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Author's Chapter Notes:

 I'm so sorry for the hiatus, but between the holidays and frigid weather, my inspiration was shot. Finally, after writing a couple of pages here and there, I gained the drive to write again, and is still thrilled by this story. So without saying more, I give you the next chapter, enjoy!




Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


Immediately, the whole room spun and my feet were no longer beneath me. Minutes passed, yet I still stood over the trash bin. Shadows displayed the figures surrounding me, while quick voice asked questions. They spoke of Phase II, of symptoms, of an examination, and all the while I couldn’t stop from gagging. When I was able to breathe longer than ten seconds, someone lifted me into their arms. Dry gags took my face away from the man who held me, yet the dizziness and bright lights had me hiding in his shoulder. We started to move, my body swayed into his tight embrace.  More people chattered on, but closed eyes shielded me from their faces. Slowly, everything was forgotten and I tried to concentrate on my cramped stomach.

“I want her in the back room, right next to my office.” Karen left little room for discussion as she threw out strict orders. In haste, we stormed out of the breakfast room and toward the locked hallway door.

“Karen, was it successful?” a voice, now familiar and kind, called out from behind us. It belonged to a former Politian who flew out from the Island. His story was pretty much the same as the other; find out the truth about the virus and the government involvement, left once he heard the tale of the rebel’s cove. However, one never knows the truth.

“I don’t know, Burgess. We have to test her first.” Karen’s voice held both urgency and annoyance. Our speed picked up and the cement ceilings became a blur.

“Test who?” I called out and turned toward Karen’s voice. We were upon the locked door that separates the hospital from the rest of floor. Its keypad quickly turned green and it opened. Karen’s eyes met mine and sadness morphed her features. She didn’t answer but rubbed my arm instead. “You know what’s wrong with me…you did this?” Betrayal ate at my gut and hysteria took over. “I can’t be like him; I can’t turn into one of them!” I screamed, Jasper’s morphed body at the front of my mind.  

I clawed at my carrier’s arms but his hold tightened. I looked up to see Norris staring ahead. No matter how I moved, or what I hit, he stayed deadpanned and kept moving quickly. Like instructed, he carried me to a room right next to Karen’s office. I always thought it was a closet, but once inside I realized it was far more impressive.

My eyes, glued with the large animal in the room; it was a state of the art radiological device.  Its large head loomed over a flat glass bed in the center of the room, while its neck curved into its massive frame. A hum echoed around us as the beast came alive followed by a bright light. Frantically, I fought harder as Norris walked closer to the bed. “You have two choices; calm down or I will put you to sleep,” Norris commanded and pure fear kept me frozen. “Good choice,” he said immediately as I sat quietly. Norris dropped me on the cold surface and more nurses spilled into the room. Cupboards opened, seals split, and rolling tables were brought over to me.

“Please…Norris, please don’t let them do this to me. I’m not sick, I don’t have anything!” I screamed as a nurse with scissors approached me. “NO!” I yelled and threw my leg out to kick her away. Instantly the stainless steel dropped to the floor and the woman jumped away. I took this moment to hop off the table, only to be yanked back.

Hands gripped my ponytail and swung me into their grip, while I clawed at the person’s arms. By strength, I knew it was Norris. Immediately, I kicked backwards and my foot connected with his shin. “Ahh…” he groaned, the snap sound recognizable. Norris dropped to his knees and gave me enough time to run, and run I did. I pushed the defenseless doctors and nurses out of my way, and barged out of the door.

 I worked in the hospital, so I knew my way through; all I needed was to get to the exit door. I picked up a surgical knife from an abandoned tray and covered as much ground as I could, but my stomach began to cramp again. This time it felt like I was being hit with a sledge hammer. I screamed and slumped toward a wall, as large footfalls signaled my chasers. I pushed through harsh breaths and continued on. If only I could find Jasper…if only Michael were here, I thought and then I heard my name.

“Celeste!” I looked in the direction of the sound as Michael began to run to me from the opposite end of the hallway. His large frame washed me with a sense of relief and endurance, yet my body had other plans.

“Ahh!” I screamed  as another cramp brought me to my knees. The excruciating pain had me clutching for strength, but my body just curled into itself. The sounds of fighting surrounded me and I looked out to see Michael going hand to hand with one of Norris’s guards.

Karen was here too. “I want her in the room now!” She bellowed angrily, as her low heels brought her closer to me.

