During the course of their travel, nothing really happened so things were going smoothly. After two episodes of Dora the Explora, Kara fell asleep. Darius cut the television off the minute he found that she had fallen to sleep.
Surprisingly, after little Kara had fallen asleep, they had arrived at a rite aid; something Darius believed had gone extinct, he hadn't seen a rite aid in ages. After 15 minutes inside the rite aid, they managed to get the things they needed. Darius, Steve, and Lara killed quite the amount of infected while they were inside.
Darius was quite surprised that Lara wanted to tag along, but he warned her to not do anything stupid while they were inside. Once they were back inside the motorhome, he immediately applied medicine to Ahri's wound, which wasn't looking so good.
"Damn, she might need stitches!" Darius looked at the wound and knew that she would need some serious treatment or else.
Fortunately, Darius had received enlightenment about an hour ago, meaning he had unlocked some of his memories the cube had sent to him before coming here.
What he had learned new was quite a decent amount of things. The first thing he learned was if you received any life-threatening injuries when you returned to the cube room, they would all be restored. He also learned that this is a trial world to test and see if you can survive or not before being sent to more serious worlds!
Darius also learned that you would be on trial for three worlds that are based on surviving as the main objective; like this one. He also knew that the next world would be harder than this one, which caused him to feel a headache coming.
At this point, 2 hours had already passed and Darius was quite sleepy. This was the same for Steve and Lara. The one who wasn't tired was Sarah, who was still beaming with energy. This was to be expected, she literally did nothing besides using the GPS.
Darius sat in a comfy soft chair in the room where Kara and Ahri were and went to sleep on it. This chair allowed him to rest his feet and legs while letting him lean back to fall asleep comfortably.
Steve walked in as well and just laid next to his daughter and went to sleep. Lara took a shower and slept next to Ahri with her permission; Ahri had no problem with it.
They stayed in the parking lot of the rite aid store. Everyone knew how rain worked; it would make you feel sleepy for some strange reason. With the rain coming down, this also made them feel even more sleepy.
Sarah just sat in the kitchen area where there was another television hanging up. She just watched TV to herself as everyone else went to sleep.
Time passed slowly yet quickly at the same time, everyone was in a deep sleep because of how tired they were. The stress of this world was no joke when you had psychotic infected trying to infect you, or should I say, kill you!
After some time, Darius opened his eyes slowly and stretched; he looked around the room to see that everyone else was still sleeping soundly.
"Ah, man, what time is it? I must have slept for a while, it's dark outside now." Darius got up and peeked out of the window, it was no longer raining but just dark out.
"Let's check the time and see how much we have left in this world." Darius brought up the interface to reveal the timetable.
[Mission: Survival!]
〈Mission Log: Survive for 8 hours]
〈World Type: Movie]
〈Movie: World War Z]
"Nice, so close to leaving this place! At least everything is going smooth, for now, that is." As soon as he was done saying that, he smelled something, it was food!
"Someone's cooking something in the kitchen, it must be Sarah since she's the only one not present."
Darius stretched one last time and walked out of the room towards the kitchen. Once he got to the kitchen, he was greeted by Sarah, who was cooking in the dark. Darius was stunned, but he couldn't help but think of how smart this woman was.
"Ah, Darius, you're finally up. I decided to cook something up since there was some food in those coolers over there. I made the steaks that were inside of them for us to eat, I was getting hungry so I just made them."
She had seasoned them and put them in the oven. Darius didn't know where he found the appetite to eat but he was hungry. The steak wasn't done yet and needed about an hour before it was completely done.
"Perfect!" Darius looked inside and found that it was enough inside for everyone to eat. Sarah nodded and took a seat, she looked out the window every now and then.
"There aren't any infected out there is it?" Darius asked.
"Infected? Is that what you call them?" Sarah looked over with a change in expression hearing what Darius called them.
Darius took a seat across from her and nodded to her question silently.
"Why do you call them that, is it because if you get bitten you turn into them like some sort of contagious infection?"
"Haha, that's exactly right, but it really is a virus that is contagious. Just a friendly warning like I told your husband. Don't get bitten, scratched, or any of their blood in your eyes, mouth or any in your wounds." Darius couldn't see it, but shock passed through Sarah's eyes.
"D-do you know how the virus works?" Just as she asked that, Steve and Lara walked in yawning. They were attracted to the smell of food being cooked.
"Oh, you guys are up, why is it so dark in here? Let me cut on the lights so we can see each other better." Lara said as she walked in. Darius's face changed when he heard her say that.
"Don't!" Lara stopped in her tracks when Darius spoke.
"Huh, why? It's so dark, I thought it would be better for us." Lara was confused as to why.
Darius could tell that this woman's common sense was quite low, she wouldn't survive in this world for long. Steve could easily understand why and went to sit next to his wife at the table.
"Those things are attracted to anything human-related, so if they see a light in the dark that could possibly deal with a human's doing; they would be attracted to it like moths," Darius calmly said.
Lara's eyes open wide when she heard what Darius said. She felt so dumb after thinking about it for a bit.
