This is elseworld, p.3
This is Elseworld, page 3
“Young man, listen—”
“No! You listen. You’re useless. You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re just here to watch us die. You’re worthless. Get the fuck out of here and tell the hospital to send in someone who can actually do something. Maybe send in a real doctor instead of a male nurse.”
Asher wasn’t normally one to talk with his hands, but unconsciously his fists balled up and his arms moved with his lips as he spat out the words, venom exploding forth from behind clenched teeth.
The nurse took a few steps backward, almost doubling the distance between him and Asher. The coward probably would have went back even further if there were more space in the small room. Quentin tried to speak. No, he was speaking, but Asher just couldn’t hear him. Asher couldn’t hear much of anything outside of the thumping in his head.
Quentin backed into the wall like a cornered animal. He must have really thought Asher was going to attack him, but Asher wasn’t going to do any such thing. Asher wasn’t in any condition to hit anyone. Not while he was out of breath, his knees wobbly. Asher bent over and grabbed his stomach; if he’d had any food inside of him, it would have been on the floor.
“Are you okay, son? Try to breathe normally. You should sit down.”
Quentin left the room. When he came back a moment later, the nurse had brought in a small chair from the hallway for Asher to sit on. He tried to hand it over, but Asher waved him away, and Quentin set it down nearby.
Quentin Steen was an older man—in his mid-fifties, Asher guessed—and a bit plump, although not quite fat. Under normal circumstances, Asher would have said he had an immediately friendly face, which was a good trait for a man in his profession. He looked like a caring person, although whether that was true, Asher doubted.
“Painkillers and sedatives, is that the best you can do? That’s like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound,” Asher said. “This isn’t right. He shouldn’t be here. Why isn’t he staying in a hospital and getting more specialized attention? He doesn’t need a live-in nurse keeping him sedated until he dies—that’s just giving up.” As Asher pled his brother’s case, his anemic skin tightened against the contours of his face. His skin looked like bone painted white.
The poisoned blood boiled inside him as if a ray of sun had just leapt across his body, and for all Asher knew, it probably had. He was standing next to a window, blinds down but curtains so thin they were like bedsheets. “I’m not giving up. I won’t just let my brother die. You can’t expect me to sit back and let this happen.”
Quentin’s gentle face wore a pitiful expression. The nurse was noticeably startled—frightened, even. Asher knew he was being judged. Yet again, someone was looking at him and seeing something horrible. Something sinister. Modesty be damned. He refused to make any effort to shield his ghastly appearance from this scolding critique.
Quentin might have had a gentle face, but he was just another charlatan masquerading as a man of medicine. Real medical practitioners didn’t exist anymore. There was no one left but a bunch of quacks.
New diseases were discovered all the time, but no one had cured anything in what seemed like forever. Even vaccines were killing children in massive numbers, and the rumors were, the government did it on purpose to further thin the population. Asher had read about all this on the internet. The real internet, not the District’s government-run intranet that they controlled.
“You think I don’t know about all the dirty deeds you doctors perform for the government? All the people you kill on purpose?”
“I…I told you, I’m not, I’m not a doctor.”
“You work in a hospital. You’re a killer; all of you, you’re all killers.”
“Calm down, sir.” Quentin spoke in a timid voice so low Asher almost didn’t hear him. The nurse continued to keep his distance too, either afraid of Asher hitting him or just afraid of catching something.
Asher wasn’t contagious. His disease was genetic, and the nurse knew it, so the hack wasn’t just a disgrace to the medical profession, but also a coward.
“I’m only following your father’s wishes,” Quentin said. “There is nothing I can do except try to make your brother as comfortable as possible and limit his suffering.” He shrugged. “That is the nature of my job.”
“Then screw your job, it’s not one worth having if you’re that limited in what you can do. But I don’t believe you, I think you could do more if you wanted. Bend the rules if you have to. Take your clipboard and fill out whatever information you need to write to have my brother transported to a hospital.”
And you’ll do it immediately or I’ll drop you on your skull, rip off your legs, and beat you with them. That’s what I wanted to say. That’s what I was screaming inside of my head.
“I’m sorry.” Quentin shook his head. “There is nothing else I can do even if I wanted to. I am sincerely sorry.” He paused for a moment and waited for Asher’s reaction.
Asher hated what he was saying, but he didn’t see the point of arguing with him. Instead, he just stood there and stared. What was there to say? Asher didn’t need a medical degree, or the help of the internet, for that matter, to know Isaac needed to be in a hospital. His brother needed the best doctors in the district tending to his needs 24/7. Putting Isaac to sleep so he could live out his remaining days comatose was more for the benefit of everyone else. Isaac deserved better.
Is this going to be my fate as well? The hell with that—I’d rather die while fighting until my last breath, kicking and screaming the entire time. That’s better than going out quietly at the hands of a male nurse with an ugly sweater vest and a fake smile, acting as death’s emissary.
“I will personally do everything I can for your brother, but a hospital stay is out of the question. It goes against your father’s wishes.” Quentin paused again and didn’t say anything for a while.
Asher could see the motors running in his stupid head as the nurse calculated his next statement.
