Chapter 3
The alarm was ringing all over the centre compound and people were running all over the corridors. I was running to Abbie's dormitory, I had to warn her, I had to protect her, I didn't know how, but I didn't care. I had to be there with her. So I continue to run through the corridors dedalal. My thoughts were running at full speed. Looking back, Lucia had been behaving strangely for several days. I didn't mind because I don't care about the attitude of my teammates as long as they do their job properly. But at that moment, however, I blamed myself for not having tried to understand why she had changed her attitude. If I had been more careful I might have been able to find out what she had in mind and prevent the disaster that was probably happening at the time I was running. Because if the centre was an impenetrable fortress without authorization it was also a closed place, with an internal ventilation system. The perfect place for the spread of a contagious virus like Origin. Especially if Lucia's relative had been here for several days as I imagined, then the virus had had time to infect Lucia and everyone else with whom she might have had contact. I stopped at the second I thought of that. If everyone in contact with her was now infected then it meant that I was infected, just like Abbie and the others of the team. I then set off again in my race more quickly, but why on earth are the girls' dormitories so far from the laboratories? When I finally I’ve arrived the rooms were empty. the rooms were at first looking empty. But when I got closer, I saw them. All the girls laid on their bed, the looks tired, the sweaty forehead. Yes, it was logical, I thought, the virus develops faster when there is a lot of brain activity, when the level of hormones secreted by the brain gets stronger. What could be better than a maximum emergency signal to increase the adrenaline level in the blood. I walked faster to Abbie’s room, hoping to not find her inside.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I looked the empty room. But I heard a slight complaint from the bathroom, like a whisper. I stepped forward feverishly and almost fainted when I saw Abbie lying across the room on the cold tile. If her neighbours of room were only at the first Abbie stage, she had reached the second. Nose and ear bleeds, cloudy ideas and loss of consciousness, tremors. It only took me a second to recognize these signs that I had seen so many times. But this time it was on Abbie's that I had identified them and my heart broke into millions of little pieces while I understood that she would not survive long. His proximity to Lucia must had accelerated the process and, even more exposed than the others, the spread had been even faster. I fell beside her, eyes full of tears I couldn’t contain anymore. I took her in my arms and passed my hands in her hairs as much to calm her than to calm myself. To be close to her one time at least.
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