"S-s-sorry, I was a little slow to comprehend things when I was a kid but I understand now." Sweat appeared on Lara's forehead but no one could see it. Lara also took a seat, she sat next to Darius and stretched.
"So, what were you guys talking about, it sounded so serious before we came in," Steve asked curiously.
Sarah looked at Darius and he simply nodded knowing what she meant. Darius had no problem explaining to them about the virus or what it could do, and how to avoid it.
"We were talking about this virus that's going around right now. That's what they are, that's what those things are." Sarah said seriously, she was very curious about this virus and how it worked.
Maybe this could help them in the future for their survivability.
"Virus? Those crazy people are infected with a virus?" Lara shook when she heard what Sarah said and went quiet.
"Yes, and Darius was explaining it to me. I want to hear more about it, so let him explain." Sarah spoke anxiously, she wanted Darius to continue and everyone else to shut up.
Steve was curious as well; he said nothing and just waited to hear everything. "Darius, you may continue to explain, we all want to know everything about it." Sarah looked at Darius with expectation, but who could see her expression anyway?
"Yes, it is a virus and once bitten, scratched or if any of their infectious fluids get into your body in any way, it's over. The virus has a hundred percent fatality rate and acts almost immediately upon contact."
"Once it has infected a host, it attacks the brain for replication," Darius said slowly.
"Once the brain is infected with Solanum, most of your bodily functions begin to shut down. Such as the lungs and heart, it's at this stage where all traces of the host's humanity, individuality, and personality are relatively lost."
"They are designed to infect living cells, and once they've released their viral load into you, it would take roughly 12 seconds before they turned depending on how you were infected. Essentially, fast moving infected with a pack mentality; the sole motivation was to infect living cells, not consume them. "
Everyone sucked in a mouth full of cold air. Lara clenched her fist, her hands were sweating as her blood ran cold from Darius's information.
"Once they infect the brain they continued to function from the virus. The virus would instruct the reanimated host to hunt and infect any living thing. The cells of the virus would replicate so much that they would have total control over your body. They would attack anything that is identified as living but they prefer to attack humans more than anything else."
Darius looked at Lara and continued "They are attracted to any loud noises and light, definitely if it's manmade, which would up their chances of finding any living host they could infect." Lara broke out into a cold sweat and her face turned pale from fear.
"Is th-there anyway to counter this virus?" Sarah's heart was beating fast, she was so scared that she thought she would faint. Steve wiped the sweat off his forehead and thought about that moment he was being chased by them; he shivered when he recalled that.
They could all see his white teeth in the dark and they went silent; he was smiling! "There is one. They like to go after people that are healthy, while they ignore people who are seriously ill or injured."
"There's a special vaccine that the world health organization will create to counter this virus by making it seem like the non-infected people are infected. This will give them the opportunity to get rid of these things once and for all." Darius explained slowly.
"So there is a way? We'll have to go to safety, that is why we chose the military base." Sarah heaved a sigh of relief. But what Darius said next, crushed her world down.
"Hehe, you can hide all you want in some military base but it would soon get overrun in no time," Darius said flatly; he wasn't planning to stay at any base after he did some serious thinking. It was best to stay on a ship, like the one from the movie.
"What?" Sarah and Steve's face turned ugly when they heard what Darius said. Of course, no one could see their expressions in the dark. One could only guess how they were looking now.
"Then where will we go, I don't want our daughter to suffer like this." Sarah's heart sank, it was like she fell into an abyss.
"Don't worry, we can go to a military ship. But we'll need a helicopter or plane to get there." Darius was talking about the planes that could land on water, if they could get one of those, then they were good to go.
"Ugh, I don't know how to pilot a plane," Steve spoke with a downcast voice.
"It's okay, I know how to pilot one, so we're good," Sarah spoke up. She had experience from when she was younger piloting an aircraft.
"What? You know how to pilot an airplane? How come I didn't know about this?" Steve looked at Sarah and asked, he was clearly surprised.
"I didn't think it was important and you never asked." She knew how to pilot those mini airplanes that could carry up to about 6 to 9 people inside. Steve rolled his eyes and looked towards Darius and asked.
"Darius, this virus, it must have a name, right? If so, what is it called?" Steve asked curiously. Darius was silent for a second and spoke.
"The virus is called... the Solanum Virus!"
"Interesting, I understand." They continued to talk about many other things for the past hour until Kara walked in.
"Mom, Dad, I'm Hungry, and Ahri is also hungry as well." Sarah was taking out the steak when she walked in, so Kara came in at the right time.
Sarah had cooked up some fries as well to go with the steak. They had drinks like juice, soda, and water for everyone to drink.
"Come sit Kara and eat with mommy and daddy," Steve called his daughter over. Sarah made a plate for Darius and Ahri. Darius grabbed his plate of food and Ahri's food and walked to the room. He came back to grab some drinks and went right back. Before he went to the back; Steve spoke up.
"In two hours, we'll be heading to the airport to get one of those small planes. They have these type of planes there for use. Hmm, actually, we'll leave after I'm done eating, the sooner the better!" Steve said seriously.
Darius agreed one hundred percent, this was for their safety; he and Ahri would teleport out of this world soon.
Darius continued to the room and shut the door.