“You should be having this conversation with your father, not me. Just wait here. I’ll bring him in so you two can discuss this.” The nurse turned to leave the room.
Acting purely on instinct, Asher reached out and grabbed Quentin’s wrist. It wasn’t planned. Asher wasn’t an intimidating man by any stretch of the imagination. He was nothing but skin and bones, literally no muscles whatsoever, yet Quentin visibly trembled at his touch.
The nurse looked at Asher like he was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen. He probably thought Asher and his brother were lepers who would be better off dead.
Would this so-called caregiver allow any of his regular patients to await their deaths in a filthy bed while their fanatical fathers refused all methods of serious treatment?
Of course he wouldn’t!
It was only my brother and I being treated like this.
Asher wasn’t normally a hostile person, but if this sorry excuse for a man wanted to treat him like a grotesque freak, why not play the part if it got him what he wanted in the end? If a monster was what he thought Asher was, then a monster was what Asher was going to give him.
Chapter four
Monster
Asher
“You will take my brother to a hospital. This isn’t a request. It’s an order. You will give him all the care he needs. If he dies…” Asher paused. His voice choked up, which he hoped Quentin hadn’t noticed. He stalled for a second while he regained his composure. The skin on his forehead tightened even more as he squinted. Playing into it, he crinkled his nose like he had just smelled something bad. Finally, Asher moved ever so slowly closer to Quentin, still holding the older, much larger man by the wrist.
Their faces were mere inches away from each other. “If my brother dies, it won’t be until after you have exhausted every option imaginable. But he won’t die—not on your watch, right, Mr. Steen? You’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. I know you will.”
Asher spoke his words through a clenched jaw. He didn’t quite have the rasp down, but he thought he did a good job of imitating the mannerisms of tough guys from some of the movies he and his brother used to watch. Asher’s favorite was one about a retired outlaw in the Old West, a killer who took on one more job after he had turned to farming. Isaac wasn’t as fond of that one. He liked some of the earlier movies by the same actor. But it was that rasp, that ever-present tough guy scowl, that Asher was attempting to imitate.
But Asher was wrong. He didn’t do a convincing job at all. Quentin pulled his wrist free with twice the strength Asher used to grab him. The force jerked Asher across the room, and he tripped on the chair Quentin had placed, landing on the floor awkwardly. He tried to immediately pop back up, but his knees buckled. He grabbed his leg and cried out in pain as he fell to the floor.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do that. I’m so sorry.” The middle-aged caregiver bent over to help Asher to his feet.
“Get away from me. Don’t touch me,” Asher hissed. He shoved Quentin’s hand away.
“At least let me check to see if you’re hurt. Are you able to put any weight on your leg at all?”
“Are you deaf? I said get away from me.” Asher gave the man a look of pure hatred. “I’m fine. Go away. I want to be alone.”
“Okay, okay,” Quentin said as he backed away. “I’m leaving, for now. But I’ll be back up later to check on your brother again.”
Halfway out the room, Quentin seemed to waver. The nurse sighed and turned back around. “Look, I know you’re incredibly angry and upset, and I understand why, but believe me when I tell you I have done everything I can. I wish I could do more. I really do. It’s not fair. It never is.”
There was pity all over Quentin’s face. Asher hated that look.
“I'd advise you to speak with your father. Ultimately, he’s the one making the decisions here, not me.” With that, he left the room. Asher didn't see Quentin leave since he had already turned away, but he heard him. He listened as Quentin marched across the hall, his shoes making galloping sounds on the hardwood floor as the plump nurse quickly sped off.
Asher had seen enough. Free room and board and a fat paycheck to keep his brother doped up until he died quietly in his sleep. Quentin Steen wasn’t a caregiver, he was the grim reaper in disguise. Asher couldn’t bring himself to hate Quentin though. The man was just a minion. His father was the real villain. The disease Asher and his brother suffered from was extremely rare. And even if both parents carried the faulty gene, there was still only a small chance the child would be born with the disorder.
There were articles on the internet which stated that something like one in a million newborns were diagnosed with hemorrhagic dysplasia syndrome. Asher never saw anything about his condition on the news, which wasn’t surprising. Fortunately, relevant information was readily available in the cloud if one knew what to look for.
Lightnet served as the default version of the internet accessible to all individuals in the District. Functioning as a sophisticated web portal, it was designed to simulate the internet experience, offering access solely to a curated selection of websites. Consequently, Lightnet was subjected to rigorous censorship and constant monitoring to ensure compliance with District regulations.
While the District's intranet held limited value, the actual internet persisted for those who could navigate past the firewalls. Specialized software enabled users to tunnel through the cloud, effectively bypassing the District's intranet and granting access to the darkcloud. The darkcloud served as the only means to utilize the internet without requiring a digital fingerprint, offering a degree of anonymity. However, this meant users had to remember their usernames and passwords to log onto websites, but that was a reasonable price to pay for anonymity.
It was during his searching the darkcloud where Asher discovered almost half of the children born with his illness died as infants, and even more were aborted as soon as the fetus was revealed to carry the mutation. The knowledge he gleaned from the cloud surpassed anything he had ever been informed about by his own doctors.
