The WiII to Live

"Who knows the things that a living organism needs to survive?" asks my fourth grade science teacher, Mr. King.

I raise my hand and say, "We need oxygen, water, and food to live." I said.

"Very good, Riley," my teacher says to me with a smile.

Mr. King is my favorite teacher of all. He treats me as the "teacher's pet" and treats me as if I was his son, I could even sleep in class and get away with it easily, which I did very often.

He proceeds to say, "Oxygen gives us something to breathe, water gives us hydration, and food gives us nutrients to supply our body with, without these things, it is impossible for humans to survive. If any of these elements is to be taken away from us, we will die, now we will try a quick experiment so you all can see that this is true. Riley, would you please come up and stand next to me please?" he says, with that same grin.

It puzzled me for a bit, seeing as Mr. King always asks for volunteers when doing examples. Then I looked around, It seemed pretty obvious that no one else wanted to volunteer because they looked very unwilling to go up, as they're always like that. But as of right now, some of my classmates were sleeping, or their face was in their arms, not paying attention at all. It wasn't usually this dull, we usually had most of the class at least looking at the teacher. So it probably made sense seeing that I'm the only one that seemed 'alert', and something about his grin seemed off, he looked a bit devious. But I rubbed it off, and I stood up and walked to the front of the classroom.

"Oxygen is the most important of the three elements, because if you were to go even a few minutes without oxygen, you would die. You can go without water for 3 days without water, and go without food for 3 weeks. But only 3 minutes without oxygen would give you serious brain damage, or most likely will kill you. So now, for the example." Mr. King says in an excited tone.

Why was he excited for this? What was he going to do to me? I could barely finish my thoughts when I suddenly felt his strong grip on my neck, blocking my airway completely. I immediately started trying to pry his strong hands with all my strength off of my neck, but it was nearly impossible since he was so strong. I could see the class, they still gave no response despite the horrible scene that was being displayed in front of their eyes as I tried to look down in hopes that I could trip him, but instead, I saw pools of red coming from each classmate and leaving a pool at the bottom of each of their feet, blood slowly dripping from their pant legs and on to the hard tile floor. I was stricken with fear at the sight I saw. Had they always been like this? When did this happen? There were so many unexplained questions, but I couldn't think anymore, as the blood flow to my brain was getting cut off by the strong grip of my formerly "nice" teacher.

I had a strong will to live.

I tried fighting and everything I could to live, but I couldn't, and right before the moment I was going to black out, my body was filled with an excruciating pain that engulfed my body. It felt like I was a live voodoo doll, having pins stabbed into my flesh on every part of my body. These were my last moments. I never knew they were going to end like this.

Mr. King laughed in an evil tone, "You see Riley, once you start something you must-"

"-finish it," said my best friend and bomb-squad partner, Nicolas.

"You see Riley, once you take up this job, you must take on everything they throw at you, we risk our lives for the safety of thousands of people. Let's hurry, we need to go in."

Nicolas and I rushed to the edge of the ship, alongside with other members of the bomb-squad. We had already gotten the briefing and were now getting ready to disarm the underwater mines. We were split into partners, so we could be efficient and not waste time, as the mines were already activated by an unidentified group. These mines were armed and in time would explode and cause the underwater volcanoes nearby to simultaneously explode, and the consequences would be devastating. When it was our turn to dive, we jumped in and we started swimming to our specified area.

"What do you suppose activated these mines? Or even how the mines even got here in the first place?" Nicolas asked, as we were disarming the first mine.

"I don't know, Nic. All I know is that we have to disarm these mines." I said, as I finished disarming the mine.

"H-hey, Riley...do you see that?" Nicolas asked in a shaky voice.

I turned to see what he was pointing at. "No, I don't see anything there, Nic. You trying to pull another prank on me?" I asked, knowing that Nicolas was always a joker and a prankster.

"No, I swear there was something there. It looked like a heavily stretched out version of a human, which hardly looked anything like a human. I swear too it made a noise, it went like drr...drr...drr." Nicolas said in a scared voice.

"Eh, it's probably a piece of seaweed and the noise of the other teams working on the mines." I said, also finishing disarming the second mine.

I heard an explosion and immediately turned to see what went wrong. What I saw was hardly believable. Nicolas was right. I saw the monster teleporting to the different teams, impaling each person with its long, wrinkly, deformed limbs. I could see the water getting polluted with red quickly, the explosion caused a chain reaction, exploding as the monster finished killing every person we saw.

"Riley, I told you! We need to get out of here, now!" Nicolas said.

He sounded like he was going to pass out any moment.

"Stay with me Nic, don't pass out now!" I yelled.

I dragged him along as he was too traumatized to swim fast. I used pushed him up onto the boat, breathing heavily as I removed my oxygen mask.