I managed to crawl to my hands and knees, only to succumb to the pain. “Is she infected?” Someone closer screamed as beads of sweat poured from my head and convulsion took over my body. Was I sick…did I become an infected, I thought fell to the tiled floor.

“Michael…” the call was on my last breath as pain exploded. The fighting continued. I could make out his grunts and moans from being taking over, but everything was blurry. My heart raced, my temperature dropped, and the cramps grew stronger. Was I dying…was this it?

****

Inhale.

I choked up a large breath as my eyes adjusted to the little light in the room. I came to in a room much like my bedroom but the sterile smell reminded me of the hospital. Sounds of the woods seeped through the surround sound speakers; birds, rustling leaves in the winds, a stream somewhere in the distance. For seconds, I just listened, wondered when those woods became a better place than where I was now.

A small lamp lit up from the corner of the room and instantly my hand reached for a weapon. However, I looked down to see strips of brown leather strapped to my wrists and legs. I turned back to the corner as watched as the person moved. Her amber eyes watched me as I took in her face. “What the hell are you doing here?”

A sad smile came to Karen’s face as she straightened her legs and stood. Smoothly, she adjusted her lab coat and came toward my bed. “I had to be here when you woke up,” her voice was a mask of a sincere person.

I made to move only to be reminded of the restraints. “I would kill you if I wasn’t strapped in.” I spoke deadly, and her eyes glassed over.

“And I would not be surprise, probably deserve it, but I was doing this for the greater good. Celeste, I’m sorry,” she whispered and turned towards my bedside monitor. Frail, tired hands swiftly wiped away the tears, and silence filled the room.

“Did you give me the virus?” I interrogated when her tears stopped.

Karen stayed silent for a while but her attention came back to me.  “No,” she answered. “What you have may seem worse, but it’s a blessing to the cause.”

“What the hell does that mean? I vomit and you guys respond like I’m turning into some kind of creature. I’m strapped to a fucking bed, Karen. What did you do me?”

 “Phase II.” She looked quickly at the monitors and then took a step back. “At the beginning, we thought we found a cure. Several volunteers from the cove were injected with an altered Z virus. They showed great resistant when exposed to the infected and an improvement in their core strength, brain functionality, and fight ability. They became our best defense against the Zs. So we trained them, much like we do with all of our military and then we sent them to the academy. However within two weeks, I get a message saying they were all gone.”

“Dead?”

“Turned. The virus won over and turned them, however they weren’t like the other Zs. They morphed, became more adapted, deadlier biters. We…I created monsters, worse than what was unleashed on the world.”

“Have you killed them?” I asked instantly, my pulse raced with the thought of another threat.

“You should know the answer to that. You’ve seen them.” She said and looked at me with certainty. Before I knew it, a flashback to the academy tunnel brought back images of the things that clustered at the end.

“Are you fucking crazy?” I let out as fear took over. “Those things will rip apart this world. We can barely survive the Zs but those things…what if it spreads?”

“They were contained in the tunnel for months; Norris said he had it all under control, until you let them out. Orders were made immediately, to apprehend you and the others before I knew who you were. No one has ever seen them full developed; we needed to know what we created.”

“Well by now we’re not the only ones who have seen them. They’re loose.” My body burned with rage as I looked at Karen. She seemed so small, and yet she created such a huge mess. “It doesn’t matter who created the virus anymore, when you made a deadlier weapon.”

“Which is why I needed to find a cure now, and I did.” Her voice rose with optimism and I blanched. “We tried for years, tested everything we could find. We took in more people than we could support just to hear their knowledge, to look for the link between predator and prey. We needed to understand how to save people without them becoming monsters like the fighters, but every one of them died, their bodies were too weak to bond with the virus, but I knew there was a way. I analyzed over and over for a years, before I found…”

“Before you found me…” I interrupted, but her eyes glassed over as she looked beyond me, memories plagued her mind.

“No, before I found Nikolai, Sage’s brother.” Karen rubbed at a necklace around her neck before continuing.  “The brothers were students of Norris at West Point Military Academy. Their family was poor and immigrants from Russia. Their devotion to school and the government raised red flags in most eyes, and yet their test scores gained them a few adorers. Once the virus spread, Norris ordered the boys to assist him during the war and when we found them a year ago, they were ready to join the cause. We exposed Nikolai first and his change was immaculate.”

