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I walked over to one of the monitors, it was showing the last News cast before everything happened. The man on the screen wore a dark grey suit, the usual reporter smile that you see, is not there, replaced with a look of worry and fear. Without knowing what I was doing, I pressed the button on the keyboard, playing the video, the man spoke in thick Italian.
" Breaking News: We have just received a dire warning from the Italian government: A new virus has been detected in several parts of the country, and is spreading at an alarming rate. The Virus has reportedly already spread throughout large cities, including Milan, Rome, Venice, and Florence. The virus is reported to cause random attacks on healthy individuals, turning them into violent cannibalistic beings. Military authorities are urging citizens to stay in their homes for their safety. This is a grave situation, and we will keep you updated as we receive more information. Please take necessary precautions-"
The man rushed to say before the familiar warning channel covered the screen, "Stay calm, this is not a drill, stay inside away from doors and windows. Do not panic." I slammed my hand down on the pause button, and reversed the tape, seeing the date of the broadcast. I felt my heart drop into my stomach and turned to my father. "Papa, how long has it been since that broadcast."
My father made a guilty look, he didn't say anything. I felt like I was going to be sick, "How long were we in that bunker, Papa?" I questioned him again. There were no windows in the bunker, so I never knew when days passed, my father had only said every time I woke up from my sleep that it had been two days. Could it have been more? What was he not telling me? Why was this storage unit filled with research papers and monitors? Who was the man beside my father?
"Papa! Please tell me!" I began shouting at my father. I'd never raised my voice at my parents but I felt so deceived, I needed to know the truth. How long had it truly been since I was bitten? My mother stepped forward, looking at my father with a sad expression before turning to me and taking my hands into hers. "Zarita, it's been two weeks," I snatched my hands from her, shaking my head. "Your lying! It can't have been-... no, that's not true." I felt dizzy, it couldn't have been two weeks.
My father walked over to me, putting his hands on my shoulders. "Ritaβ¦Sweetheart, I know it's hard to believe but it's true. Do you remember the day I went to give you your morphine? When we sat together?" I did remember, but that couldn't have been so long ago.
"That day, when you fell asleep on my shoulder, you fell into a deep sleep. You kept going in and out, muttering weird things in your sleep. You hadn't woken up for days, we began to think that the time was coming for us to have to pull the trigger. These blue veins began appearing all over you, your skin becoming so pale." I look down at my hands, the blue veins still prominent and visible. I remembered falling asleep on his shoulder, we had cried for a while before I got tired.
"We had finally made the decision when you had attacked your mother in your sleep. She was changing your IV bag before out of nowhere, you tackled to the ground. You didn't hurt her but you shocked the life out of us. It was then that we decided to tie your arms down. As time continued to pass, your body temperature kept rising, and you began to have a heat stroke, so we put ice packs on your body every night. Then this morning when I walked into the room, you had been seizing, I checked for a pulse but I couldn't find one. You had diedβ¦I grabbed my gun, knowing that you would wake up very soon. I didn't think that you would still be alive but you were, you survived The Reset."
I look up at him, "Papa, what is The Reset? What is the Reset Button?" I ask him, making him sigh and drop his hands from my shoulders, turning to the man who stands by the board on the wall with the many papers and charts. "Vince, maybe you should explain, you did inform me of it." My father said, nodding his head towards Vince.
I turned to face the man, whose name I noted was Vince. He had a pitiful expression on his face as he walked over to a desk, explaining everything. "Zarita, the Reset Button was made decades ago, as a bio-weapon for when the world became too populated and needed control. Only in these recent years, has the Death Cloak started, beginning to count down the days until the Reset Button would be initiated. This weapon is a brain-rotting virus that gnaws at the brain for mere seconds before your body succumbs to a hard fever, burning out your body's white blood cells, and eventually killing you." He said, picking a piece of paper and walking over to me, handing it to me.
"However, when you die, you don't truly die. Your brain stops functioning and your heart stops beating but the virus controls your body. This virus feeds on live tissue and living organic matter, and since the body that the virus takes over begins to die and lose the organic life form it truly was, the virus uses the body to feed on organic matterβ¦healthy human beings such as your parents and myself." He said, pointing to my mother and father then himself.
"So why didn't I die? Why did the virus not take control of my body?" I ask him. He shrugged his shoulders. "We don't know sweetheart. Once I got your father's message, I rushed to your house, only to find your street is covered in the infected people. They knew you were down there and were breaking into the house, you all were lucky that they couldn't get to the hatch. Otherwise, I don't know how to get to you all. Right now, we brought you here so we can find some more research on what could have possibly happened when you went through the Reset." He walked over to another desk, with a monitor on top of it, and sat down, typing something into the computer, making a bunch of files pop with the title 'Death Cloak; V498 Reset Button'.
I looked at the paper that the man handed to me, it had the symptoms of the virus on it, showing module pictures and scales of how bad symptoms would be from the beginning trimester to the Final trimester. I looked over the symptoms, Vomiting, Hot Flashes, Migraines, Nose bleeds, Body Aches, etc. These were all the symptoms I felt, from beginning to supposed end, which was death but instead of death, I'm still alive. I then remembered the weird nightmare that I had before I woke up with a gun in my face or was it a vision?
I turned to Vince, "Question, does this virusβ¦does it cause people to have visions?" He looked at me questioningly. He stood, grabbed a small flashlight off the desk, and walked over to me.
"Visions, you say?" He said, turning on the flashlight and flashing it into my eyes, looking closely at me.
"Hmm, I seeβ¦What did you see may I ask?" He said, before turning off the flashlight and walking over to the desk. I recalled everything to him, the feeling of being in another person's body, the red vision, seeing the man getting eaten. My mother's face seemed to change into terror, as I explained what I saw happen to the man. My father looked as if he were ready to throw up, I couldn't read Vince's expression. He looked as if he were breaking down what I said yet thinking of something else as I spoke.
"Hmm, well that is definitely the first that I am hearing of this. Cazzo, I don't even know what to say." He leaned back into his seat, his hand over his mouth. "Antonio" My mother finally spoke, placing her hand on my father's arm. My father turned to her, pulling her close and holding her. Tears were starting to run down her face, "Antonio, I can't. I don't want to think about what this could mean." My mother buried her face in my father's chest. My father just held her close, consoling her the best he could. "It will be okay, Amore mio. We will figure this outβ¦we always do." He said, guiding my mother to a chair, and sitting with her.
I felt tears coming down my face, I placed the paper on the desk before walking over to my mother, kneeling in front of her, and placing my head on her lap. She placed her hands on my head, running her fingers through my hair as she used to do when I was a little girl. It usually calmed my nerves before getting a shot or starting a first day at school but today, right now, it made me feel whole. I had my family, that was all I needed if these last few days would be my last.
"It will be okay mama. I'm still here. We will figure this all out, I promise." I said, letting my tears fall along with hers.
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