Death & The Future
“Hello again Dana.” The soft female voice said directly into her ear.
Scully wanted to open her eyes and look at the woman but they were stuck as surely as if someone had used glue on them.
“Who’s there?” She asked, her voice vibrating and distorted by something. The woman laughed softly and Scully felt a hand placed onto hers.
“It’s Nurse Owens, I’ve come to look after you.” The voice said. At that Scully forced her eyes open and looked up at the woman in amazement.
Nurse Owens was exactly as Scully remembered her from the hospital after her abduction; a rotund brunette with a kind smile and melting eyes. She thought she’d imagined her when no one else in the hospital had remembered seeing her. Nurse Owens smiled and patted Scully’s hand.
“You must listen to me Dana.” She began.
“Where am I?” Scully asked, tearing her eyes away from the other woman’s for the first time to stare in wonder at her surroundings. She was lying in a bed *in the middle of a forest*….
“You’ve been here before.” Nurse Owens replied in that soft, dreamy tone. Scully looked around at the grove the bed was in and recognised it. She had lain here and thought about possibilities of living and dying – in a different lifetime, or so it seemed.
“You do remember.” Nurse Owens smiled.
“Yes.” Scully told her. “But why am I here now? Am I dead?”
“No.” The kindly woman reassured her firmly. “I’ve come to remind you of what you learnt before.”
“But.. I…” Scully stuttered, then sobered abruptly. “This is a dream.” She stated flatly.
“They all say that.” Nurse Owens replied with a wide smile. “It’s not a dream. It’s an opportunity.”
“An opportunity for what?”
“To take stock, decide what’s important to you and to make the right choice.” Came the reply.
“I have no choice.” Scully answered. “I have cancer. They have no cure, so I’m going to die. Soon.”
“You’ve forgotten.” Nurse Owens said simply, then sighed. “Dana hear me while I tell you the truth.”
Scully looked at the woman standing over her with filtered sunlight forming a halo from her hair.
“I’m dying for the truth.” Scully commented bitterly.
“You’ve seen it work, but you’ve gotten more skeptical instead of seeing the truth. You worked the magic yourself and you still don’t believe in it.” The tone had an odd hard edge it. “You chose life before and you had life.” The woman was angry that Scully didn’t understand.
“I didn’t die because science saved me.” Scully answered, lying deliberately.
Nurse Owens laughed outright.
“Nonsense and not even you believe it.” She paused to calm down. “Dana, how will you die?”
“Cancer, I just said so.” Scully replied.
“No.” She stated. “Because you don’t believe you want to live, but you *do* want to Dana.”
“There’s nothing to live for. I’m dying of cancer, Mulder’s truths are empty hollows, and I have no one who loves me …”
“You have a family who adores you.” Nurse Owens pointed out.
“They can’t hold me close every night and tell me that everything will be alright.” She paused. “They can’t be there every time I sit on the bathroom floor waiting for the blood to stop coming out of my nose, wondering if it ever will or if that’s the moment I die.” She sighed. “They can’t love me like I need to be…”
“And there’s no one who could?”
“No.” She stated firmly. “No one.”
Scully’s vision was filled with a brilliant white flash of light.
The light cleared only slowly and Scully found herself standing in the doorway of the basement office. The room was empty and bare. There were none of the touches that had made this place seem such a part of Mulder; no posters, no photos of odd creatures or UFO’s, not even sunflower seed shells crunching under feet.
Scully walked into the room slowly, looking around and hoping to find some trace of Mulder in the empty shell. A footfall sounded from in the side office and Scully jumped.
“Who’s there?” She demanded into the darkness of that corner of the room. A man walked into the pool of light from the doorway.
“Hi,” He said. The man looked in his mid-twenties and was wearing a badly fitting grey suit. “I’m Agent Myers, can I help you?” His eyes were hidden from her in a streak of shadow and that made her wary of him.
“I’m looking for Agent Mulder.” Scully said, she hadn’t been but she wanted to know why he wasn’t there. “Fox Mulder.” She clarified.
“You haven’t heard?” Myers asked warily. A shadow passed across Scully’s heart.
“No, what? Where is he?.” She stated.
“He’s.. uh.. he’s not here.” Myers stammered.
“Then where is he?” She demanded and he shrugged, then leaned forward conspiratorially.
“Take a wild guess.” Scully’s face betrayed the fact that she had no idea what he was talking about. Myers’ leaned closer and made a mockery of a laugh. “You know, er, he’s, er, he’s polishing the stars..”
“You mean he’s dead?” Scully asked, her flat tone disguising the fact that her heart was breaking. Myers’ face settled into a scowl and he started to back away from her.
“You’re one of them, you’ve come to test me. Look, I’m not anti-et. I’m cool with it. I’ve got no problems at all with it. You don’t need to test me.” Myers’ stammered.
“Anti-et?” Scully said, she almost hated to ask. “You think I’m an alien?”
“I’ve got no problem with that. We’re all different right? It’s a big universe.”
