Side Chapter: Attempt to escape

[ Ogata's POV]

"We might have to leave soon." I tell the reporter that has been my companion for the last 3 days, I wasn't sure what time it was anymore as my phone had died on the first day while Saya's, my companion, phone died on the second. I completely forgot that these sandwiches will probably spoil in a day or two, which meant we were going to have to go out and find food somehow, or die of starvation.

"You... you want to go back out and return to that shit show?! I think you're going mental doc, sooner or later, you're gonna need me to become a therapist for you." Saya annoyingly complains with a slightly raised voice over what I had just said, I can slightly understand where she's coming from but I'm slowly growing tired of her presence.

"You can stay and starve if you want, who knows? Maybe you can survive off of spoiled sandwiches and just shit on the other room alongside the zombies." I replied to her complaints before standing up from my seat, preparations needed to be made before going out so I needed to find a weapon to use. Not that there were a lot of choices considering how the sharpest thing in this room is a small scalpel...

"Hey, wait... fine, I'd rather die out there than die out of starvation or diarrhea with those zombies." Saya quickly spouts out as she stands up from the floor she had been sitting and sleeping on since this entire thing began. Fortunately, she had remained quiet for most of the time but her slightly annoying voice and strength of will had begun to return yesterday after I had run my experiment.

"Empty the plastic bags that have sandwiches inside them and bring 30 packs of sandwiches and 25 bottles of water only, we can bring more but they'd probably spoil along the way." I ordered Saya who seems to be annoyed at the prospect of being ordered around but she does it anyway, albeit with a very obvious scowl on her face.

"Fine, what will you be doing in the meantime then?" Saya asks with irritation laced in her tone as she slowly emptied the contents of the plastic bags on the floor. We didn't have anything to put our stuff in other than the plastic bags, my briefcase, and two very small first aid bags which meant that we needed to carry around our gear in plastic bags instead.

I had also thrown away all of the useless stuff inside the briefcase and replaced its contents with the written records of findings made by the scientists and doctors who were running these experiments before me. I had already read all of them in my free time but the information inside of it was either information I already knew or information that was of no use to me.

'God, this bitch is starting to annoy me.' I think to myself, opting to just ignore the bit of irritation that grows in me whenever I hear her voice. "I'm gonna go collect a few more blood samples from Test subjects 01 and 02, collecting more from unrestrained zombies will be too hard and might end up causing my death instead so I'd rather we collect samples now rather than later."

Our conversation quietly died down after that, which was quite fortunate for me because I wouldn't need to hear her voice anymore. I didn't have anything I could put the blood and meat samples in so I opted to just use empty sandwich wrappers for the meat samples and an empty water bottle for the blood samples.

I put on a pair of medical gloves and took a scalpel with me as well as the things I was going to use to collect and tuck away the samples before moving close to the door that led to the other side. The audible mechanical sound of the door opening and closing behind me was welcomed by the sound of agitated screeches coming from the two strapped zombies, what was quite weird though was the fact that the two were screeching in the direction of the other instead of me.

'They aren't rotting...' I think to myself after I took mental notes of the sense of aggression that the two zombies were directing at one another. I ignored this weird behavior between the two for now and turned my attention to the lack of a rotting smell inside the room. I was willing to chalk its absence for the last two days to just the virus possibly slowing down the rotting process alongside the still working air conditioners but this was too much...

"Does this mean that they're still alive, or are they still dead and the virus is somehow capable of completely stopping the rotting process?" I asked no one in particular as I moved closer to test subject 02 or as he was previously known by his colleague, Takano. I decided to try testing out the sturdiness of the skin by poking the area around his shoulder with my scalpel a few times, only stopping after the small knife had pierced his flesh by a small margin after I added a bit more force into my thrusts.

'Hm, his flesh isn't rotting but it's softer than it is supposed to be. I can't feel any pulses or heartbeats coming from the radial artery in his wrist either which means he is "dead".' I thought to myself after taking off my right hand's glove to better confirm the lack of a heartbeat from test subject 02.

I took enough blood from test subject 02 to fill up half of the bottle, its dark maroon color was an obvious sign that no oxygen had been circulating in his body which was the likely cause of their bluish pale skin. I was extracting blood from the radial artery on the thumb of his wrist which meant a living and breathing human was supposed to have a bright red hue which was different from the shade of blood I had inside the bottle.

I then took out three small thumb-sized portions of skin and muscle from his arm and one portion close to his bite wound. I threw the three portions that I took from the arm in one bag while keeping the portion that I took near the bite wound in a separate bag before moving closer to Test Subject 01, formerly known as Dr. Yasui Ryo before he turned into a zombie.

