43
While I open the box, at the exact same time, I can see the other side too. The cameras: security, agents…all of them. And one more: I see Dr. Lambrechts.
There are bodies on every floor, thirty victims at least, plus the injured. The space is taken by the yelling of the young doctor who doesn’t want to be taken away from the body of his girlfriend. A scene so sad even the cold agents grimace. Although, given the circumstances, it could have been worse. The hospital was taken by terrorists after all. Bio-Cyber terrorists, General Crane calls them. Not the last ones, he says with a sigh.
Men in black outfits line up, kneel with their fingers crossed behind their heads. Nurses and doctors brush the back of their skulls, disoriented and startled as if they have just been awoken from the scariest dream. Why did you have to do that, Simon? I think. The place has been scanned for hidden weapons, bombs. It’s all clear. In the theater, two casualties. A Chinese girl and a young scientist with dirty blonde hair. General Crane lays his hand on the old scientist’s shoulder. “Take your time, Lambrechts.”
A cry explodes through his nose and lips. Like a mouth sneeze. He covers them. Another burst comes. He holds it again. Until he can’t anymore, and the sobs come afloat. “I’m so sorry!” In a mumbling prayer, he begs for forgiveness. “It’s my fault,” he cries to the God he tried to match. I hear his thoughts, and they carry the melancholy of the entire world. My tower…of ego and ambition. The devil, he says to himself, I am the devil. “These deaths are on me.”
“Especially hers,” he thinks, now looking at my old body.
A shattered wail rattles him out of his prayer. A young doctor tries to break from the paramedics and reach the dead girl’s body. Lambrechts feels sick. “Claudia! Claudia! No!” implores the doctor. “My sin,” Dr. Lambrechts says to himself. Each time Jason shouts her name, the scientist’s spirit dies a bit more. His body bends further in. Then guilt explodes through the mouth. Brown, green, in chunks that he wished carried his heart too. But nothing on the floor beats. The Lord wouldn’t be so merciful.