Viral

3 - Zone 4

To Anonymous: you made high school that little bit brighter and I'm honoured to have been able to call you one of my best friends for almost two of those years. I am so so sorry you thought this was your only way out. My only regret is not savouring your craziness while it lasted.

Sleep well, brother <3

I woke up coughing and spluttering in unfamiliar quarters. The screaming was distant now. Everything was distant, actually. The world sounded muffled and an icy chill prickled my skin; my whole body felt like it was submerged in ice water. But I was dry. And yet the cold was shocking and everywhere and my muscles ached and I still could barely peel open my eyes. A faraway ringing buzzed with a fierce softness that inadvertently demanded my attention. Somehow I knew it was only in my head and yet I couldn't ignore it. 

"Hann!" A voice that must have been shouting sounded only very faint. "Hannah, wake up!"

Bright, yellow light replaced the stark whiteness that flooded my vision, temporarily blinding me. It flashed back and forth for a second before I could finally focus in on a chubby face with wide, murky green eyes, staring at me with a fierce intensity. They were waving one of those flashlight keychains in my face. 

Swatting Joe away, I tried sitting up, squinting in the harsh fluorescent lighting of... well, wherever I was. I sat up too fast and had to quickly turn around to empty the contents of my stomach, gagging and retching. All that came out was a thin, watery goup and yet it burned my throat like acid. I threw up a few more times and slowly, so slowly, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Everything ached and my movements were slow and sloth-like.

"What's happening?" My voice cracked like I hadn't used it in weeks. Actually, my whole body felt dehydrated. My throat was scratchy and stinging and my lips were dry and caked in dust from the cracked, dead skin. 

From somewhere to the right, I heard Reed grumbling a string of profanities. His usual Cherokee tan had vanished and his face was as pale as bone. Craig and Allison, the other two who had gotten the injection with us, looked even worse. Craig's face had turned an unnatural shade of green and Allison was swaying back and forth despite sitting down.

It took a moment to realise the screaming had stopped. It had stopped a long time ago... 

A hazy memory probed at the back of my mind, but as soon as I tried to focus on it, it got scrambled and wispy and vanished like someone had blown it away. 

"Get up!" Joe hissed in my ear, his voice suddenly a thousand times clearer than it had been a second ago.

The ringing was crisper now, too, almost scornful. Tutting. Like it was clicking its tongue in contempt. Could a sound be disapproving? Apparently.

"We have to get out of here!" Joe was saying, but I ignored him. It occurred to me just how foreign this room looked, the only familiarity the translucent tarp draped around us on all sides.

The six of us had woken up in a room with no furniture and no walls. Impossibly white, the immaculate floor seemed to be the only solid surface in the room. As for the room, it was big for a quarantine room. It could easily fit twenty or thirty people. 

Bordering the room was six poles seeming to stick right out of the ground, positioned like points on a hexagon. Other beams criss-crossed between them for support and all six had additional poles above them that all met at a point in the middle. Translucent, plastic tarp was draped over the whole structure, barring us off from the world outside. The fluorescent lighting came from somewhere outside our room, bright enough to penetrate the plastic tarp. A room like this should have been hot and humid like a greenhouse, but I couldn't shake the chill like I was submerged in icy water.