Flash Fiction Friday - Prometheus

Death comes for us all...or does it?

Really unhappy with this one, but the rules are the rules. It goes out as is…

Something burned in his veins, like hot lava pumping through his body. He sat up quickly, shielding his eyes from the bright fluorescent lights overhead. Once he adjusted to the glare, he pulled his hand away, noticing a rolled-up piece of paper sticking out of his balled fist.

Unrolling the paper, he frowned as he read the scribbled message. “You did well.” Sitting above the message was an embossed red cross bearing what looked to be a company name. “What the fuck is Prometheus Industries?” he mumbled to himself, surprised at how raspy his voice sounded.

He surveyed his surroundings, try to remember how he had landed in this spartan place that was little more than a plain white room. Besides the cot he lay on, the only other items in the space were a sink with a mirror above it, and a toilet. No windows and no other decorations. It felt like a prison cell, albeit a spotlessly clean one, the scent of bleach and something else not quite recognizable hanging in the air.

Opposite the bed was a plain white door, a keypad sitting to one side. He rose, stumbling as a wave of lightheadedness washed over him. He closed his eyes to fight off the feeling of vertigo, breathing slowly to help regain his equilibrium. When he opened his eyes, all was right with the world again, but he still couldn’t remember what this world was or why he was in it.

Padding barefoot across the concrete floor, he tried the handle, and finding it locked, started poking at the keypad to no avail.

“STEP AWAY FROM THE DOOR!!” a voice boomed, seemingly from inside the room. He stumbled backward, falling back onto the bed and bumping his head on the metal rail supporting the cot. Hissing in pain, he rubbed the back of his shaven head, his fingers alighting on a bandage on the nape of his neck.

“STAND AT ATTENTION.” That voice again.

He looked around the room, searching for a source of the sound but finding nothing.

“STAND AT ATTENTION. FINAL WARNING.”

He stood, just as the door swung open and a man in a lab coat stepped inside, an armed guard by his side. ‘“How do you feel?” the doctor asked, a smile on his face.

“I’m not sure.”

“Understandable. What is your name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Good.”

“How can that be good?” Panic began to flutter in his chest, making him feel frantic.

The doctor smiled again. “Wiping the memory is stage one of the proceedings, and I must tell you that it claimed all of our previous specimens. You did well and passed with flying colors.”

“Who am I?” he asked, voice cracking.

“You were an alcoholic, a drug user, and a homeless waste of space blighting our streets with your filth. All of that and nothing.” The doctor’s face flushed red. “But now, oh, my boy, now you are the future.”

“I don’t…”

“When we found you, lying in a puddle of your own excretions, you were close to dead. All manner of diseases ravaged your body, but this,” the doctor removed a syringe with a glowing silver liquid contained within from his lab coat. “This changed all that, and now you grow stronger.”

He stared at the syringe, the needle impossibly long. “What are you going to do with that?”

“I am going to give you another dose, and if this one works as well as the first, I will have achieved my goal.”

“What goal?”

“Eternal life in a single shot.”

“I’m going to live forever?”

The doctor threw his head back and laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. My friend here will put a bullet through your head, and then I will sell my creation to anyone willing to part with a fortune in return for a life free from death and pain.” The doctor squirted a drop of the silver fluid onto his tongue and stepped forward. “Now, let’s remove that bandage and begin, shall we?”