Warrow opened his eyes in his pod. He didn't feel discomfort in his body anymore. The pod's lid slowly opened to reveal Dwax, and Warrow squinted his eyes as if not believing what he was seeing—a green woman.
Kahara and Dwax were even more surprised. Warrow didn't look like a human being anymore. He looked like a dark lord from a fantasy novel. His chitinous skin enveloped him like armor, and his teeth were sharp. Contrasting with his chitinous armor, the skin on his face was a purplish-blue. His eyes had no whites, and chitin formed a crown-like structure on top of his head.
Warrow attempted to get up but to no avail. He was still paralyzed from the neck down.
"Oh fuck, I'm still paralyzed."
Unlike before, his voice was deep and gravelly. The voice matched the visual. Warrow didn't take the fact that he was still paralyzed well. He started crying. The dark lord-looking motherfucker was crying his snot out in front of Kahara and Dwax.
The surprise and smile on Dwax's face turned into disappointment. His friend didn't heal from his paralysis.
"Warrow, I brought you a wheelchair from a biomedical supply store. You don't have to have your noggin rocked by the wheelbarrow anymore."
Dwax smiled, expecting Warrow to cheer up a little. Warrow was not amused, but he didn't want to be rude.
"Th-thanks pal."
He was hiccuping, barely holding back his tears. He was pitying himself. His ego hurt every time he received help from someone. The most humiliating one was when Dwax had to deal with his toilet affairs.
"I'm sorry, Hic, I'm sorry."
Kahara didn't know what to do; she was feeling awkward. She petted the dark lord on his head.
"There, there. Don't be sad, friend. We will find another way to heal you."
Warrow smiled a forced and wry smile.
"Dwax, my friend. Can you do me a favor? Can you put me in the washing pod? I'm covered in goo. Also, can you find me a mirror?"
Kahara brought out her phone and snapped a photo while Dwax prepared the washing pod. He was startled by the sudden yelling.
"Oh no! I look so fucking retarded! Dwax quick! Whack me with a shovel! Quick and easy! Put me out of my misery! Fucking kill me, quick!"
After spending some time with Warrow, Dwax became familiar with his sense of humor. He picked up the nail gun and showed it to Warrow.
"I was kidding. Don't kill me."
Dwax smiled, put the nail gun to the side, and lifted Warrow. He carefully put him into the washing pod and activated it. Kahara stared at the washing pod and said,
"There is this device that helps those who are suffering from mobility issues because of neurologic reasons. It directly reads whatever the person wants to do and directly applies it to an implant in the spine.
There was this man I know who had it. We need to go to the KTR plaza and dig it out of his corpse. I hope it hasn't been ruined by rotting flesh around it."
Kahara felt disgusted with herself. She felt that she was becoming way too comfortable with disrespecting the dead.
The man in question was someone she met at a fancy party. She was working as a waiter there. The man was standing on the balcony with a strange device around his head. She had a hard time holding herself back due to curiosity. She had gone ahead and asked.
The man and Kahara had gotten along that day, and she happened to learn where he lived because of that.
She was now going to maim his corpse. She felt sick.
"Dwax, you'll have to dig the device out. I can't do it."
Dwax nodded.
"Of course."
While they were talking, the washing pod had finished its job. Dwax was a bit taken aback by what he was seeing. Warrow's chitinous exoskeleton was shining like the paint job of a fancy car. He didn't expect it to be so cool. Before leaving for KTR Plaza, Kahara decided to bring a shopping cart so they could haul their stuff. It took roughly ten minutes for her to return. In the meantime, Warrow struck up a conversation with Dwax.
"What do you think about Kahara? Do you think she is trustworthy?"
Dwax knitted his brows.
"I have no reason to doubt her. Besides, we have nothing to steal, and the world has everything to steal. She doesn't look like she is stupid. We are each other's protectors. Being alone is far too dangerous. While staying upstairs, we encountered this huge bug. And by huge, I mean as big as a snake. There are wild things out there. People need all the help they can get."
Warrow's face changed. He donned a far more serious expression. What Dwax said made sense. Warrow was a living example of what a bioweapon does to living things. There was no reason for its effect to be limited to humans.
"Fuck, things keep getting worse."
Dwax picked something up from the stash and showed it to Warrow.
"Don't worry. I have a motherfucking crowbar. If things go south, I can smack the problem in the face with it."
Warrow was doubtful. He didn't think the problems would always be small enough to be solved by a crowbar.
"We also have guns."
Warrow felt a bit more safe.
"Don't scare me like that. I thought you were delusional. I was like, What is a crowbar going to do?"
Dwax stopped Warrow from talking further with a hand gesture.
"Guns are harder to come by, and ammunition is limited. Those two were highly regulated objects. We cannot rely on them. The axes and the crowbar will have to do most of the work."
Warrow felt like he had swallowed a fly.
"That's a damn shame."
The guns meant the human was going to dominate his environment. It was human ingenuity's victory over nature. No animal, if any, had evolved contingencies against it on their own. Without guns, they would have to fight against the mutant beasts on an equal footing. It was less than ideal. On top of that, he was paralyzed. If something got a hold of him, he would have to do nothing as it ate Warrow alive. Just thinking about it drove Warrow into an anxiety attack. He remembered the ants. Oh god, the ants!
Warrow started breathing quickly, and fear could be seen in his eyes. Dwax felt something was amiss. He looked behind him, and there was nothing there. Dwax mistakenly thought Warrow was looking at something scary behind him, and it was the reason for his hyperventilation.
"Are you alright, pal?"
Dwax got no response. He understood he needed to leave Warrow to his own devices. There was no hospital to wheel him to anyway. Everyone was dead, and a hospital and its employees were no exception. They had nowhere to go if Warrow was having a heart attack right now.
Dwax felt a bit better when Warrow started to make pathetic voices. He was losing his nerve and nothing more. He wasn't dying.
Dwax was a man and knew how a man's thinking process worked. He put his hand on his shoulder to signal to him that he was there for him. Anything more than this might hurt Warrow's pride afterward. Warrow closed his pitch-black eyes and stabilized his breathing. When he was back to normal, Dwax asked him,
"Should I wheel you out? Do you need some fresh air?"
Warrow smiled wryly. He was way too embarrassed to try and mend his image in Dwax's eyes.
"That would be nice, actually."
The person who looks like a dark lord has thus been wheeled out onto the sidewalk and under the sun like he is a retiree in a retirement home. The dark lord smiled, soaking up the sun.
Kahara returned with the shopping cart not long after. The three left for the KTR Plaza.
In an isolated room on the KTR plaza, a woman of East Asian descent was looking out of the window, distressed. She has been trapped in her apartment room since the attack happened. She was a biohacker, and she needed a sterile environment to do her work in peace. When the bioweapon hit, she didn't dare go outside. If she went out, her skin might melt off like so many others before her. She has been given tissue samples by her friends, who are now gone. She was trying to reverse-engineer the bioweapon and counteract it before she stepped out. The problem was that she was running out of food and had no way to contact anyone.
Her eyes shone with brilliance. Hope was about to knock on her door!
As the trio approached the KTR plaza door, a video feed appeared on the buzzer.
"Please help me. I'm stuck on the thirty-third floor. I need some things before I can go out!"