"Oh god, why..." Nicolas said in a weary tone.

As I look up from the ground, I see dead corpses everywhere. It was obvious that no one was alive, as the bridge was practically painted red with blood. Mutilated corpses hanging from the windows above, as if they were on a drying rack as the blood dripped down. One body was right next to where we came out, and I inspected it. Nicolas on the other and however, wasn't doing to well, from afar he had watched his fellow squid-members die, and now he was seeing one of them dead, right in front of him.

"Take some rest Nic, you need to rest your brain, I know that you'll ask me how you can rest when there's all of this happening, but trust me," I said in a calm manner.

Nicolas laid down on his side while shaking and closed his eyes. As I examined the bodies, I saw that all of them had one thing in common, they all had been pierced through a vital organ.

"I'll go find the radio, you stay he-" I was halfway through my sentence when I heard a loud explosion on the other side of the ship.

The monster was there. It started teleporting closer, and closer to us.

"Nicolas, we need to go!" I said in a panicked voice. As I turned to help him up,

I saw one of my worst fears, right in front of me. My best friend Nicolas was lying there, with a medium sized hole through his forehead. "No, no no no! Nicolas, why?!"

I knew there was no way to save him. I knew I had to keep moving, as I just realized the monster was right there beside him. I saw it in full detail, a long, deformed mouth with two white dots at different elevated heights on it's face, and its whole body was wrinkly. I wouldn't let the monster get me. I jumped back into the ocean, hoping for survival. But that was impossible, because as I landed in the water, I felt the worst pain you could imagine in my back. I looked down, and I saw a hole through my skin. What was unusual was that, it didn't hit any vital organs, just muscle. The bad news was, it had also punctured my oxygen tank.

I had a strong will to live.

No, I wouldn't let the monster kill me. I knew I could live, even when I once thought it was impossible. I help on for dear life as I was running out of oxygen and blood, "We need oxygen, water, and food to live." I thought to myself, but why did that phrase sound so familiar? I couldn't think, as my brain cells were rapidly dying. I hoped that somehow I didn't need oxygen anymore to live, I opened up my airway and inhaled a large amount of ocean water. My airway was filled with water. Right before I died, My head was filled with a sharp pain, even worse than my piercing wound. It felt like someone was trying to use a drill to put screws into my head. My vision slowly went black as I saw the monster coming towards me slowly...at least it didn't get me, whatever it was. It got closer, and closer, and closer.

Until I woke up on a hard, concrete floor. It was hard for me to breathe, it felt like something was taking up the space inside my lungs. I sat up and looked around, and saw that I was in a concrete room with no way out. I saw a non-human monster a few feet away, why did it look so familiar? It came closer, and closer, until it came to my face. It struck one of the walls with force, and a hole started forming, it was shaped like a human. Drr...Drr...Drr...were the noises I heard as I saw something come out of the hole. It most definitely looked like a human, although it didn't look human. Its arm bone was broken in half, with some of it sticking outside the flesh, and some of its head skin was missing, revealing a cracked skull with fluid coming out. It seemed depressed as it was mutilated. The monster impaled the human through the brain, but didn't retract its limbs from the brain. Then the "human" started talking to me, in a demonic voice.

"You will pay for your sins." it said.

"W-what are you talking about?" I said in a confused voice.

"You dare do your cruel experiments on your own students for your own "studies", making them inhale ashes and gases just so that you could do what? Get fame, fortune? And what about the bombs? You made those go off, just so you could see them blow up and make an eruption happen so that the townspeople would suffocate and burn to death. Was it worth it?" it asked me.

It all came back rushing to me. Riley King, former fourth grade teacher, bomb-squad member, and I had many other professions. All of them included suffocating people for my studies. To find a way so that the human body could live forever. I had started with oxygen. I had at least fifty different professions, in which I had all gotten with my persuasive speech that I said I could give them eternal life.

"You remember, don't you?" said the mutilated human. I yelled out, "You, took it all away from me, didn't you! I just wanted to help human society!"

"No, you didn't want life, you wanted the opposite. We had to suck you into the dimension of infinite pain. You will be forced to live through every profession you had, and what you did to the people, we will make your death worse and worse every time." it said.

My head couldn't take it, I just wanted a way for the human race to live forever, without a few sacrifices.

I had a strong will to kill.

My will to live faded. In fact, it was never there. That was just a cover up story. I really wanted to kill, I loved watching pain and suffering, it was interesting, but now, I was forced to live out my life as the experiment. The one that got suffocated. The one that got drowned. The one that died. I broke down on the floor, I was having a mental break down as I screamed and screamed. I didn't know what to do anymore.

The monster itself spoke, "Where is your will to live now, Riley?"