Infected

37: ☣What Lies Ahead☣

IT was quite a sunny morning as she made her way to the lake, marvelling at its vast crystalline appearance under the bright blue sky.

She stood close to the banks, letting the water kiss the tips of her shoes and was deeply lost in thought at how much time had passed since she had last seen him.

Tamana still could not believe that it had happened. That she would never see him again after all they had been through together as she closed her eyes and a tear ran behind her glasses, down to her cheek.

There was a light breeze coming from the lake which blew her curly hair all across her face and all she could picture at that moment was all the time she had shared with him, knowing she would never get to experience that again. It was such an incredible feeling that threatened to tear her apart but she knew she had to be strong. She had become stronger, given the recent events but it still hurt, though not like it did before when it had happened for at least this time, she would have closure. . .and someone by her side.

She had felt his hand gently settle on her left shoulder and had turned to see her uncle standing there who had come all the way from India, having had quite a substantial amount of trouble on his part in trying to find her, evidenced with his left arm in a sling and some other bandaged body parts, ever since they had lost contact. He had then revealed to his niece that the assassin had tracked him down at the house that they had stayed the night before Tamana had left for Kenya and after several moments of torture, the assassin had been able to make Richard Patel crack, barely leaving him alive and it was his being there that made what Tamana was about to do, possible. It all seemed like ages ago.

Then there was someone else. On her right this time and his presence made Tamana all the more grateful.

"Hey," Tamana turned towards the voice and her eyes met with those of Derek, "it's going to be okay."

Tamana could not help herself but hug him for the umpteenth time ever since his full recovery from the hospital just a day earlier. Derek had been hospitalized for a week and the doctors had been surprised by Tamana who had kept shouting at them that she had a way to cure him and it had taken them quite sometime to fully grasp the insane fact that Tamana Minajri was a living cure to a world killing variant.

Derek then became the first person to get the cure just as he was at the brink of either turning into one of those infected creatures or dying.

Now, as he stood there, locked in an embrace with Tamana, the latter was still dumbfounded by his recovery, deeming it as nothing short of a miracle. He was completely in good health. Even his eye was back to normal. The only thing that could indicate he had been in such a predicament was the scar on the left side of his face which was just four faded lines across his cheek.

With both her uncle and her friend standing there with her, Tamana finally looked down at the object she had been holding in her hand that entire time. A large golden porcelain urn sealed at the top. She exhaled, taking off the seal then stepped closer to the water.

"I love you, Dad. . ." she muttered before dipping her hand inside the urn and coming out with a handful of her father's ashes then scattered them into the waters.

Her uncle had seen it only fitting to have her brother's daughter have the fairwell she deserved for him, which had led him into getting the body from the morgue and had it cremated.

Towards the evening, Derek found Tamana at the WHO headquarters where she had been standing by the window, looking out over the multicolored city of Geneva.