The Messengers of Sanctuary

16 - Zachary

Beneath Ironwind stronghold, sitting in the lab, or rather, a cage inside the lab. Zachary tried to figure out what to do once the pain started again and he had to exercise, he still had a handful of hours till then, but still.

He'd requested to be put in the cage before Nina started looking at the blood samples, there was no telling what was happening to him, and there wasn't a convenient Chicory around to tell them if any of this was normal.

Zach was starting to hate how Chicory had simply abandoned him.

Eventually, Nina came back, opening the cage nonchalantly, "Um, did you find anything?"

She sighed, "I found too much. There was no sign of the zombie virus, but...well it seems like you have something else. We'll have to wait for Trinity to get back and then she can check your scent, but you don't seem to be in danger of turning."

Zach relaxed visibly, "Thank you...so um...what do I have then?"

Nina nodded, "as far as I can tell, it's a different virus. This means we definitely need to see what correlation it has with the zombie virus. It's possible you have a mutation of the virus that brought society to its knees."

Zach blinked, "isn't that...kind of bad?"

"Well not necessarily," Nina explained, "I need to examine what you have more, but the zombie virus is fairly predictable, so even if it is a mutation, it probably won't do anything different from what it's already been doing."

Zach nodded slowly, "Alright, I can live with that."

"Since we know that it's not immediately dangerous, would you be willing to tell me about those other symptoms you mentioned?" with the click of a pen, she sat down in a chair nearby and gestured for him to sit across from her, there was a notebook on her lap and a grin on her face.

Zach complied, leaving the cage and sitting down in the plastic chair. He hesitantly began to speak.

"Well, I got stronger and faster," he explained, "I also healed from all my scars except the zombie bite. Um...I think my night vision and other senses are better, and I definitely have more endurance."

Nina wrote as she began to speak, "And how much stronger is that?"

"Ah, well I could lift the side of a car for a few seconds, that's a lot more than before."

"Alright, and your speed increased?"

Zach shifted in his seat, "well I think so, my reaction speed definitely did, and my awareness, I keep noticing things I never spotted before."

Nina wrote more stuff down, "Alright, weird question, do your eyes glow in the dark?"

Zach blinked, "what?"

"Most ranked zombies have glowing eyes, it could help us figure out how related this is."

"I don't think my eyes glow. But I suppose I wouldn't be surprised." Zach shrugged helplessly, "I don't see how we could test that anyway."

Nina raised an eyebrow and stood up, switching off the light. Immediately Zach's sight began to adjust, he couldn't see that well at the moment, but he could make out everything in the room. He was still looking at Nina, who turned the light back on after a couple of seconds.

"That's a yes." She said, writing something down. "Not brightly, but it's definitely glimmering."

"That's...a new one."

"Are there any bad side effects that have occurred?"

Zach frowned, still trying to figure out the implications of glowing eyes, "Well, I have a lot more energy, too much energy. I can't sleep for more than a handful of hours and if I sit still for too long then my muscles start to hurt. I don't seem to need as much sleep though so it's not too bad, I don't really like the muscle aches though."

Nina continued writing. It was so strange that she could ask questions and write down the answers at the same time. "How much exercise does it take to keep the pain away?"

"Um...well if I go for a run in the morning and evening and keep relatively active throughout the day, that seems to work fine?"

"Alright, how long have you had this happening?"

"Only two months or so."

"And can you tell me about how you got this virus? You said it had something to do with a cure?"

Zach rubbed his neck, "I had been bitten, this was a few weeks' journey from here to the east, in the mountains. The Cedar's Pointe was overrun by a nightstalker, I used myself as bait to get my friends out, and...well it bit me. I don't know how I got away really, but I did. A few days later Chicory found me and gave me her cure."

"And what did this cure look like?"

Zach cringed, "Well now that I think about it, it makes sense that it's a virus, and clearly Chicory had it too. It must somehow overpower the zombie virus and make sure the person lives."

"Oh that's interesting, how did she transfer it?"

"She just cut her hand and put it to the bite wound."

Nina nodded slowly, "I'll have to test that in a blood sample. Mmm, did your-"

"Nina are you down here?!" A voice from the hall asked.

Nina blinked, "Oh yes! We're over here!"

A man walked in, he was entirely unfamiliar to Zach, but he held himself in a way that betrayed familiarity with the lab. He also seemed to extrude an aura of power and command, as if he would say any word and expect it to be obeyed. But at the same time, he looked entirely relaxed. There was something wrong with that somehow.

He glanced at Zach, sizing him up with one motion, and then simply sat off to the side with a book.

Zach continued looking at him, startled, for several seconds. He focused back on Nina as she continued speaking, her pen resting on the notebook. "You said your senses improved? Which senses?"

Zach shifted in his seat uncomfortably, "Well my sight is better, like I said, I can see in the dark fairly well now...um, I also have better hearing."

"What about your sense of smell?"

Zach shook his head, "No, as far as I can tell that's the same as before. My nose has never been that great."

The man who had come in, spoke up, "What's happening here exactly? I could hear most of it before, but I feel like I'm missing something. You clearly aren't a zombie." He met Zach's eyes, the man's own eyes flashing red for a brief second.

"So his scent is clean to your nose then? That's good. I'll still have Trinity check once she gets back, but our friend Zach here has had an...odd experience." Nina glanced at Zach as if asking permission, but he simply shrugged. "A few months ago he came across someone with a 'cure.' He'd been bitten so of course he took it, but it wasn't our cure, and since then he's been experiencing changes. I looked in a blood sample and there's a lot of weird stuff happening, but mostly there's a different virus in his blood."

The man - that Zach was reasonably sure was a sane zombie - blinked, glancing at Zach again. "Alright, what do you need me to do." 

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