The conference is right across the street from Aida's hotel. Tensions were rising as they found more and more cases of the unknown virus that seemed to have spread to the attendees. The conference decisively shut down, encouraged all participants to stay indoors and advised all who were afflicted to seek a hospital as soon as possible.
Many t.v. stations were comparing it to one of the deadliest viruses the world has ever seen, Ebola. Ebola's death toll at the height of its existence was around 28,000 people worldwide with an incubation period of between 10-20 days.
Comparatively, this unknown virus has not yet led to many deaths, but the incubation period is within a day and the process to which the disease is transmitted has yet to be determined. Although there have been no confirmed deaths, none have been able to recover.
The symptoms first start with a fever that kicks in within a day of getting in contact with the virus. The rashes come next, with little red dots covering the entire body, much like the chicken pox. While both these symptoms were concerning, it was nothing that anti-inflammation pills and anti-itch pills weren't able to address.
The most concerning symptom was the last one, hallucinations. The victim would no longer recognize anyone around them and treat every person with hostility. While they seemed fully capable of complex thoughts, their sole focus was on destruction. Under these strong hallucinations, even a mother would not recognize her daughter.
All country coastlines around the world reported that roughly half the population had been infected despite it only being the second day. The numbers were rising rapidly. Hospitals were at max capacity with all the infected fully sedated and lying in medically induced comas. Chaos was breaking out everywhere as the hallucinatory symptoms engulfed each victim, and fights broke out all over the streets. Law enforcement could not keep up with the damage being done, and many of them ended up infected as well.
The CDC and World Health Organizations were sending representatives everywhere to each known location to study the virus, but they were hit too quickly and with no warning. There weren't enough resources and there was nothing they could do in this situation.
***
Meanwhile, Aida was still relaxing in her room and rolling around on her bed, completely oblivious to what was happening outside when she suddenly heard a frantic knock on her door.
She reluctantly rolled off the bed and trudged to the door without checking who it was.
Right as the door opened, someone pounced straight onto her and gave her a big hug. Aida felt no killing intent so didn't guard against this sudden attack. She froze as she was hugged by the person who turned out to be Ace.
Ace started speaking immediately as he carried Aida to the elevator, "I'm so relieved that you're okay! No fever, no rashes. Check and check. Let's go to the airport now!" Turns out Ace's hug was his method of checking whether Aida had a fever.
Coming out of her shock from being forcefully hugged, Aida turned and glared at Ace. "What do you think you're doing? How did you know where I am staying and why are you trying to drag me to the airport? Besides, even if we had an immediate need to fly back, at least let me pack my bags!" There was no way she would ever leave Xiao Ai behind, that was her only family. Amidst her anger, she also forgot that he had sent the servers to her hotel room so naturally knew where she stayed.
Ace scratched his head sheepishly and responded, "Eh... you don't know what's going on? I'm sorry for startling you, but we should leave before we get infected. There's a virus spreading outside and people are going crazy!" He waved his hands up and down to emphasize the magnitude of the problem.
Rubbing her temples, she realized something bigger was happening. She pulled Ace back into her hotel room and sat him down on the chair. "Explain."
"Ok. So after we finished shopping yesterday..."
"Ehh!!! Mama went shopping with a boy? Mama found Xiao Ai a Papa and didn't even tell her?!?!" Xiao Ai cut in with her clear childish voice, pouting.
Ace jumped straight up from his seat and looked around warily, attempting to identify where the sound was coming from.
'Sighhhhhhh' Aida exhaled very heavily as she massaged her temples, feeling a headache coming on. She first patted Xiao Ai and explained gently, "Xiao Ai, this is Ace. He is not Papa, he is just someone I work with."
"Eh~~ but but he said you two went shopping together!"
"No buts! We are not together, in fact we are not even friends!"
"Aw~ okay~ Sorry Mr. Puppy, you're not qualified to be my Papa hehe~ ^_^"
Ace was still in his standing position, frozen mid jump, as he stared at Aida with puppy eyes, "We're not friends?!"
He entirely ignored the most important aspect of the conversation, which was Xiao Ai's existence and focused on Aida instead. He had only ever heard Aida speak in a monotonous tone or a polite tone at best, he had never heard her speak in such a gentle and loving tone before.
Watching the man who looked like a lost puppy, Aida responded flatly, "No."
With the image of a sad puppy with droopy ears, Ace responded, "Ok..."
"So, going back to the reason you want to fly back now...?" Aida abruptly changed the topic to divert his attention from her opinions of him and from Xiao Ai.
Ace collapsed on the chair and weakly responded, "Just check the news for yourself."
Frowning, Aida brought Xiao Ai to her lap as Xiao Ai stealthily brought up the current news feed for her to peruse. Together, they realized that there was a virus epidemic spreading and they had to leave immediately.
Jumping into action, Aida directed Xiao Ai to power everything down as she threw everything into her bags. They had to get to the airport immediately as Ace said. Given the speed of this virus, the airports will likely shut down soon and there would be no way out.
Once everything was packed, she turned to Ace, gave him a warm look for the first time. She truly appreciated that he came to check on her.
Ace was stunned yet again. Frozen in place, his face was turning as red as a tomato.
Mentally rolling her eyes, she smacked Ace on the head and dragged him to the elevator. 'Just what is this boy thinking in that head of his.'
As they got to the lobby, the whole area was in chaos. Glass was shattered, numerous people were lying on the floor either injured or dead, and the ones that remained standing were fighting with their lives on the line.
This was the moment when she realized that it would be an ordeal to get from here to the airport while protecting her precious daughter and reluctantly keeping a dead weight alive.