Her attention came back to me, as she licked her lips, and with urgency, continued on. “When a healthy person gets the virus we created, your body attacks it, breaks it apart and takes the benefits. However the poison is locked up, covered in white blood cells that are ready to attack once the danger is exposed. It was the only success in my trials before him, but not enough for a full recovery, not even for us to believe. And then we tested Nikolai. His body did something completely different. At best, he would be alive but just a vegetable; at worse, he would be just like the ones at the academy. However, his body bonded with the virus, right down to his DNA, and he didn’t turn.”

“That’s impossible,” I gasped. I have seen hundreds of ways people got infected, and yet each time there turned.

“I know. I thought that as well, and then I was afraid he would turn when we least expected, so we kept him isolated in the cove, in a room, much like this one. We observed him twenty four hours, seven days a week and he lived without turning for months...”

I watched her in astonishments. If he survived, if they had a cure, why wasn’t it produced? “Why didn’t you contact anyone? Why are you still in hiding, preacher about the failures of our government?” She turned away from me again and I realized that something went wrong. She didn’t have the cure. “What happened to Nikolai?”

“Two months ago, he went crazy. His body couldn’t handle the pressure. Insomnia started, his hunger became insatiable, and strength was uncontrollable. It happened so fast, so quickly came the downfall. Within days, he became bedridden, weak and sweaty. Next were the heart attacks…”

“He turned?”

“In a way, yes, but it wasn’t what you expected. His body was the enemy in this experiment. It worked so hard to fight, protect him from the benign part of the virus that he became ill, eventually died after heart attack. We were all crushed, years of research gone within seconds, and I was close to being done. You arrived and all I wanted to know was what happened with the academy. I was so blindsided that I didn’t see what was right in front of me. I see the link. All this time, we thought that we could just inject ourselves with the deadliest virus and puff there was a cure. However it was never just about making a cure, but getting our bodies to adapt to any virus. We needed a host that wouldn’t see our infection as a bad thing. We need it to recognize the virus as a part of the body and allow it? We’ve conquered with making the poison benign, now we needed to conquer our immune system.”

“Where do I fit in?”

“The solution to our problems relay on hereditary genetics. The easiest way for a body to be fooled into ignoring the virus is to be born with it. And since no one has ever been born with this disease…”

“You needed a pregnant woman…” I said understanding her words, and sat up higher. It began to make sense, and as my mind slowly comprehended her message, Karen became impatient and urged me on.

“We needed the cure, from the perfect set of parents.” Those deep set eyes poured her true conviction.

And instantly, my mind went blank. My breaths became labored, shorter and quick. “No…you didn’t, no…” I whispered and stared down at my abdomen. “No…”

“You are perfect, Celeste, perfect health, perfect age. You’ve lived on the outside for three years, adapted with finesse to the world. You faced the dangers and prevailed, naturally your body will pass down these qualities; it’s the value of evolution so humans can survive. You are everything I’ve waited for, I couldn’t…”

“You couldn’t what?” I exploded as the reality of her words sunk in. I couldn’t fathom anything, I could barely breath.

“I couldn’t just let you go. I never prepared for you to say no to the cause, to helping the world. You will save all of us. The blood that will run through this baby will save us all.”

“You are fucking crazy!”

She shook away my outbursts, and took a deep as if I was the crazy one. Disgusted with her, I pulled angrily at the restraints, only for her hands to land on mine. “I know you’re upset but we all have a purpose, we all have a job in this world.”

“Get your hands off me!” I yelled in her face, but Karen seemed numb to my emotion. Nothing would change her psychotic views, but the damage was done anyway. “You are fucking crazy…would you have done this to your daughter?”

My words resonated through the room and snapped us both back to the bitter reality of death. Hurt unsheathed itself and her glassy eyes showed the battle. I watched as the softness which tugged at my sympathy, now hardened within seconds. “She would’ve been proud,” she spat out instantly, and before I predicted movement a sharp sound echoed through the room, and a sting ignited against my cheek. The impact sent my head toward the pillow behind me, momentarily paralyzing me. By time the shock released me, Karen’s hands were at her mouth, muffled sobs barely heard. Clogged feet slowly took her away, closer to the door as shook with anger. “I’m sorry, Celeste…I just want you to see the good. You need to see the good…”she repeated but I was livid, drunk off rage.

“I will burn down this fucking nut house, and kill you and myself before I bring a monster into the world!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, even as the IVs filled quickly with a different liquid. Sleep was imminent, but I wouldn’t take my eyes off her. “Mark my words,” were the last I could yell before a frigid, coldness seeped through my bloodstream and took me away.

 

 

 






Chapter End Notes:

...well, I hope I returned with a bang. next chapter up soon. 







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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.