"What the hell...?" I voiced out my thoughts after gazing at the view in front of me, a layer of a mixture of fear, surprise, and awe was present in my voice. Ryo, or test subject 01, had been bitten in the area of the arm in the middle of the elbow and the wrist which meant his wound was close to where the restraints held him back into the bed.

What shocked me wasn't the size of the wound, his bluish pale skin, nor was it his bloodshot eyes. No... it was the clear disfigurement of where the gurney's straps were tied into the bed's metal frame as well as slightly unnoticeable but present growth spurt of both his body and muscular tissue in places where a bodybuilder would focus their training regiments on.

Ryo was a scientist with nothing but studies and his job filling his mind which meant he never went to the gym, and yet the bed's slightly bent metal frame and his own body had begun to show signs that completely contradicted the living Ryo's lifestyle. I turned my gaze at the floor that was directly beneath where the wrist straps were still secured, a few broken zip ties laying on the floor's surface as they looked to have been forcefully broken.

A sense of fear rose from the deep recesses of my mind as thoughts of both the desire to study this specimen as well as running away in fear mixed into a weird cocktail of emotion. Wishing to test the sturdiness of test subject 01's body, I decided to try the same "experiments" that I had run on Takano which was to stab his body multiple times.

I was able to pierce Takano's body with the scalpel after applying more force to each thrust but the fact that I needed about five times the amount of strength that I had used on Takano to pierce Ryo's body had only served to further fuel the fear and curiosity inside me. I still managed to take samples from test subject 01, albeit with a bit more effort but it was accomplished nonetheless.

I leave the room with bags of samples as well as bottles of their blood with me before placing them on top of an empty tray. My thoughts wandered back to the aggressive reactions that both zombies were directing at one another which was one more observation that managed to rattle my mind. Test subject 01's body wasn't rotting either but it wasn't turning softer too, rather it had begun to slightly harden instead.

'So does this mean every zombie is capable of resisting rot too? As for the aggressive atmosphere, I can't make any assumptions just yet as we only have these two test subjects but it seems like they seemed to view one another as an enemy.' I think to myself as I was emptying one of the first aid kits before placing the samples inside of it, making sure that they were all separated from one another accordingly.

As for the second first aid kit, I preferred it to remain as it was though I did make sure to add in a few pill jars for some of the more common diseases. Pill jars usually had extra space inside them which meant those pills could rattle from the inside and make noise. This problem was quite easily solved though as I just filled them up to the brim instead so that it wouldn't be capable of making any more noises.

"Oh my God, what the fuck?!" Saya screamed out with a voice loud enough for me to hear but probably, and hopefully quiet enough to remain inaudible from the outside of this room. Her scream manages to catch my attention which prompted me to look at her, taking note of the fact that she was pointing her index finger at the glass panes that allowed people from this side to view the other room so I turned my eyes there instead.

Test Subject 02, who was struggling earlier during my test had seemingly increased his frequency and force in his attempts to escape which became the final straw as he managed to tear the wrist straps and zip ties off. He then used that free hand to smash and pull apart the other restraints that had been keeping him secured to the bed.

He quickly stood up from the bed before rushing toward test subject 02's still restrained body with both of his hands raised high above his head. The two were most likely screeching at one another judging from the shapes created by their mouths but Takano's screeches were halted as test subject 01 began smashing both of his closed fists onto Takano's head, only stopping as Takano's cranium was smashed into where his brain was.

The "fight" between the two settled down afterward with Test Subject 01 opting to pull out Takano's head from the neck up off of his body, gore and blood spewing out in a mess as Test Subject 01 pulled Takano's disembodied head closer before he began eating it. Starting from the crown of Takano's head as it remained standing upright while ignoring Takano's now headless and slouched body.

'This... so does that mean that zombies who carry drastic mutations as well as normal zombies view one another as a food source or is it because they haven't eaten anything for the past few days?' I questioned myself without voicing it out, though I wanted to run more tests on this specimen, trying to go on the other side of the room will probably be the same as committing suicide.

"Let's go, there's no point in staying here so just keep your mouth shut and follow me." I told Saya before moving closer to the door with the two first aid bags slung over me while my right hand carried the scalpel and the briefcase on the other. I had thought of two ways to get out of this building, both of which were equally risky as one of the plans would need us to go through the hallways to leave while the other plan involved using curtains or a fire hose to dangle down through the window.

'I'd rather fall to my death than to get bitten and turn into one of them so window plan it is.' I think to myself while weighing both the pros and cons of both plans as I placed the hand carrying my briefcase over the door's handle. I also knew that the hallway to the left side of this door had a fire hose cabinet which meant we already had most of what we needed to escape.

