I was suddenly awakened from my nap by Paul, he displayed a stunned expression also I hastened to get up to question him;

- Hey Paul, are you okay? Where is Lyam

Only a look full of an infinite sadness answered to my question. The signs of the disease were more visible on his face. His features were exhausted and he seemed to be in the grip of boundless weariness. Yet I could see a strange gleam in his eyes. Like he's hesitating to tell me something.

- There's something else, isn't there?

- Can you follow me please, he said leaving the room without worrying about whether or not I was following him.

So I followed him and I saw he was on the way of the lab, what the hell he wanted to show me over there. I felt my heart tighten at the sight of the stool where Lyam was no longer. I saw that Paul had the same thoughts but he does not say anything, what could he say anyway? So we join in front of his bench where samples, test reports and a whole bunch of medical equipment were scattered.

- How do you feel, he asked

- Don’t know, a little bit tired and lost but nothing more, why?

He didn’t answered and start to explain;

- You know when we started to work on the origin of the virus, we’ve automatically exclude the possibility of a virus strain on a human, he said quickly while showing me old reports that we had written.

- Yeah, we based on previous pandemics, strains of this type of virus often come from animals so this option has been left out. Add to that the fact that the analyses require far too many resources to be wasted on hypotheses and that testing all the human beings of continent was impossible... But you already know all this, so why bother you to work on this now when you could be resting?

- I think that we may have made a mistake, he added in an uncertain voice, we have never been confronted with a virus such as Origin, even the plague has not done so much damage

The thought of him going back to work to avoid thinking about Lyam's death crossed my mind but I say nothing.

- You remember the case of the lupus, the patient zero, the one who contracted the disease first, he was carrying the virus and yet he was not sick

- Yeah those are the immune, but we had already sent message all over the world to find if there was a case and we never receive a positive answer

- Yes but what if there was an immune but he was in an environment protected from the beginning, what if he never had the chance to see that he was immunized to the disease

- What are you trying to say Paul? Be clear! I said sharply annoyed that he beat about the bush

- Since the alarm sounded, we are very few to be able to walk, most of them are lying in their beds for those who have managed to reach it. Even I am exhausted and I am forced to remain seated. I'm lucky to still able to form coherent sentences.

- So what, I asked slowly while the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit in my mind

- I asked you how you were feeling earlier… you’re just tired while I can’t stand up, and even when we were with Lyam, he said while I would start shaking, you had the strength to punch in the shelf while Lyam was already d… he had stopped in the middle of his sentence but he did not need to add anything, I had already understand

- So I took a bit of the glass you had broke, there were still blood on it and I did an analyse…

Paul would continue to talk but I did not hear him anymore, I was out of the world. I felt like I could hear my heart beating in my temples. Everything was clear now, that's why I was still alive even though I had been so close to Lucia and then Abbie. The truth would struck me with full force and I collapsed on the tile. And even as I was lying there I couldn't help but notice the irony of the situation. Adam O. Merill. Adam Origin Merill.