His extensive research led him to a plethora of experimental treatments and groundbreaking medical theories associated with HDS. Notably, he uncovered that scientists in District 5 had made significant strides towards discovering a viable treatment for the condition. Stem cell therapy had proven useful against various genetic disorders, which potentially included his own. It was a long shot, but it was worth exploring.
Unfortunately, though not entirely unexpected, Asher’s parents ignored his opinion on the matter. At first, his mom had seemed receptive, but later she changed her mind, or had it changed for her. His father never wanted to talk about it with him at all. He thought Asher spent too much time on the internet and instead should focus more on reading the Bible, which his father always referred to as the Good Book. Asher didn’t know what was so good about it.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a conversation with his father that didn’t involve the words God, hope, or the dreaded faith-bomb. Sometimes it was like those three words were the alphabet for his father’s entire vocabulary.
Asher didn’t believe in God, not really…not anymore. He always hoped for the best, but he only had faith in himself and what he could do. How could he possibly have faith in others when he had been let down so many times?
On the move again, limping even worse than before, Asher was barely at the stairwell when he heard the chatter of his father and several others. From the sound of things, they appeared deep in conversation. He couldn’t tell if Quentin was among those speaking.
Like the rest of the house, the stone staircase was built with old architecture in mind. The house had a majestic, almost regal aura about it. It was a beautiful home, one of the finest in the area, or so Asher often heard. It wasn’t too outlandish—there was never anything overly fancy about a preacher’s home—but it was a sight to behold, nonetheless.
The house resided within a gated community, one of many in the Northeast section of District 2. In the Northeast there were no dilapidated houses or monotonous rowhomes like in the District’s other boroughs, but even among the chosen elites, this house was special. It was, in every practical sense, a mansion disguised to look humble.
The house stood in the center of the gated community. It was all white, with a fancy wraparound porch. They even had a small garden with colorful flowers, bushes, and green plants that bore fruit. It was a false garden, of course, with synthetic plants that looked like the real thing. All completely inedible, but beautiful, nonetheless.
Asher’s father would pretend these aesthetic elements were his wife’s contributions to the home, but Asher could see through his pretenses and knew his father was just as vain as anyone else. Perhaps even more so.
He had to take some time to readjust to the greater illumination as he walked downstairs. The first floor was always brighter than the upper floors, at least on the west end where Asher and his brother had their bedrooms. All the curtains were open downstairs, allowing the sun’s energy to enter at will.
Asher’s skin stung with an uncomfortable prickling that went from his head all the way down to his toes. It wasn’t just his skin that hurt. Something was pounding against his forehead from the inside like a squad of basketball players lobbing layups against a backboard. As his headache increased, so did the urge to go back upstairs and hide under a blanket, but he didn’t—he couldn’t—and most of all, he wouldn’t.
He was on a mission. He watched disinterestedly as his father lectured his associates. Steven Kaine rarely took part in actual conversations. Instead of talking, he gave speeches; during these lectures, everyone listened. They didn’t have any other choice. Asher’s father possessed a thunderous voice that demanded immediate attention.
The nurse wasn’t anywhere in the room. He must have taken a quick exit as Asher knew he would. Asher imagined Quentin barricading himself in the guest room, leaning the sofa and bed against the door so that none of the freaks in the house could get to him.
Perhaps Quentin viewed Asher’s father as something of a freak as well. Asher sure did. His father was physically impressive. Steven Kaine towered at six feet seven inches tall, fully sculpted, with massive shirt-splitting biceps and an enormous neck and shoulders. He was forty-seven years old, yet still oozed masculinity. A colossal figure, both in speech as well as stature.
Asher stood by silently as his father mesmerized his guests with his living room sermon. Biblical propaganda and social hypocrisy were the order of the day this evening. Nothing Asher hadn’t heard from him a million times before, either in church or at home.
But Asher had to admit that even during his most intense moments of psychobabble, he could still understand why so many people followed his father. Steven Kaine had that sort of presence. His father’s guests included a petite woman who appeared to be in an enchanted daze, two elderly women, and a pair of middle-aged men who nodded their heads feverishly to show agreement with everything the preacher said.
Asher recognized the faces of all of them: the petite woman was some kind of journalist, and the others were high-ranking District council members, not that it mattered any. They were still the typical mindless sheep who bought into Steven Kaine’s bullshit. All of them were smartly dressed, as he’d often heard it put, though Asher never saw anything smart about wearing an inverted noose around your neck and calling it fashion.
They pretended to not notice Asher was there. It was almost as if he were invisible. He could probably crawl across the ceiling and hang from the chandelier, and they still wouldn’t dare look his way. They did this out of respect for his father. He was a stain on Steven Kaine’s otherwise flawless image, and his father would be deeply offended if they acknowledged one of his few failures.
These people didn’t obey the preacher out of fear. That might have been part of it, but it wasn’t all. It wasn’t a relationship of convenience or anything else that would indicate less than savory intentions; they legitimately adored Steven Kaine. He had them completely and totally under his spell. They fawned over him and ate up every word out of his ignorant mouth, willing participants in a collective delusion, hoping for a starring role but seemingly content with a mere cameo.
