Chapter 6: Chapter 6: Rest Even For The Wicked
As everyone collectively slumped down across the room, and the adrenaline began to wear down, a new feeling began to rise.
Hunger.
What bags there were in the room were scavenged for food, with everyone grabbing as much as they could and sitting with what friends, or the closest to that, that was in the room with them.
Too tired to act, I slumped down against the wall next to the door.
Of course, this had to happen the day after I pulled an all-nighter to finish my biology revision. I would say that it's ironic, but I have no idea if it really is or not.
Slumped against the wall, the heaviness of my eyes began to weigh down upon me, but I forced them open, determined to say wake until we were in a position that I could trust others to not mess up while I was asleep, and get me, and others, killed.
"Hey, do ya mind if I sit down?"
I looked up at the one who had spoken.
I recognized him as one of the few people that held the door shut with me at the start of all this.
His shortish brown hair gleamed with the blood that had gotten in it.
I half smiled at him.
"Sure, not like I could stop you or anything."
He dropped to the floor beside me with a thump. Reaching into a bag beside him, he pulled out a pair of sandwiches.
"Do ya want one?", he said, holding them out towards me. I looked at them. Cheese.
Shrugging, I took one.
"Thanks, I haven't eaten in hours." I bit into it. Mature cheddar, huh? Not the best in the world, but certainly not the worst. I heard him chuckle, and looked over.
"What's so funny?". His face lit up like a firecracker.
"Ready to meet my maker," he chuckled, "that was so fuckin' cringe. Why? That's all I got to ask. Why?". I put my head into my hands.
"Oh god. I forgot about that. Jesus, I mean. I was getting quite frustrated, and... Well, I just kind of blurted out whatever came to my mind. I mean. Jesus, that was-"
"Embarrassing?", he chimed in, a large grin growing across his face.
"Yes. My god, never bring it up again." He laughed.
"Sure, sure." He bit into his sandwich, before pulling out a bottle of water and loudly slurping from it.
We sat there for a while, talking a little bit here and there about non-consequential stuff.
He pulled out another pair of sandwiches and handed one to me. As he did this, he paused and then started speaking.
"Right, so, ya seem pretty smart." I myself paused, taking a few moments to respond.
"Yeah, I guess so. I do fairly well, so..." I shrugged.
"So, what I want to ask is... In your opinion, what the hell is going on?" Ah, I thought someone might ask this, and I myself had thought about it in the last few hours.
"Right, so. What do you know about pathogens?"
"Well, we only briefly covered them so far - I'm in year 9 after all - but, they cause disease I guess?"
"Well, that is correct, but not the whole story. So, micro-organisms can be what is known as pathogenic. These ones are the communicable diseases. So when someone mentions a pathogen, they are typically referring to four types of micro-organisms: Bacteria, Viruses, Fungi, and Protists. Now, bacteria release toxins, so this isn't them. Protists couldn't do this. So that leaves Viruses and Fungi. Now, fungi can do stuff like this. For example, you may have heard of a fungus called... Something like... Ophiocordycaps onilaterelis? No, I think it's ophiocordyceps unilateralis. Doesn't matter. Basically, it is commonly referred to as the zombie fungus, or something like that. It, from the best of my memory, controls the ant via hormones it releases, that forces it to act in a certain way. Honestly, I'm not sure, but this isn't it."
"Why?", I hear from beside me.
"Well, that needs time to grow, and whatever happened happened in a snap of a finger. Also, if it were a fungus, we should see some growth. But there is nothing. No growth at all."
"Leaving only a virus as the cause?" He asks.
Actually, what is his name? Oh god, I just realized we've been here this entire time without knowing each other's names.
"Quick question, what actually is your name?" He looked stunned for a second, and then a look of realization spread across his face.
"Ah, shit. We never actually told each other did we?" Well, I'm Jake. You?"
"Natheniel, but Nate is fine."
"Well, Nate, you were saying?"
"Oh, yeah. Well, it could be a virus, but there is one major problem for that". Suddenly realizing I was still quite hungry, I bit into the sandwich I had been holding this entire time.
A look of discontent spread across Jack's face.
"Seriously, no is the time you decide to take a bite? Just as you were getting to the grand explanation? My god." Swallowing, I looked at him.
"I'm hungry, and I'm not eating with my mouth open. Anyway-".
"You might as well, no-one care-".
"Anyway," I sternly say, "The reason a virus is unlikely is that viruses invade the cells, it's why antibiotics don't work against them. But, in the cell, they effectively hardwire them to reproduce the virus until the cell is destroyed due to the amount it produces. So, this couldn't be caused by a virus, unless..."
"Unless what?"
"Now, this is just a theory, probably backed by little science, but, this might have been caused by a new virus." Jake looked at me confused and opened his mouth to speak.
"Now, what I mean by that is that this may be a virus that has just adapted, or evolved, or something. It may be able to control the cells in the body, instead of just re-programming them. That's why those people were coming after us. Maybe it could sense we weren't infected with the virus, and thus it was making those people come in here to spread it. That would also explain the arm earlier. If it could control the cells individually, then the parts wouldn't need the brain that much. But, without the brain, the cells couldn't do everything as well as they did them before, meaning that while it could still move, it couldn't move as well as before. Just like the bodies could still move after destroying the brain, they couldn't as well without it. Maybe? I don't know." Jake looked down, deep in thought. Then, he looked up.
"So, why aren't we infected? Why are all of us fine?" I smiled.
"That one I can answer. So, our bodies and our characteristics are determined by our genes. And with that, sometimes, things will... Alter, as the genes from our parents are mixed and matched. Those with the best variations and adaptations survive. Like anteaters. They all have long snouts. Well, at one point in time, there was a lot of variation in the sizes of snouts. But, the ones with the longer snouts survived, because they could get food better. So, it became more widespread, as smaller snout anteaters were more likely to die. So, the human race has something called the mitochondrial Eve. That is the one woman science has found we all relate to. She existed around 200,000 years ago. From that, you have to realize that if everyone is related to one person, there has been a lot of incest to get us to billions of people. From that, someone down that ancestral line must have had a fairly useless genetic change that served no purpose, having no side effects and was completely untraceable. Now, from that one person, that genetic code was spread, and, so, some people have it and some people don't. Now, it served no purpose, until an airborne pathogen was spreading, at which point, that tiny genetic difference made some people naturally immune, and others, well... Not so lucky." I looked over to Jack. His face was a mix of pure horror and disgust.
"So, we're all related?" What? Had he not been listening?
"Yes? What about it?".
"So me and my ex, we were... Related?"
"Yes, bu-"
"And my parents were related?"
"Well, technically, b-"
"So, all sex is incest?" This is bloody annoying.
"Actually, the def-" I am going to punch this kid if he interrupts me again.
"Ah, fuck. That's just put me off sex for life. Jesus." It's not worth the effort, I've decided.
And it was precisely that moment the lights went off.
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