Virus - 13

He winced at the tiny stab into his arm and he could feel the liquid shooting into his veins, cold as ice and yet it burned him, leaving him feeling raw inside out. He lay back and gasped, the pain slowly leaving his fingers and toes and drawing upward, collecting, getting worse as it ebbed from the edges of his body and growing stronger as it flowed upward. He began to shake from the pain and the progression of the disease slowed. The disease that had transformed his family into cold-blooded murderers who killed in the name of the devil. He missed them and knew he would know no peace until he was with them. The ice-fire licked on his vessels, on his organs. It pooled around the major arteries, travelling ever upwards.

The pain was at his heart, gathering until he longed to dig his fingers into his flesh and dig out the organ. He began to claw at his shirt, tearing long gashes in the fabric and stabbing his nails into his chest. All of a sudden, the virus surged upwards into his neck. It sped up, gathering into his skull where the pain was terrible. From the inside, a constant shrieking headache tore at his sanity. It clawed at his mind. It preyed on his weak barrier around all he held precious. It tore a gash through his protection that he heard as an awful sound in the room. The clawing of nails on a blackboard, the screaming of a dying person, the sound of nails on glass. And then there was the snap of a broken mind...