I haven’t been down in the tunnels since the guard first escaped and kidnapped Willow. We’d come so close to losing her I’d vowed to never go down there again. The tunnels are dark and dank. A cold chill seeps through and coats my skin, despite my zu-gear. Every time we turn around a corner, I expect to come face-to-face with another one of those monsters.
Julie holds her zonnoblaster up in front of her like she’s a pro, efficiently scanning each tunnel with the flashlight we affixed to the top before signaling me to go forward. It’s like she has no fear.
“So, what’s your story?” she asks when we’ve cleared the last of the shorter tunnels and reach the long one that will bring us to the outdoor access.
I shrug. “No story, really. Same as everyone else, I guess.”
“C’mon. We may be eaten alive by alien monsters. The least you could do is give me the juice. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” She sends me a teasing look behind her mask.
I’ve never told anyone about the circumstances behind my sentencing to Exilium, never dared. I didn’t want them to think any less of me. We all had reasons for being sent to the prison and not all of them were good ones. Most of the women couldn’t help their circumstances, but I could. Maybe I’m a monster, too.
“Well, you know I was a nurse on Earth II?” I say as more of a question. At her nod, I continue. “I worked on the terminal illness ward. The place where they send everyone who isn’t important enough or wealthy enough to afford a cure for their illnesses.”
“I’ve heard of those,” Julie says. She’s not teasing anymore. Her voice is somber over the communicator in my ear.
“It’s part of why I volunteered to work with the infected here. It’s all I’ve been doing since I could work. No one else wanted the job and my parents needed the money.”
We pause at a sound coming from the shadows at the end of the tunnel. A moment stretches into eternity and when the only sound I hear is the heartbeat in my ears, Julie signals me forward.
“Anyway, I helped the doctors care for the patients. We didn’t have degrees or any other training than what we learned on the go—the hospital administration didn’t care about the patients in the terminal ward. They were dying anyway, so why waste the good nurses on them?”
“Assholes,” Julie mutters.
“I agree. These people were suffering. They were never given the proper care or even a basic level of pain management. Working there was some of the darkest days of my life. People young and old, men and women. They’d beg me to end their pain.” My voice falters and I swallow hard to regain control. “You see, the hospital received a grant from the government for the people on the terminal ward to help pay for their care. Except the money didn’t ever go to the patients.”
“Naturally,” Julie growls.
It’s an unfortunate truth that the wealthy are the only people who matter on Earth II, those who can afford to pay exorbitant prices for health care, amenities, and education. Everyone else merely serves to support their wealthy counterparts’ lifestyle. We’re a means to an end.
“So I would take care of these people who led the worst kind of existence. Eventually, my parents were killed, and I had nothing left to live for. I felt like the patients I was looking after…like I was on the long, slow march to death. But it was the children who had it worst of all. I couldn’t take watching them suffer.
“One day, I snuck to the pharmacy where they kept the narcotics. I managed to steal enough for every patient in the terminal ward.” My voice drones on, robotic. I tell the story as though I’m viewing it from someone else’s point of view. “I gave them all a fatal dose. There were about twenty patients total. I sat with them until they quickly died. Then, I turned myself in.”
Julie is quiet for a long time.
I don’t blame her.
I don’t think what I did was right. I killed twenty people. Men, women, and children. No one has the right to play God with anyone else’s life. But I have to believe that killing them was better than watching them suffer in pain for years in some cases while the hospital got rich off their misery.
“That’s some juice,” Julie says faintly.
“You asked for it. Now it’s your turn,” I add quickly, wanting to get the stain of the memory off my mind. “Why were you sent to Exilium?”
Before she can answer, a blood-curdling howl pierces the shadows around us. I fumble for my zonnoblaster and stick close behind Julie, already trembling at the thought of seeing one of those things again.