A Show Stopping Story

The Virus

10 years later

The air is moist and fresh, bearing the smell of the trees and small flowers from its surroundings. Little particles of dust slowly float around through some escaping sunbeams through the leaves. The day is calm, peaceful.

The silence is broken by the sound of branches and leaves crushed by the weight of boots, accompanied by the sound of muffled whispers of four men at the end of their twenties. The forest sways as they make their way through the bloomed seeds of the wilderness. A piece of brown fur peeked through a bush of ferns. The black-haired, medium-sized man walking up front, Mark, quickly held the group back, shushing while doing so. As they carefully approached the lying animal, the men pulled out their equipment, ready for use. Henry pointed his gun at the animal, waiting for the men to give him the sign. As soon as Greg nodded, Henry took the shot, planting a small feathered needle into the animal's thigh, instantly relieving it of its suffering. "Nice shot Henry!" Steve, the only blonde man in the group, excitedly patted him on the back. Henry proudly smiled.

Two of the men, having put on their mask and disinfecting gloves, carefully put down the newly shot rabbit in a vacuum sealed see-through box. Henry peeked over his shoulder to the working men from behind his big white computer next to Chad. "What's the status boys?" he called to the men who had just disposed of their costumes, and were now taking samples from the animal. "He's most definitely infected. He would've died a slow and painful death if it weren't for us." Greg stated. As Henry turned around to write down the information, Mark called out: "Hey Henry, why don't you come take a look here?". Henry hesitated, looking at Chad for confirmation, but he just smiled at him. "You go, I've got this," Chad pinched his cheek softly, something he knew annoyed Henry. Henry pretended to frown, but wasn't able to hold back his loving smile.

As soon as he arrived at the box containing the dead piece of fur, Mark immediately led him away to a computer. On the screen he showed him a spread sheet containing pairs of capital, small and mixed letters. Henry immediately knew what this was, he'd learned this in his first year of studying biology already. "Now that we've accidentally got a whole family of (partially) infected rabbits, we can establish something by looking at their genes." Mark looked hopeful at his companion, who immediately jumped in with his reasoning, "We can tell if the virus is inheritable." "Exactly." Henry looked at the spread sheet intensely. All the combinations of the parents' alleles were heterozygous, meaning... "It's not," Henry stated. "Right?" Mark proudly nodded in agreement. "Very interesting..." Henry still stared at the screen, processing his conclusion. Mark stood up. "Henry, would you walk to Leighton in the lab and report this finding to him please?" Mark asked him. Henry nodded and walked away to the hall, Mark just being able to ruffle his curly hair as he goes. The boys always treat him as their younger brother, even though he is only a few years younger than them.

As he passed through the white, unstained halls connecting each separate room of the investigation site, he looked out over the 'infected forest' as he and the boys called it, through the side windows. The day was an unusual sunny one, lighting up the whole hall with it's radiation.

When Henry arrived at entrance of the lab, it was abnormally quiet inside. He passed through the plastic sheet hanging from the doorway, and found the lab empty. Henry slowly entered the lab. Big transparent boxes, saved for the possible storage of big animals were stacked up in a corner. Cupboards containing test tubes and boxes with powder and elements on them had been hastily pulled open. Broken glass was scattered over the ground. Only the microscope in the middle of Erlenmeyer flasks and pipets was still standing fierce, being aimed at a piece of fingernail lying on a glass plate. "Leighton?" Henry looked around for him in the white room, still getting used to the bright white light from the LEDs. Something, no, someone was moving in the corner. Henry carefully approached it. Even though he might not appear so at first sight, in tense moments like these he had nerves of steel.

In the corner, trembling, Leighton blankly stared into the distance, white as a sheet. A piece of his nail was missing. And his hair bared the imprint of his hands.

"Good god! Okay, Leighton, just breathe alright? Follow my lead." Henry tried to take hold of the hand of the unreactive adolescent, but as soon as he stretched his arm to reach him, Leighton jumped backwards. He started crawling through the glass, almost slipping with every step. "No! No...No Henry..." His eyes filling with tears and fear, he looked Henry in the face. "Don't- don't touch me!" Henry's unconscious was beginning to understand what was going on, but he didn't want to accept it. "Wha- what do you mean? Let me help you!" He moved forward reaching his hand out again, aiming to help his friend up. The desperate man on the ground let out a scream of agony. "NO!" Henry quickly stepped back, surprised at his friend's sudden fierce response. Leighton, now almost on the verge of crying shakily shook his head as he looked for words. "You can't Henry... I'm infected."