Stick Ya

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Amanda challenged me with "I've never been afraid of needles." and I challenged Leo with "Include a leaf and an electric socket. This can be literal or metaphorical. Go wild."






"This might hurt a little; do you want the restraints?" the nurse asked as he swabbed my arm.

"I've never been afraid of needles."

"Okie dokie," he said, "here it goes,", and pushed the needle into my pulsing vein.

I flinched as the needle found its mark on the first try. Steady hand; more than one stick with this puppy and I'd be bleeding all over the floor. I felt the contents slipping into my bloodstream and away, to be carried throughout my body. Supposedly, the vaccine would protect me from the enemy mind-attacks. Laugh all you like, where I was going it wasn't even the subject of jokes whispered on bad nights to dispel fear, the way other things were. My orders were simple: Survive the mindslippers, get a fat retirement. Everything else was just detail. Even winning the war didn't really matter, according to some. The fight was all I or anyone else had ever known. We were taught from birth to love the fight, to seek the fight, to breathe the fight. The only way out was to fly, and even that came with risks...