“What makes you think I’m an alien? There’s no such thing.” Scully stated.
Myers’ looked unsure again.
“You’re kidding me. You gotta be kidding me.” He paused. “Not even an alien testing me would try to suggest that.”
“I’m not an alien. My name is Dana Scully, I’m Mulder’s partner. I work here.”
“There’s no Dana Scully here.” Myers’ stated. “and Mulder had no partner for 5 five years, not since the last one died of cancer. Who are you?”
“Five years?” She asked.
“Who are you?” He demanded.
“No one.” She said softly.
The bright light came again. When it faded Scully was standing in the corner of Skinner’s office.
The AD looked mostly the same except that, what hair he still did have, was grayer and there was a tired slump to his shoulders as he sat writing at the desk.
“Skinner?” Scully asked softly and his head snapped up. The pen fell from his hand and he stood up reflexively.
“No.” He said under his breath when he saw the translucent figure. “Scully?” She stepped out into the light towards him. The light flowed through her as if she were not even there.
“I’m dead aren’t I?” She asked. He swallowed and set his face, then gave a curt nod.
“It’s been five years.” He said, then paused. “Is..? What’s… death like?” He asked.
“I don’t know.” She replied. “I don’t feel dead.”
“Then there’s no pain?” He asked as if he *needed* to know.
“No pain.” She repeated as an acknowledgment.
“Good.” He said stiffly, relief evident in the single word despite the front.
“Where’s Mulder?” Scully asked.
The anger came so quickly to Skinner’s face that Scully took a step back to get away from it.
“He’s polishing the stars!” Skinner spat bitterly as he turned to look out of the window.
“The other man said that.” She commented. “What does it mean?” She asked. Skinner turned back and looked at her seriously.
“Three years ago, there was the first reported case of a terrible disease, like smallpox only much worse. Since then it’s killed millions and devastated every country on the planet.”
“Oh my God.” Scully injected.
“God had nothing to do with it.” Skinner added sarcastically. “Your mother,” He began. “She was one of the first victims. One of the lucky ones really.”
Scully’s heart contracted painfully and she felt tears enter her eyes, but Skinner didn’t give her a chance to get too mushy over it. He continued in a more brutal tone.
“Then two years ago, ‘They’ came. The spaceship landing was on TV and everything. Humanity celebrated!” He paused. “They gave us the cure for the disease, but the cure began to change people into something else. Workers. Drones to serve the new masters. People who wouldn’t take the injection disappeared, without a trace. It’s become polite to say that they’re ‘polishing the stars’, when what we mean is that they’re dead or in one of the camps that everyone knows exist.”
“And Mulder? Did he take the injection?”
“What do you think?” Skinner almost smiled.
“And you?” She asked. Skinner’s response was to walk towards her and roll up the sleeve on his right arm. There was a large scar there with tissue crumpled for an inch all around it. Scully looked up into Skinner’s eyes in amazement, then saw an oily black substance move across them. Her eyes widened in disbelief.
“There was no choice Scully. It’s no good to end up dead like you and Mulder have. You can’t make a difference when you’re dead.”
The bright flash came again. This time Scully was standing by a conveyor belt which would move a few metres then stop. Either side of her were people and they would rummage about in the rags on the belt when it stopped, picking out jewellery and such items, then put them into bins next to them. The people looked starved and bruised, they held Scully’s attention for a long moment. Then she turned to the belt and saw that what she had assumed to be rags were in fact bodies. Human bodies.
The person directly on her right fiddled behind the neck of one and pulled off something shiny. He held it up to the light. The cross glinted and sparkled as if it possessed all the energy of a high-power torch.
“Useless junk!” The man said and moved to throw it into the bin. Scully plucked it out of his hand. “Hey!” He said.
“I just wanna look at it.” She said.
“Make sure you put it back in my bin. I found it.” He answered bitterly.
“Okay.” She agreed.
“Shit knows why I care, piece of religious crap isn’t even hardly worth a crumb of bread off Them.”
Scully hardly heard him, she was too busy looking at the tiny gold cross in her hand. There was no doubt in her mind that it was hers. The belt moved and the body he’d took it from stopped in front of her. Scully almost didn’t dare look. She pushed aside the rags warily until Mulder’s face was visible. Emaciated, blackened and bruised but, even in death, the face was determined.
“No.” She said bitterly. “He didn’t deserve this.”
“Someone you knew?” The man next to her asked, his voice soft for the first time.
“A friend.” She replied. “A good friend.” She choked back a tear.
“Look,” The man said quietly. “Keep the cross.”
“No.” Scully stated as she turned to look at him. She held the cross out. “You have it. It’s real gold.”
“What about you? You could get something for it.” He said, but Scully shook her head.
“I’ve been dead for a long time already.” She said.
“I know the feeling.” The man said bitterly as he took the cross. “Thanks. My name’s Emeric, by the way.”
“I’m Dana.” She replied.
The bright light enveloped her and the awful place dissolved around her.