CHAPTER. 20

CHAPTER 20

*Sigh*

Staring at the people in different infirmary rooms, Maxwell let out a deep breath as he remembered the pain he also had to go through in that situation. Naturally wherever good fortune existed danger was bound to also be present, but no matter how many millions of people coveted them, none of them would ever wish for the dangers that were associated. Just at

that moment, a young man of about thirty years of age began to convulse in one of the rooms. As the white foams slid down his cheeks, purple veins began to appear, giving the feeling of thin long wriggly snakes taking over his face. Within moments he was unmoving - at least his body was. As for the purple veins, they continued to wriggle across his face as though they were independently existing. On a monitor assigned to that room to show the state of his vitals, his skeletal frame could be seen changing in a very slow - almost none existent manner.

*Pop*

The sound of bones popping and cracking was transmitted through the radio installed in the room as the man slowly turned into something totally unrecognizable when compared to his previous identity. Soon, pus began to leak from his seven orifices and his over grown bones began to poke out of different parts of his body, on the screen a purplish coloured substance could be seen circulating to the various parts of the fellows body and seemed to be the cause of whatever was happening.

"As you can see, this is the end product of those that fail to survive. As of now we are not so sure of that but at least seventy-five percent of those that failed to successfully transform their system end up like this. We know that the actual cause of the mutation is the purplish matter that is shown on the screen, but as to why some people are actually able to successfully subdue it while others end up like this is still unknown. Some of the scientists from the bigger and well equipped sanctuaries hypothesize that the chances are related to something deeper, maybe a genetic uniqueness or stuff like that. Well it is however certain that we still need at least twenty years to find out what it is except a miracle occurs", Dr James said.

Watching the state the once handsome young man was reduced to, Anthonia shivered involuntarily. "Is the sickness limited to a certain type of people?, or have there been a discovery on the symptoms and causes related to the sickness?", she asked. Naturally she was scared, totally terrified that her heart seemed ready to jump out of her chest. Why wouldn't she be after all?, she was not like Maxwell that was wishing for those people to pull through the period of sickness like him, she was worried about her self. She like many others had not undergone the sickness trial and pulled through, what was her assurance that when she finally fell ill with the sickness, she would be able to survive?. No matter what she was not ready to die but in this case she seemed to have no say over her life.

Hearing her question, Dr James smiled. "So it turns out that our vice sanctuary leader is actually scared silly huh?" he teased her. "You have no need to worry too much, we are doing everything we can to find a lead on this. After all we ourselves as the scientists are also humans and who is to say that all of us are going to be left out by the sickness?, naturally none of us wants to die and will do everything in our means to find something".

Even Maxwell himself showed an extreme concern on the topic as well. No matter what happened, he wouldn't want anything to happen to Anthonia. "So for people that end up like this, what happens to them?", he asked directly changing the topic.

Looking at the unmoving disgusting thing in the room, Maxwell almost forgot that it was once a human being before. He had no doubt that if he was to encounter it in the wild he would gladly rid the world of such a grosteque looking creature, but at this moment he realised that he was actually feeling conflicted. At that moment the face of the zombies that he had killed began to appear in his sea of consciousness causing him to feel a chill in his spine. If he met zombies now, was he supposed to kill them or not just because they were once people like him?. Obviously he was going to have to do the needed - cleave their skulls apart, or he would regret his action.

Seeing the looks on Maxwell's and Anthonia's faces, James laughed softly before speaking. "Just because we spend most of our time holed up in here, most of you guys think of us as inferior and believe that we will not even be able to survive on out own. But what we see in here from your facial expressions are far worse than you guys see out there. At times, we haveto watch stuff like this happen to people we are acquainted with or those we love, but we still push that suffocating feeling tothe back of our minds and instead convert them into zeal to find answers quickly. . .".

As he was speaking, the already disgusting looking corpse of the mutated young man suddenly opened its eyes which

seemed to glow a faint purple and let out a bone chilling sound as it stared at the people outside the ward. Clearly unlike the

normal zombies or combatants, this - whatever it was - was an even more terrifying creature and it seemed to be a completely different mutant.

Letting out a blood curling sound, the creature positioned itself in an attacking mode and ran towards the glass.

*Bang*.

It struck the glass before retreating, a snarling sound was released from its throat as it steadied itself for another round of attack. A clear sign of mockery could be seen in its irksome glowing eyes as it regarded the people watching it from the outside, obviously it had a very high intelligence. Just as it was getting ready for the next attack on the sturdy reinforced glass, the strange purplish virus in the system of the corpse creature suddenly began to act violently. Rapidly, the body of the creature began to swell as panic began to appear in its eyes. Before it could let out another sound from its throat, it actually exploded on the spot.

*Silence. . .*, the surrounding people.

"Sooo. . . That wasn't supposed to happen". Dr James said, "I think this is something worth discussing with other proficient people in this field, whatever that was, it could probably be the end of us humans".

Picking up several files, Dr James busied himself filling them with the observations he was able to take note of and the direct procedures things seemed to follow. Seeing him so engrossed in the collation of files on the weird creature. Maxwell and Anthonia knew that at the moment they wouldn't be able to have the doctor all to themselves, they directly decided to take their leaves and revisit when he was less occupied. Sharing a mutual glance with Maxwell, she directly began to walk away with Maxwell behind her.

*********

Basit sat on a wooden bench, watching the red sun set was a really mesmerising opportunity. Although the group were not out in the world saving people or gathering supplies, they found various ways to keep themselves engaged and prevent boredom.

As for him, his own hobby was now to seat under the red setting sun and think of what his life before the apocalypse and how he would have turned out. As for his love life, the name Joy 'frequently' popped up in his mind and caused him to feel a bit of dejection. No matter what he was a human and he expected his feelings to be responded to. If not he would naturally accept it and try to keep the incident out of his life. But joy wasn't just any woman, she was one of his friends. Instead of a tactical or straightforward decline, she made sure to humiliate him and even insulted him to the fullest. Thinking back to then, his heart clenched as a kind of strange pain filled his heart, 'if only she would even look in his direction, how good would it be. . . '. He thought.

"What is the matter?", Ebbie said interrupting his thoughts. Naturally she had noticed that apart from admiring the beautiful scenario, Basit seemed to be carried away and even hurt by something. She just couldn't bring herself to ignore him.

"Nothing much, I just. . . You know. . . I feel so lonely at times", he said. Naturally his loneliness originated from the fact that the girl he loved didn't even want to give him face and would always look down on him in public and private, he wanted to feel loved but even that seemed to be so distant from his, how would he not be down.

"So that's it?". Ebbie asked, "You are just going to give up like this?. I can see it in your eyes that you are beginning to lose confidence in yourself, you know. . . If you are just this much, then I guess you are not worth being in a relationship at all", she said.

Naturally she didn't want to discourage him or anything, she actually wanted to give him a reason to keep on trying, but she had long realised that the best way to do things was to advance in the disguise of retreat. By scolding Basit in such a manner, she was only hoping that he would take that as a motivation and push himself harder and closer to her instead of actually giving up on her. Since she could thing in such a direction, how could Basit still be ignorant of the reason why Ebbie was scolding him so harshly, but thinking back, he realised that he didn't mind and was actually motivated by the determination to prove to her that he was worthy and didn't lose out to the kind of guys she was thinking she would love to have.

Thinking to that point, he looked at Ebbie in with a smile as he thanked her for the advice and directly rose to his feet, it was time to prove to a certain lady that he was just like her ideal man, not losing out to him in the slightest and was even better than she would receive from other men in the vast world.