The World Ends With Me

"I'm the most important person in existence, the world revolves around me." Seems kinda self absorbed isn't it? I'm sure most of us would have been guilty of feeling that way at some stage of our lives. Too bad none of us realize that having that become reality isn't as fun as it sounds. I mean, I'm sure we all want to feel like our lives have meaning, that we all have some reason for being on this dustball. Heck, I'm sure plenty of us have wanted to be superheroes once upon a time. Bitten by a radioactive spider, born on a different planet, fall into a vat of chemical waste, and then get these cool powers that made us 'special'. More important than other people, and with the ability to change things for the better.

Well, for those of you nodding your heads, I've got a secret to tell you. I am a superhero. Well... not really, I mean, I don't save the world from the threat of aliens, or supervillians, I can't even stop a bank robbery. But I mean, superheroes are super because they have a power right? An ability? Well I have an ability, and its more powerful then any superhero to ever exist. Superman? Batman? Heck, even Galacticus or Darkseid, I've got them beat in the special ability department. They can't hold a candle to me! So whats this power of mine you ask? Umm.. heh, its kinda hard to explain... don't look at me like that! I really have a power, I do! Okay, okay, layman's terms eh? Fine. My name is Eric, and when my heart stops beating, the world ends. Or as I like to put it, the world ends with me.

Kinda overly dramatic eh? Well the reason for my ability is th-

"Eric! What are you doing?" I sigh, and slide away from the computer. I guess blogging will have to wait. I swivel the chair to face the doorway, just as a lady dressed in a lab coat bursts through the door, a gaggle of doctors and nurses following suit. The tide of medical practitioners swarm around me, leaving me and Dr. Bentley in the middle of it all. I feel like I'm in the eye of the storm, as portable medical equipment is set up everywhere, seeming like the construction of a hive. Even doctors can lose semblance of intelligence when they're swarming around like drones. I guess intelligence can sometimes be a point of perspective. A hand on my shoulder brings me out of my musings, and I look upward into the stern face of Dr. Bentley. Whats the usual cliche for a character like her? Oh yeah, she'd be real pretty if she smiled. But the dark thundercloud on her face probably meant a dearth of sunny days yet.

"Why do you keep insisting on sneaking off Eric?" She asks, straight to the point as usual. "Ah.. I was spending some time alone?" I reply weakly. Without her saying anything, we both know that's not allowed. I'm far too... important to be spending time alone, I had to be supervised, around the clock. "This place hasn't been sterilized Eric. What would have happened if you had caught something?" Dr Bentley asks sternly, eyeing her surroundings. This place, as she put it, was an office, with a table, a computer, a desk lamp, an office chair, and lack of any windows. Certainly not a place where a normal person would be in mortal danger. Then again, I'm "special". "Dr. Rivers! Begin disinfecting the room, and the rest of you, begin testing Eric, to ensure that he hasn't caught anything!" Dr, Bentley has begun directing her armada, and within minutes, the office had been scoured clean of anything smaller than a human being, and I had all manners of tubes, cables, needles and wires stuck, clipped, inserted, or by some other method attached to me. I closed my eyes, and tried to sleep, as all around me a dozen machines whirred and beeped, trying to translate the contents of my body into numbers, statistics, data.

After what seems like hours, actually, it was hours, the machines read the all clear, and the doctors around me give a sigh of relief. Dr Bentley had already begun finding out which moron had left an office open and available for me to sneak into. Poor sod would probably lose his or her job. Had I felt the need to express myself to the world less important than someones job, I might have felt guilty. After all, the people working here were the best of the best. They'd be able to find work anywhere else easily. At Dr. Bentley's order, the mob begins moving, as I'm herded along like a stray sheep. Doctors scramble over themselves to open doors, while nurses hold onto me, as if scared that I would evaporate into thin air, kinda like that invisible man H.G Wells wrote about. Hah, fat chance, that'd be a cool power to have.

The journey ends in a glass cube that hangs in the middle of a cavernous room. The only way in being small tunnel, and by small, I mean its only four times the size of the support struts holding the cube in place. I'm allowed to walk the length of the tunnel by myself, free from the mob at last. As I enter the cube, the place I call home, I feel the effects of the drugs that had been constantly pumped into me over the course of the past few hours ebbing. The drugs were administered to relax me, as I was moved around, to keep me from getting excited at all the new sights and sounds. It wasn't needed in the cube. The very air inside here was already laced with stuff that would ensure my emotions would be at a normal satisfied state, never dipping towards sadness, or raising to excitement. Just a steady level of boredom. I look around the cube for things to do. Nothing much really, a bed, a toilet, a shower, with shower curtains, a fact I'd always found weird, since at any other time when I'm naked I was scrutinised by at least ten pairs of eyes. But not the shower. How odd.

I decide that perhaps sitting on the bed would be the most exciting thing to do in the cube, and after a modicum of effort, find myself lying down on the bed, having decided mid-motion that I was going to do things differently. "I'm such a rebel!" I say out loud, to no one in particular. The irony of course, is that there were at least ten people listening to those words, I'd just never get a response. I sigh, and try to sleep, perhaps there'd be something to do tomorrow, maybe a chance to sneak out again, who knows? I've got time after all...

Dr. Bentley smiled as she saw the form of Eric toss lightly in the bed sheets. Nothing bad had happened. Sure, Eric had gone missing, but he had been found within a few hours, and he was perfectly healthy. And now he was back, safe in the cube, where he belonged. A polite cough drew her attention to her personal assistant. "What is it Janice?" she asked, never taking her attention away from the glass cube, and the person inside it. "We've found out who the office belongs to, a Mr. Glatzy, a senior director in the company. He claims that he had just stepped out for a cigarette, he had no idea Eric would sneak in." Dr. Bentley kept her tone calm. "Fire Mr. Glatzy, his addiction to nicotine almost put the entire world in peril." Janice had expected such a reaction. "I assume I am to arrange for his proper departure from the company?" she asked, as she begun making notes on her PDA. Dr. Bentley's eyes flashed as she turned to Janice. "Of course, word of what we are doing here can never leave this facility. Give him his due notice, have him pack his things, bring him outside, then dispose of him." "As you will, Dr. Bentley," Janice said, as she turned and walked off to administer to the departure of Mr. Glatzy. Things were going swimmingly, Dr. Bentley thought to herself. The world need never know what we do down here, just that for another day, the sun rose, the sun set, and life went on as usual.