin as she and Dallin shared an intense stare. As if
she had been drinking, Brynn was consumed with dizziness. Panic encased her and
her face showed her displeasure.
“Stop
it!” she snapped, her hands covering her eyes, but her cries went unheard. Her
mind took her out of the bedroom and to place she had never been before. She
felt as if she was moving toward a bright light. Brynn tried to divert her
thoughts, but her efforts were futile. Her mind was out of her control.
It
was as if she was watching a motion picture of herself, but slower, quieter,
and less colorful than real life. Brynn looked at her feet as she walked
through granules of moist, blonde sand. Her white sundress gently swayed with
the breeze, and the smell of saltwater engulfed her. She could feel herself
sigh. Ocean waves crashed against the beach next to her and Brynn shivered from
a cool breeze coming off the water.
Someone
called her name and she turned around. Creed, dressed in a white shirt and tan
rolled up slacks, slowly approached her and embraced her. She could smell him
and hear him profess his love for her. He walked with her to the large white
gazebo placed randomly amongst a horizon of sand. Standing inside the gazebo
was a faceless man dressed in a white suit and holding a white book. Brynn
could feel herself turn to Creed and smile. In slow motion, he said, “I do,”
before Brynn’s mind violently snapped back to the present. She took many deep
breaths before slowly opening her eyes.
“You
controlled my mind. It was like I was having an out of body experience,” she
said as she glared at Dallin, not knowing if she had enjoyed the hallucinative
experience or not.
“My
trait—it’s different now. I can control how you feel, what you see in your
mind. I can control what endorphins I put out and what endorphins you put out.
I can alleviate physical pain. … That’s the best thing I can do. I can only
imagine what Creed is going to be able to do,” Dallin whispered as he stood and
walked to the door. Just before he passed through the doorway, he said, “I can
kiss Aspen, Brynn. I can kiss her without knocking her out or making her high.
I can hold her while she sleeps. It’s worth it. It will be worth it for you and
Creed, too. … I promise.”
