The Cure

The intensity was killing me.
I woke to a thundering headache.
My silent screams found no sympathy.
I peeled my face from the sunken pillow soiled with saliva and droplets of blood from my tongue.
I was alive.

As I stretched out my limbs to awaken each muscle in my crumpled body, a strong smell hit my nose.
Paris, 2022.
A loud and flamboyant Gaultier scent.

After I reminded myself how my body functioned, I stood up.
Still wonky, and along with the flowery, fruity nose-fuck of that damn scent, there was a bitterness in the air.
Bitter irony. Red blood cells with a dash of white and thick, unyielding plasma.

My feet stumped and almost buckled when I stumbled through to the bathroom.
A bottle of green liquid stared me down in the sanitised white ensuite.
It called to me. Like a lover might call when it wants a taste, a tangle, a time spent well in your arms and twisted around your body.

The neck fit my hand like a weapon, and as I swallowed the last of the toxin, my heartbeat hitched as I became fully awake.
The cracked mirror refused to offer guidance or solace. Blood, red and a little white, traced along the imperfections.

Bad dream?
Nightmare?
Clichés. All clichés.
This was existence.

As elevated as it was downtrodden. I cracked my fists. As each knuckle and joint shifted and rubbed raw against the others, my primal roar was felt. Unheard.
Life felt borrowed. Carbon copied.
Crude, deformed. Recognised as existence through persistence. Death refused.

The malicious presence, as the green toxin coated my stomach, stronger than the acid. I felt whole and a hole.
Where had the sanity... humanity drained?
Clichéd clenched at my throat.
Fuck.

The toxin started to wear off quickly.
My body needed more.
Propped up by the tiled walls, I dragged my unwilling body—muscular but ineffective—through to the kitchen.

From the window flashed a gunfight. A fire dance at twilight. An unopened bottle felt at home and offered a surge of normality momentarily as I sunk the sap-like serum.

As I kicked the door to the night air open, bullets ripped through the air as smoke, death, and lead filled my lungs.
My head spun round to meet a direct hit to my skull.
My body twisted as I felt the punch connect but lose its impact.

I retaliated, gripping one masked figure by the collar and yanking it toward my razor-sharp knee.
A familiar crunch was felt. Unheard.
They came in waves—dozens, human-shaped but twisted in their movements, masks glinting in the firelight.
Each one fell to the force I carried, unable to withstand it. Inevitability.

Radio bled through the chaos: “Enemy sighted. Green Plague identified. Target locked.”
In vanity, they came.
In tragedy, they’d leave.
Footnotes. Tombstones.
Remnants of the final stand.

Plague? No.
I am the cure.
Unheard. Felt.

Sharp metal twisted into me unexpectedly.
My spine recoiled. But my venom coated the protrusion, and I grappled it, ripping it from my back. Blood glided through the air and hit the nearest wretched fools who dared to stand against me.
Silent screams and molten masked faces took to their knees, doubled over, granted a less than merciful end.
Soon the vicinity was motionless. The contorted and degraded remains of the neutralisation force had been bested.

Serenity restored.
I walked back in and sat in the kitchen. The reek of the vanquished—lead and bitter irony—filled the room. It was sanitised in green and white, offsetting the misery beyond the threshold, almost like dark satire.
A tankard of blue toxin awaited me, and the kiss from a demon in red, with lips as soft as peach and serpentine teeth that arched a smile.

"Are we free?"
Her silky question echoed through my mind as she pressed her delightful and dangerous claws into my temples. I knew she longed for it. We both did.
"The world is ours," was my response as we embraced.

Our breaths mingled, saliva brushed, her body settling against mine. Lust, satisfaction, and victory punctuated our tryst. Nothing else mattered.