Satisfaction

'You will pay for this atrocity!' I growled at the woman in front of me, as I herded her into the large prison with her fellow guardians.

'How are you going to destroy the Guild?' she hissed at me. 'If you let them out, they'll infect the whole world.'

Faltering, I looked around at my group who had heard the warden. They looked at me with shock but I shrugged. 'We can't let this change our plan.' 

'Irene, we have to disinfect them before letting them roam,' a girl pleaded. 'Otherwise this whole planet will be obliterated.'

She had a point. How to disinfect the infected was another question however. There were many of them - an entire race to be specific. Their features were unrecognizable, scars marring their faces and their bodies mutilated. To cleanse them would be impossible but all the diseases they possessed were contagious.

The Guild would regret the day they defied the government and of that I was positive.

* * *

Ten years ago, around 2032, there was an outbreak of new diseases. The immune system of the body had advanced to such a stage where neither virus nor bacteria could enter the body. From there, the two types of diseases mutated, forming a deadly opponent.

Diseases such as blemadia (where the person’s immune system would attempt to flush out the illness by bleeding the person to death, which then led the affected person straight into madness, disintegrating the body into carbon) caused the world to panic.

 The only way to fix this was obvious. The government had to create a large medical centre, right in Ireland, where the employees would be dedicated to finding cures for these new illnesses. It was simple really. The Guild just needed live subjects upon which to test the illnesses. Animals wouldn't do. The bacteria acted differently upon them. They needed humans. Coming to that realisation, the Guild went to the government, demanding permission.  However, knowing that the public would revolt, the government had refused - they couldn't violate the Human Rights Declaration.

For years, the Guild brooded, failing to accomplish what they had been designed for. In this time, millions of people died, lowering the population by approximately thirty percent. Until one day, the Guild made a decision. They would fix these problems and do that with haste with or without the government's approval. Immediately there were improvements. Fifty diseases including Sherwaline and Moxgalitis were cured in a week and the world stared on in astonishment, as the Guild quietly completed their jobs. Blincharadia was no longer a deadly illness that took screaming victims to their deathbeds.

Yet no one ever heard the screams echoing from the Guild. No one heard the cries that begged for mercy. No one heard the deafening silence that followed.

Not one single person in Europe realised that a neighbouring nation was suddenly barren.

Within the guild, it was a cold dark place filled with human sized containers called salvations. Every half hour, steam would fill the salvations engulfing the people, Saviours, within. There were five levels, each holding tens of thousands of these containers. On the front of each one, there was a life monitor, beeping pieces of machinery that maintained and controlled the diseases that each Saviour experienced. These monitors also reported any abnormal occurrences, things like brain activity, amongst them.

If that happened, the guardians would go to the specific box, checking on the lifeless human with their eyes, haunted and their bodies held up by restraints. Their heads normally had fallen back and were limp, making their necks twist on unnatural angles. Whoever saw these Saviours never recovered from the emotional trauma associated with the sight.

* * *

I sighed slowly, opening one of the doors to peer inside at the person in there. Disappointment filtered through my brain as I realised the person who'd inspired me to make a change hadn't survived. Instead there was a new Saviour, about two months old and wailing in her little box, her chubby arms covered in red boils. Her face was already red and she started coughing, spittle flying everywhere.

She opened her mouth to shriek again when the steam started to burst out from the pipes inside the salvation. Hurriedly, I slammed the door on her waning cries as she struggled to breathe through the latest infestation that was being transmitted into her body.

'I'm sorry.' I whispered through the glass, my fingers curled against the door. She was struggling, her eyes rolling back in her head and before she passed out, I looked away into the eyes of a fellow guardian who'd joined me in my rampant rage into the Guild. Scowling weakly, I knew that the girl’s body had already sagged in her restraints.

She wasn't free from this torture - in her estimated life span of ten years, she would be forced to encounter over five hundred diseases.

* * *

One of the guardians rushed through the rows of salvations, shuddering at what she'd just done, exterminating a young man because his immune system was a failure making him useless to their cause. He'd looked at her with those eyes, those empty pools of brown that implored her to do something that she couldn’t. The future of the world depended on this investment.

A loud thumping diverted the young guardian from her thoughts towards a nearby salvation. A dark hand appeared and disappeared behind the glass door and she jumped in fright, looking to alert someone about the situation. Another thump was heard and suddenly she got her wits about her. Stalking over, she eased the door open to find a livid man behind the screen groaning. The guardian took a step back, tripping over her feet and tumbling to the ground.

Steam started to erupt from the pipes around the man.

* * *

'James, we're going to save all these people.' I growled.

'Of course we are!' We need to do it tactfully however otherwise you'll just end up killing the entire world.'

I clenched my fist slowly, breathing in and out. These people had already been here for many generations, knowing that we were so close would eat away at me.

'I'm begging you - think of something fast. Each minute we leave them alone, death brushes against them.'

'They’ve been here for many generations, what's a few days going to do?' he argued, walking around some cells, inspecting the mechanisms that had been put into place.

'Babies will be born.' I spoke bluntly, referring to the two month old child in front of us. 'Some people will die. It's violating human rights.’

* * *

To appear non-existent, worthless; it was a fate you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy.

The employee had had a heart stopping scare earlier, when the steam had been flowing out of the salvation chamber, ready to claim her as its next victim
What had surprised her was the sudden reflexes of the Saviour within who had reached out, closing the door upon himself, saving her life.

* * *

The group of people behind me had been discussing the methods they could use to save the infected but so far, there was nothing worthwhile. Within the salvations, the Saviours stirred weakly as their bodies adjusted to the newest disease racing through their bloodstream. Through multiple generations, the bodies of the Saviours had adapted, making them a resilient race. Not used to the commotion, all of them strained to peer at us.

'We could cut off all these new infections that are being transmitted,' someone suggested.

'Not going to work.' I replied dryly. 'The steam contains the nutrients needed to keep them alive.’

'Maybe find a way to separate them then?' another young man interrupted.

I mulled over the idea. 'That could work.’ 

* * *

'Have you ever thought about it?’ The girl pleaded, appealing to her partner. 'Imagine if that were us - wouldn't that be an atrocious crime?'

'Don't let anyone hear you talking about this,’ her partner replied tersely, eyes down.

'Why?' she huffed. 'We need to aid the Saviours!'

'This is our life,' her partner hissed. ‘I will report you myself if you refuse to stop speaking about it.'

Heeding the warning, the girl fell glumly silent.

* * *

The memories of those days as a young girl, attempting to talk to the staff in the Guild washed over me, making me tip my head back and inhale. I'd managed to escape from the place to join a group who were passionate about 'human rights'. Once hearing of that term, I'd demanded to read the Declaration, my shock growing as I processed each word.

Now we were here. Orchestrating our plan to free the Saviours. It would happen, I vowed, and it would be successful.

'I've think I’ve got something that could potentially work!' Elise chirped.

I turned eagerly. ‘Go on.’

Many thanks for reading this, non-existent reader. Actually this is for me more than anyone else. Unless you're 'left-foot-fowl', then it's for you too, I guess.
It was a 1500 word limit, if you were wondering why it was so short. It was for Scenario Writing, Human Rights. Hope you somewhat enjoy it.
Allons-y!