I slowly and quietly opened the door with the sight of an empty and blood hallway welcoming me back to the "outside" world of the room I had just spent a few days in. The electricity in the hospital remained functional as light coming from the ceiling in front of me illuminated the hallway we had walked through a few days ago to get here.

The puddle of blood that Takano had slipped on the other day had already dried on the floor as a visible mark was the only thing that proved that something was once there. I turned my gaze to the left, finding that hallway to be empty as well so I began moving in its direction while Saya followed close behind me as she carried two plastic bags that carried the water and sandwiches we were going to bring with us.

I went past a few closed doors before stopping in front of the fire hose cabinet, inside of it was the very hose we were going to use alongside a portable fire extinguisher. I open the cabinet and take out the hose, the rolled up and slightly heavy weight bore down on me as I began moving closer to the open door directly opposite of the cabinet.

I slowly put the hose down in front of the door, psyching myself up as I tightly gripped onto the scalpel that I held on to. I barely needed to push the door as it was already open so I then peered inside the room and found its interior to be empty and dark as no rays of light pierced through the window's curtain which meant it was dark outside.

I flicked the light switch beside the door which caused the lightbulbs inside of the room to flicker back to life, giving me a clearer picture of what lay in front of me. The room was empty but the bed still had its blanket, pillow covers, and bed covers we can use to lengthen our hose alongside the window curtains if we needed to.

We were lucky and found a vacant patient room so I made sure to pull the hose inside of the room while Saya just looked around and did nothing. The hose would remain flat and thin unless I used the water valve, which I didn't so it allowed me to bring the hose inside. This meant that we still retained the ability to close and lock the door we went through which was exactly what I had done after making sure that I've brought as much of the hose as I could inside.

"What do we do now?" Saya asks me while my attention was over how long the fire hose was. The fire hose we had was a standard issue type which meant it should be about 100 meters long which means it was long enough for us to use to get back down. The hospital had two wings and a central building, the eastern wing had 3 floors, the western wing had 7 floors and the central building had 5 floors.

"We'll go down using the hose one by one, tie the plastic bags near the end of the hose so that I'll be able to untie them once I've reached the bottom." I answered Saya right after I finished tying a portion of the hose to the bed. 'We're on the eastern wing's third floor which is to the left of the breach around the perimeter, we don't have flashlights to help guide us but the lamp posts in the parking areas should be good enough.'

"Hey, who said your gonna get to be first huh?! You'll probably just leave me behind here after untying the supplies from the hose." Saya complains back, earning her a sigh from me as I began to feel pity for Takano who had been her colleague before turning into a zombie. Resigning myself to the fate of having to conform to Saya's requests just to shut her up, I chose to interrupt her rant with my own words.

"Fine, fine, you can go first. I'll handle untying the second plastic bag while you handle the first, make sure to do it quietly." I tell Saya whose face now carried a smug grin over her show of "dominance" between us two. We spent the next 5 minutes making sure that the plastic bags were tightly secured around the metal end of the hose, a gap between the metal end and each plastic bag was placed as well just to make sure they wouldn't hit one another.

We began to slowly drop the hose, making sure that its metal end wouldn't hit the ground directly below the window that was illuminated by a lamp post. Satisfied with our work, Saya then used up the next 3 minutes slowly going down the hose inch by inch while her gaze was turned to the ground beneath her. Most of it went according to plan but it was after she reached the second plastic bag that she began to deviate from it.

I was unable to react at first since I wasn't able to see her exact actions from this angle but it was after she reached the ground that I finally realized what her plan was. She was planning on escaping all on her own, a plan that became quite obvious as she threw me a middle finger before running away to reach the breach. I stood there, flabbergasted though not entirely surprised over what she had done.

"Is this because I decided to put my faith in her that I chose to ignore the prospect of her doing this or am I just that fucking stupid." I said to no one in particular while quietly and deprecatingly laughing at myself. It was while I was laughing at my stupidity that I began to see the headlights of 5, maybe 6, vehicles coming from the road with a white prison bus at its head.

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AN: Hey, sorry if there's a sudden drop in quality for this one, I had to take a booster shot the other day which was followed by going to two different malls on the one day that followed and shopping for stuff while it was raining two days after. What I'm trying to say is that I began to feel a head-splitting headache about halfway through writing this, so yeah. This will probably be the last side chapter for a while, as for those who are confused over the timeline of events and why it said that they've spent 3 days, well explanation will be below this paragraph.

I'm just as confused as you are. (Not really but if you want an explanation then just tell me, the timeline barely matters, and just know that this is happening about a few hours earlier than the events on the chapter this was uploaded with). I wanted my last side chapter (for a while) to be as long as the usual chapter which is why this one became 3k+ words long and I wanted it to be a momentous chapter as well which is why I introduced the first mutation type in this chapter as well.