Elias
I'm sitting in my parked van. Well, I technically don't even own it. It's a delivery van my workplace owns. I'm glad I got employed last year. It only took 18 years of my life to find someone who would want to hire me, and I've now worked in this underpaying position for a full year. This red van, covered with the logo of the company and many advertisements, has been like a second home for me, and will be as long as thr pills are popular. They better not lose their fame, or I'm losing my job.
Well, I could get one that pays more, but I won't risk having to look for one for the rest of my life. My education lacks: I tried out community college, but it really wasn't for me, so I dropped out and became a teenage dirtbag for a while.
The car radio is on. I'm surfing through channels until I find the news. Pfft. They are talking about the pills I earn my living by delivering. Widely used, they say. Damn right they are. I get to drive around delivering them all day. The next mention is about post-war recovery. That's a worse topic for me to hear about, so I turn off the radio. I lost my father to the most recent war here. Indepedence is fun, yeah. But I still wouldn't have traded my father for it.
I wonder what these pills are even for. One pharmacy has ordered trice their usual supply today, so they must be good. It's not my job to question, though. Boxes of the pills go into the van and come out when I've arrived. The same things keeps repeating itsself until my hours are done. That's why I'm already starting to drive when they have finally finished loading the trunk.
I drive with my windows rolled down. I like the wind, even though it makes my curly, dark brown hair messy. Then I finally arrive at the small neighborhood pharmacy, which is surprisingly full of people. I take one of the packages out of the trunk and carry it inside. A blonde pharmacist lifts his hand as a way to silently greet me. I give him a nod back and place down the box. He starts talking to me as he takes one of my boxes.
"Have you heard the patients who took these? They walk back in with wobbly legs and buy some more," he says, which makes me confused.
"Probably a drug side effect. Aren't all pills kind of drugs?" I state, using the information I have gotten from my well-educated older brother.
"As far as I'm aware, those are for pain release and making your trauma response soften. You must be aware that you're delivering something with limitations and side effects. Your truck must be heavily guarded," the guy says to me.
I want to snort right then and there. My van is nowhere near a heavily guarded truck, but I don't want to lose my job, so I stay as professional as I am. I give him a small nod and a give him a half-assed smile that probably looks more like a smirk, setting down another box of the pills.
"Oh, my truck is nearly protected by the goverment. Probably will be soon," I say sarcastically. I don't care if he knows I'm lying, but it's still funny to me how people think I'm delivering some secret recipes to world leaders.
When I put down the last box, I salute the pharmacist and walk out of the building. I'm finally back in my van, and can turn the radio back on. The news are playing again as I start driving back. My eyes are on the road, but my ears are listening to the newest reports of violent acts. I'm listening intensely because my ears catch the name of this town at least twice.
The news are that a boy from the nearby upper secondary school has been rushed to the hospital a day or two ago—I can't remember what day it's today. And the hospitalisation is because of some other boy's bite. Sounds like someone has a sick amount of force in their jaw. I wonder what made him so mad.
I still have to keep driving, because the sun is still up. I have a plenty of packages to deliver. The next pharmacy is an hour away from the quarters, so it takes long to get there. I get extra cash on my paycheck for driving further, so I take every delivery I can.
An hour passes quickly. It's visibly much bigger than the first one I went to today. It's painted partly red like a hospital. When I step in with the single package they have ordered, I get greeted by the cashier with a warm smile. I smile back and place the package onto the counter. The sales assistant picks it up and opens it immediadly, handing one of the bottles to the customer.
I stay there for a little longer, since I don't have a strict schedule. I see a middle-aged woman walking in. She stops by the counter and studdenly she's standing by the counter like she had been struck with a freeze ray. The sales assistant greets her.
"Hello, what would you like?" they ask the woman.
"I'd like Quickhelper pills," she answers, sounding way too normal compared to the way she looks completely shell shocked as she stares at the employee.
The sales assistant hands her the pills, and the woman tries to take her wallet out of her pocket at least trice without her hand even touching the pocket. When she finally gets it and hands the cash, she begins walking. Well, I could hardly call it walking. It's more like she's combining waddling and limping as she moves out of reach.
But on the way out, she bumps into another woman. She doesn't apologize. Instead, the bites her, leaving her neck with a deep, bleeding wound. And the worst part? She doesn't even seem to notice what she did. For sure she has blood on her teeth, but she probably won't notice it until she brushes her teeth, and then it has already turned brown, looking like she has chewed on her own shit.
When the woman turns to leave, she looks as relaxed as she was when she came in as she waddles out of the pharmacy. I can see her eyes. There's conflict between calmness and fear, with not even a hint of anger. I'm an empath. I have always been. But now I'm confused.
The other woman is holding the open wound in pain, trying to stop the bleed. The pharmacists who have been trained to perform first-aid rush to the bitten woman. All this is happening and I'm just standing there looking like a fool. Well, there's a clear reason I don't help them. I do not have any kind of experience on this kind of situations, and I went to zero education except for mandatory classes.
This does creep me out, and my own face probably looks like I've seen a ghost. It's quite unusual for someone like me to witness someone get randomly bitten. I don't know if they were stangers, I don't know if the woman has an allergy to human spit..
That's a terrible example! I don't know anything about those women. I don't even know if being bitten by a stranger would be worse than getting bit by someone you know. All I know is that it's not normal behaviour. Do they sell anything stronger than casual pills in this pharmacy?! What if I'm secretly part of a crime organization?! I need to do something.
I want up to the person behind the counter and clear my throat. "What exactly do those popular pills include?" I ask him.
"Velorin and a some dypamine regulator. It's completely safe to use, though it may include some mind side effects," he tells me.
Dypamine regulator? The one infamous for stabilizing mood and preventing shock? I don't even know where I know this from. All I can do right now is connect the ingiment to what I saw the buyer doing. That eerily calm, almost emotionless face as she bit another human being, and then walked away with no reaction at all. It all fits the description. But why the biting? I want to shake information out of people, but hold back.
Ignoring the bleeding woman now being carried into an ambulance, I walk out of the building and go back to my parked van. Well, it's not my van—agh! Not this again! Aftee I've gotten in, I shut the car door with a slam. This has been a long day. Too long for my liking.