Exposed!

Everywhere around him, people were yelling in pain.
"Help me!" a woman screeched.
A few bodies lay strewn on the side of the road. Not moving.
Somewhere in the bushes, someone was groaning.
Sam had to get out.
The teenage rugged boy put his hand on the rusty metal bar as he tried to climb the high iron fence, not knowing that the top of the fence was secured by an electric wire.
"Get down from there," a woman called, "are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"What do you mean?"
"There's an electric wire at the top all the way round the enclosure. It will kill you as soon as you touch it."
"I guess its the same thing then. We are all going to die in here anyway aren't we?"
"You don't know that, don't give up hope. Besides even if you got over the fence how will you get over the water? Don't do it son, keep the hope alive."
"A fat lot of good, hope has done for us. I'm tired of sitting here waiting doing nothing. Just waiting to die. Everyone talks about how the ancient books mention someone coming to rescue us. Well where is that person? Huh answer me?"
The woman just stared, she didn't have the answer to the boy's question.

What hope was there? As the sun's ruddy glow signalled its setting, the old woman thought about the disease. No one was really sure how it had all started. Some said a man who lived on the east side of the island had eaten a certain fruit which was poisonous. Now the fruit caused some chemical reaction in his body and he had passed it onto his wife, who had then passed it on to her sister. And now everyone on the island had fallen prey to this this horrible disease which was now ravaging their bodies and slowly consuming them. When the authorities had found out, they had all been locked down in this place for fear that the disease would spread further afield. Now they were alone, left to die.

In the still of the night she heard a shout. "The great gate is opening!"
People staggered to the main square. Some limped, their ailing bodies weighing them down, some crawled to see if it was really true.
And yes it was...the Great Gate which had been shut down years ago making them outcasts, was opening. Everyone waited to see what would happen. They couldn't believe it. Maybe someone was letting them out to join the rest of the world.
Some people started moving towards the gate with the intention of running out...but a loud voice warned, "Stand back or we will shoot!"
Almost everyone stood in their tracks. Except one man who was so desperate to get out, he continued running out only to be met by a whizzing small piece of metal which pierced one end of his body and came out on the other side of his chest. He immediately flopped down to the ground like a rag doll.

Suddenly a man walked in slowly carrying a big box. He didn't have a bio suit or those thick glass masks like those men who had locked them up years ago. No he came just as he was. In a plain white trousers and shirt.
"I can save you," he said. He took a big bowl and started mixing some water with leaves from one of the tree branches. Then he took some type of soil from a nearby tree, then mixed it together with some other liquid. Some people started walking towards him and he gave them a drink from the bowl. They drank quickly so much so that some of the liquid exited their mouth on the sides dripping down their bony cheeks. They expected some big change but nothing happened. Some laughed, mocked and turned away grumbling about the man wasting their time and waking them from their sleep. Others couldn't stomach the idea of drinking the strange looking cure made from all sorts of things. They turned their backs and went back to their misfortune of waiting for the end to come upon them.
"Please trust me. Believe in me. I can save you," the man beckoned again.
A few more walked towards the man and took a drink from his cup, hoping that his words of a cure could possibly be true. Sam and the old woman edged towards the man in white and drank some of his weird tasting drink.

The man stayed with them, helping those who were sick cooking meals for them, carrying their crops from the fields. He helped chop wood with some of the stronger men who were building homes. Then he also taught and helped the little boys to fish. A few weeks later the man started showing symptoms of the disease. He had been exposed to the disease and now he was contaminated. And the disease was eating him away quicker than anyone had ever seen.
"Why don't you drink the cure and save yourself?"
"It has to be this way," the man said as he lay dying.
"But why?" a woman asked tears running down her cheeks as she watched him in pain.
"You don't understand now but some day you will."
By sunset he was dead.
A few cried that such a kind young man had gone so quickly. But soon after his death, something strange started happening. Health started coming to the bodies of all that had drank the cure. Their wounds and sores started to heal, their chests began to clear. The pain began to disappear.
The man had been telling the truth. He had brought them the cure for their disease. He had come to help them. But in doing so, it had cost him his life.

                                                                       ~~~~~

This story was inspired by the following scripture:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 NIV