DEBORAH THE WARRIOR PRINCESS

Chapter 2: An outbreak (Part 1)

Five years after the NUFAME explosion, a disease broke out in Europe, the disease was like an epidemic, but it suddenly became a pandemic, and it spread all over the world. The disease was called the Ilsviper disease, because it was suspected to have been caused by a new viral strain from an unknown virus. The new viral strain that was later discovered to be the cause of the disease was codenamed the ILSVIPER, the emergence of the virus was linked to the nuclear blast that happened in Sosthenes.

Europe was the continent that was the worst hit by the virus because the outbreak of the disease started in Sosthenes. The mortality or fatality rate of the viral disease was high, the mortality rate was about 62 to 65 percent.

The disease got more serious attention when the president of Calisthenes [Mr. Benjamin] caught the disease, my uncle - who was a scientist, also got infected too. I was an orphan, and losing the uncle who had taken good care of me for five years was not a good thing.

If my uncle died, my life would have been shattered by sorrow, when I went to the hospital, I discovered my uncle was kept with the president because his case was very critical like the case of the president of Calisthenes', and there was no more room for new patients in the hospital, except the president's VIP ward, which was supposed to be for the president alone, because he was brought all the way from Calisthenes to Sosthenes for treatment. My uncle enjoyed this privilege because the person-in-charge of the federal hospital is my uncle's friend, his name is Mr. Parker, while the name of my uncle is Mr. Stanley Steifen.

On my arrival to the hospital, I met stiff resistance from the staff of the hospital.

"Hi!" I said to a nurse I saw at the entrance.

She was about to come out of the hospital, but for one reason or the other, she ran back inside.

When I tried to enter the hospital, I saw a little army of doctors and nurses wearing protective clothing. The moment I entered, I got pushed outside by a doctor.

"Stay away from us, VECTOR!" The doctor shouted at the top of his voice.

I was not permitted to see my uncle, but... thank God!

Few minutes after I was highly embarrassed by the hospital personnel, I saw Mr. Parker from the entrance, he was about to talk to the little army that had just embarrassed me. I was glad! And I quickly announced my presence by shouting his name excitedly. It caught a lot of attention, but it gave me the needed passport to meet my uncle.

He took me to the room where my uncle was located, he also got me protective clothing to wear because I wore none, I only wore the normal clothes people wear, while almost every nurse and doctor I saw (including Mr. Parker) wore protective clothing because of the highly contagious nature of the disease.

He addressed the family members of the Calisthenian president before addressing me,

"Hey lady, your uncle is in a critical condition now. And your coming is a timely one. I just checked your medical records in the federal health system, and I think you can help out." Mr. Parker said to me in low tones.

"What can I do to help out?" I said with searching and longing eyes.

I really wanted my uncle to recover from this strange and cruel ailment.

"You will need to donate some of your blood to keep your uncle's vitals stable for some time. Can you do this?" He asked carefully.

"Yes, I can." I responded with a tinker of hope in my heart.

The Ilsviper disease caused people to suffer huge losses of blood, it happened to anyone that got infected with the virus, when patients with Ilsviper disease began to reach a critical stage, they began to vomit blood out of their mouth and nose, I think that disease must have been a devilish one. It spread to almost everyone that lived around I and my uncle, I wondered why I wasn't showing symptoms.

One of the president's family members which seemed to be his wife donated blood to the president, and I also did the same for my uncle.

Few minutes after Mr. Parker started to transfuse blood to my uncle, my uncle got cured, all the symptoms of him having the disease began to vanish away. Mr. Parker was so-so... surprised.

"Transfuse this lady's blood to the president, now!" A surprised Mr. Parker ordered to the nurses and doctors who were assisting him in the VIP ward.

The hospital staff obeyed promptly and the same miracle occurred! The critically-ill president recovered just few minutes after the transfusion of my blood to the president started.

I was super-surprised at the turnout of events.

"Do not transfuse all of that blood, inject it into everyone in the room!" The voice of Mr. Parker boomed throughout the VIP ward.

The doctors carried out the instruction, Mr. Parker was the first recipient of the treatment, and I was an exception, because... it was my blood? Yeah! I was the donor, so I was an exception to that instruction.

Mr. Parker gave that prompt order because he and some other staff and people in the unit had began to manifest the first symptoms of the disease.

The some of the symptoms are: Rashes and the discolouration of the skin.

Some of the symptoms of the disease that seemed to be manifesting on Mr. Parker vanished after some few minutes, my now-happy uncle was glad to see me, he went to meet Mr. Parker after noticing what happened to him.

Both of them together with the president agreed to perform some tests on me, the president's family members were also happy that the president recovered from the fatal disease.

Meanwhile, the tests they were performing on me seemed to be like a combination of a lab experiment and test to me, because they took me and put me in the midst of patients with critical cases for some minutes, then they took my blood sample to see if I had the virus.

Surprisingly enough, something like the virus was found in me, but it was more like an antivirus because of its behavior, and it did not really look like the Ilsviper virus, and I was not still showing any symptom of the Ilsviper disease after the experiment.

It was as if my body was miraculously immune to the disease.

"The nuclear explosion may be the cause. It may have mutated her body cells into better ones instead of inflicting the consequences of nuclear radiation on her." My uncle said to Mr. Parker and I, after seeing the results of the blood test carried out on me.

"I agree with you on this. Her blood cells have definitely undergone some sort of special mutation before. I believe her blood is the cure to the Ilsviper disease." Mr. Parker responded.

He quickly interrupted my uncle when he was about to voice out an idea.

"Why don't you allow your niece to donate two pints of blood? This will be used to inject patients with very critical cases. If they recover within few minutes, then her blood is definitely the cure to this deadly disease. What do you think, Stanley?" He added in a very calm and reassuring way.

My uncle agreed, and I had no choice but to comply, though I really wanted to help out in whatever way that was possible. And Mr. Parker was right after all, all the people that got injected not only got cured in minutes, they also became verifiably immune to the disease.

That day, a lot of patients were discharged from the hospital, and the hospital began to get crowded the more. I think this happened, because the news of the cure to the deadly Ilsviper disease spread like wildfire amongst the people.

Some of the immune people, who were now immune to the Ilsviper disease as a result of the injection of my blood tried to transfer their blood to other sick patients through transfusion or injection, but those sick patients were not getting cured, and that was a bad form of bad news.

In response to this bad news, the president of Calisthenes gave a very rash order to Mr. Parker and my uncle.

"DRAIN HER BLOOD OR GET READY FOR A RAMPAGE BY THE SET OF ANGRY PEOPLE OUTSIDE!"