VIRGINIA WOKE to the frightening realization that she was not in her own bed. She opened her eyes and the room slowly came into focus. She was in the hospital. There was an intravenous needle in her arm, and fluids dripped from a bag hanging over her head. She lay in a tiny isolation room with layers of clear, split plastic walls between her and the locked door. A camera watched her.
She tried to sit up, but every muscle in her body burned and ached. She looked into the camera. "Hello! Somebody?"
She tried to think back to her last memory. Her head throbbed and her thoughts were fuzzy, but she was able to recall being in the bathroom. She had gotten sick. A black sheet had enveloped her, smothering out her thoughts, when she had tried to stand up from the toilet.
How long had she been unconscious?
She began to panic. She pulled the needle from her arm and forced her legs over the side of the bed. Ignoring the burning and weakness in her muscles, she willed herself to sit up. She slowly got to her shaky feet, fatigue tearing through her body as she struggled to hold her weight. A medical associate and his manager, both clad in biological protection suits, burst into the room.
"Calm down, Ma'am!" the manager said.
"Where am I?"
"Medical-Corp, District Hospital," the manager said. "Don't worry. You're going to be okay."
The men helped her back into the bed, and the associate recovered the intravenous needle hanging off the side. A small pool of saline collected on the linoleum, but both doctors ignored it. They seemed far too concerned with making sure Virginia stayed in bed and had the needle back in her arm.
"How long was I out?" she asked.
"A little over twelve hours," the associate said.
"Where's my family?"
"We'll need to keep you in isolation for a few days," the manager answered. "Whatever virus is going around, it's a nasty one, and we need to contain it."
"Can I get you some reading materials?" the associate asked. "Something to help pass the time?"
The room suddenly seemed even smaller. Virginia felt her body trickle with more sweat, the cold chills threatening to return. "There isn't any way I can just go home?"
The two men exchanged glances, and then the manager replied, "You'll only be here for a few days at the most, I'm sure. There's really nothing I can do about it. I'll voice your concerns to my manager, though, if you want me to."
"Don't bother," Virginia grumbled, knowing the system all too well.
"Here." The manager emptied a syringe that seemed to have come from nowhere into Virginia's arm. "A little something for the pain."
"But I don't want—" Everything became a blur, and suddenly Virginia didn't care that she was being held against her will under monitored confinement. She didn't care that most people who stayed in these small rooms only left after a date with the euthanasia machine. She didn't even care that the rest of her family could easily end up sharing her uncertain fate. Nothing mattered now but the numbing bliss that pulsed through her veins.
She didn't see the medical associate and manager leave the room. She was too busy watching little imaginary bugs scurrying across the ceiling. There were colors, too, yellows and violets moving in odd shapes and patterns, as if she were gazing through a kaleidoscope. The pain throughout her body vanished, and Virginia decided that the manager who injected it wasn't quite as terrible as she had first assessed.
She closed her eyes and watched the drug induced show, content enough for the time being. Everything slowly became dull, fading to black, and she lay in a mindless fog for longer than she could measure. Her mind took her to a field of wild poppies. The air was fragrant instead of wet and grey, and there wasn't a building or shuttle track in sight. Virginia smiled. There were no more walls. They had dissolved with her headache. There was no more hospital. There was just her and an endless field.
To her surprise, one of the poppies in front of her turned to the poppy beside it. "She'll be out for at least another hour," it began, speaking in the medical associate's voice.
"Go ahead and bring in the students," another poppy said in the manager's commanding voice.
All of the poppies surrounding Virginia turned to face her.
Virginia could hear the clicking of shoes on a hard floor, but the only movement she saw was the field of poppies rippling with the breeze.
"This patient has been kept in a sedated state for three days, and this morning she was listed non-contagious," the manager poppy said. "We've taken DNA samples, however, and unfortunately hers has turned out the same as all of the rest."
All of the poppies stared in on her as a bright light came from nowhere and shone straight into her face. She tried to turn away, her eyes watering from the light, and suddenly she realized that she was in the hospital room, surrounded by people in white coats and facemasks, with a pocket light shining directly into one of her eyes.
Virginia sat up with a gasp, and the group around her took a collective step back. Her gaze quickly shot over to those of the manager, and then she looked at the rest of the men pleadingly. "Please don't let him sedate me again! I want to know what's going on!"
"Calm down, Ma'am."
"I want to see my husband!"
"Let's worry about one thing at a time," the manager said.
"I know my rights! You said yourself I'm not contagious. I want my discharge papers now!" Virginia yelled.
"Your rights have changed," the manager said, letting the rest of the group know exactly where she now stood.
Virginia tried to get out of the bed. The manager gave a few of the others a subtle nod, and they swarmed in on her and pinned her down. The manager injected another potent sedative into her thigh, and she went limp almost immediately.
The medical manager turned to his senior associate. "Call Corporate and see if they've decided whether or not to declare the group dead."
The associate nodded then quickly left the room with meaning and importance to his gait.
Virginia could hear what the manager said, but she could barely keep from drooling on herself, let alone flee for her life. She stared up at the bugs and moving colors once more, praying that she might wake up to live another day, if just long enough to know what exactly she would be dying over.