Cancer: The Adventure

After another quick check to make sure everyone is gone, you turn back to the playground and clamber up to the seat of the highest swing in the swingset. It’s been taken all morning by a gaggle of normoblasts just sitting there talking, speculating about what life would be like as mature red blood cells after graduation. What a waste of a swingset. Swings are meant for the type of thing you’re doing now, which is building up speed, swinging faster and faster while grinning maniacally at your good fortune. You start incorporating little tricks here and there, leaning back so far you can see the world upside down. Wow, there’s really no one around here in the red marrow. Maybe this emergency drill was for everyone, not just the kids.

With trillions of cells in the body, you’ve grown up used to the constant hustle and bustle, but sometimes it can get a bit tiring. Some cells might be afraid to find themselves suddenly alone, but you relish it. No teachers are here to tell you to be careful, so you start swinging so high you come up out of the seat at the apex of each arc. Maybe if you get just a big higher, you can flip yourself all the way over...


But before you get the chance, your eyes are drawn to a sudden flash in the sky. You look up, but it’s already gone, and you see nothing but the faint outlines of houses and schools on the opposite side of the femur bone. The strange inverted perspective makes you dizzy if you look too long, and the speed of your movement makes it even harder to see anything.

Then - another! You’re looking directly at it this time, and you blink away stars from your eyes. It reminds you of an outer-space phenomenon known as lightning that your teacher mentioned in science class one day. But no one ever goes Outside, and you never expected to see it for real. You slow down a little to get a better look, but it’s gone again. The thought flashes through your head that maybe you should go inside with the others, that maybe the emergency drill wasn’t really a drill.

You tense up your legs and lean forward, preparing to take a flying leap off the swing. But just as you reach the top of your arc, the lightning returns, but this time it streaks down from the sky and -

————

You blink once. And then again. There is hard playground mulch pressed against your cheek. You try to sit up, but your body won’t move right. There is something terribly wrong inside your head.

You manage to roll over onto your back, ignoring the pounding inside your skull. You have no idea how long you’ve been out, but aside from the absence of lightning everything looks much the same. No one is outside yet, so maybe it’s only been a moment. What should you do?