Infected

2: ☣Article of Death☣

AT the Sri Venkateswara College -- a Delhi University campus in New Delhi, India -- a professor was in the middle of giving a lecture on Virology to Biochemistry students in a Microbiology class.

"...Once the viral genomic nucleic acid has been released into the host cell, the fourth stage follows which is the replication of the genome, " he paused, letting the statement sink in, then, "someone please kindly remind us the types of genome replication that we went through in the previous class."

Several hands went up.

"Yes, Ms. Minajri?" the professor smiled, pointing at a girl wearing rounded glasses whose thin frames disappeared into the folds of her dark curly hair.

"Genome replication occurs in three ways," she said, right before subtly jabbing her elbow into the side of her classmate who had apparently found sleeping to be way more interesting than the day's session, "there's the DNA and RNA viruses which replicate in the host cell's nucleus and cytoplasm respectively, then there's the reverse transcribing viruses which use DNA or RNA intermediates to replicate."

"Wonderful, Ms. Minajri," the professor commended and was about to proceed with his lecture when the bell went off, ending the session.

"Alright everyone, read on the stages of a virus's life-cycle and epidemiology which is to be presented by everyone in next week's class. Thank you!"

The students began to clear out of the hall just as the girl who had answered the last question slipped her laptop into her backpack.

"Ugh," her companion whined, "I thought it would never end!"

"It was only three hours, " the other girl said before slipping her backpack over one shoulder then adjusting her glasses, momentarily allowing the sleeve of her maroon cardigan to slide down a little and reveal a silvery bracelet strapped around her left wrist.

"How are we still friends with your God-awful sense of humor?" the other girl wearily lowered her head onto the table before her.

"Come on," the glasses girl got up and dragged her friend out of her seat and together, they both left the hall.

The group of Biochemistry students intermingled with groups that had just come from the end of their classes. It was all a hub of excitement: kids chattering, laughing, talking about what plans they all had for the rest of the day.

The girl with the glasses from the Microbiology class had furthered her conversation with her companion while bustling through crowds of students when someone bumped into her shoulder.

She would have ignored this but the tall young man who had done so was then walking right in front of them.

"Eeey. . .Tam!" he beamed at them, passing a hand through his short spiky hair.

"Nice to see you too, Ganesh!" Tam's companion said, her tone obviously hinting at annoyance towards their new arrival.

"Pretty as always, Priya," Ganesh winked at her and Priya rolled her eyes, ignoring the guy, then fished out her phone.

"What do you want?" the girl named Tam asked, now sounding just as annoyed as her friend.

Ganesh raised his arms in protest and a glinting object could be seen on his left arm, quite similar to Tam's bracelet. "Oh, come now, don't be like that. Must it always be that there's something that I want whenever we meet like this?"

"Umm. . .yeah," Tam replied while her friend, Priya, was more than glad to find her own iPhone way more interesting than anything else at the moment.

"Okay, fine," Ganesh sighed, "you caught me. Here's the thing -- he leaned forward towards the girls as if he was about to let out on a huge conspiracy -- so, my folks are gonna be out of town this whole weekend and I offered to look after the place since it's close to the university and there's this party that I had planned, so--"