The Beginning
- S.S. Fitzgerald
- 10 hours ago
- 6 min read
The hospital had been quiet; it was a slow night. The type of slow night no one mentioned, to avoid jinxing it for themselves. Especially with the recent spike in motorbike accidents.
Ming was rested, and his mind wandered. He couldn’t understand why his assignment to the area was high priority to the government. He knew better than to ask, as opportunities for party advancements were few and far between. Just as Ming was settling into his personal comfort at his desk, he received his call.
An emergency arose in the little village Shigou, in the mountain pass nearby. He was to investigate any potentially new illnesses, the village, and reported unusual behaviors over recent weeks. Now, however, Ming would get to see a little bit of why he was assigned to Baoji.
The trip to the village took several hours. Getting out of the city had really been the worst part for his drive. Traffic always bogged down with all the construction. During the ride, Ming got to consider what he was doing. It was an exciting assignment. He knew experts from various fields had been pulled to partake in the clandestine operation. He was occasionally sent redacted reports for his assessment. The reports were so heavily redacted though, he really provided no input to the majority of them. It seemed they were seeking some sort of new space program, but then sometimes it seemed they were investigating a new energy source. The guesswork was half the fun, so even if his day-to-day work was still being a clinician, it was exciting.
The small collection of hilltop homes he’d been finally brought to had exasperated his driver. The roads up the hills and into the mountain pass had been tedious. Ming felt a twinge of annoyance as well. Having called him out under the guise of the operation, it had better be serious.
The faces of the villagers that greeted him knotted his bowels. Worry was etched into the faces deeper than the wettest deltas.
There were three of them, all lashed to cots. One was barely conscious. Villagers had put these people in a hall to act as their infirmary until a professional could arrive. The floor was bare cement, and the walls were staggered brick. Inside was damp, and a chill shivered even Ming’s skin.
No surprise they’re all sick, Ming thought. A stench assaulted Ming. These sick people were wallowing in their own filth.
Ming was about to ask who was caring for the sick, but upon turning back, he realized that door had been made to lock only from the outside. The villagers who had gathered, he realized, were not carved in worry, but terror. They cringed at the sight of their compatriots lashed to cots. They kept their distance, not even poking their heads into the claustrophobic room. Many prayed.
Savages, Ming thought. On the verge of being the number one world power, and people like this hold us all back.
Ming kneeled down to examine the first patient. A young man, perhaps only a few years his junior. He was running a high fever, forty degrees centigrade. The man’s eyes were wild, searching back and forth in the dim room.
“Can you speak?” Ming asked him. The man locked eyes onto him but did not speak. He shook—not with a shiver, but what Ming read as anger.
Ming was about to check the other conscious patient and saw the man straining at his neck. He was growling, but someone had shoved material into his mouth and a rope was tied to keep it in place.
“What is the meaning of this?” Ming bolted up, glaring back at the villagers.
At first, no one dared to answer.
Finally, an older man approached.
“They had fought off the sickly wild men.”
“What men?”
The old man ruffled his nose. “The wild men the authorities refuse to pursue,” he said so matter-of-factly. “When the lights started to appear in the high mountains, they started to come. The authorities laughed at us. When more of us went missing, the authorities claimed they searched, but no one was found. We sent our own out to confront them, and now they are wild too,” the old man finished, pointing to the three bound patients.
Ming shook his head. I have no time for superstitious beliefs.
Ming went to the savage man straining on his cot like a rabid animal, yearning to attack him. The bonds were cutting through the skin on his wrists and ankles from his struggles against his bonds. Blood was soaking the cot and his ragged clothes alike.
Ming donned his mask and gloves.
There was a collective gasp from behind him as he touched the sick man. He was warm. Using a touch thermometer, he too was running a fever of forty degrees centigrade. Checking his pulse, the man was at an average of 120 beats per minute.
The man’s eyes were wild and wide, sunken back far into their sockets, and locked on Ming. Like a stalking tiger.
Ming began to take a blood sample. Blood came trickling in, oddly thick.
The man strained, and an audible pop shook the air. The man had pulled his arm out of socket trying to escape. Gaining extra space, he thrashed about.
Ming recoiled. Fear finally settled in him.
The man wiggled like a trapped animal. He began to twist towards Ming.
Then a second snarl, louder, barked from behind him.
Ming spun, nearly jumping out of his skin. The first man had turned just as wild and savage.
Ming ran from the building, villagers shut and locked the door behind him.
The villagers gathered around Ming as the last of the color drained from his face.
“I need to know, what truly caused this?” Ming demanded, hoping his demand would bring about a more realistic answer.
“The lights, as far as we know,” the old man answered again.
“What lights? Speak plainly!”
The old man adjusted himself, seemingly used to being under pressure. “Weeks ago, we started to see lights, orbs, floating in the air. They would fly between the trees and were impossible to pursue. It was then that we began to find new fauna on the hillsides—those, the authorities were very interested in. They cultivated all that could be found. Our people went missing. We’d hear the hooting and the howls. They attacked us if we went too high up. Those three wanted to stop the attacks. Take on the wolves. They came back sick.”
Ming hadn’t given the story any credit until he heard of the fauna. He knew something about collections in the area. He suspected it may be part of the operation, but different teams were so segregated from one another; it was only speculation.
Ming excused himself to call his superiors.
Their immediate response confirmed that whatever was happening must, in fact, be tied to the secretive operation. Because it was not even an hour before military helicopters stormed the village.
Ming was flown out immediately. He was assigned to write a full report on everything that had happened. Ming did. He was then interviewed by several men in plain clothes. He lost count of the number of times he retold the same story. It was not lost on him who the plain-clothes men were. Secret Police aren’t secret when you see them every day.
Ming had thought the Secret Police would be most interested in the crazed men, the odd disease, but they drilled him about the lights. He explained over and over again that what he knew of the lights was only what the old man had said. Yet those lights were the focus of their questions.
Ming was left with more questions than answers from it all.
He was tasked back to the hospital, and his normal duties were resumed. It had gone without saying that as it was a part of his broader assignment, he was not about to speak about the incident at Shigou.
Because of this, it came as no shock to Ming personally, when rumors began to spread across Baoji that the village had been forcibly relocated and burned to the ground by the People’s Liberation Army.
It was, at this time, that he received his first request for a report. He was tasked with writing the viability of the unidentified contagion of “patient zero.” There was no doubt what they were asking of Ming, but he stared at his screen, unsure what to say that would be of value.
Oddly, being further invested in the operation brought no excitement.
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