Absolute Contamination

14/ Walking Disaster

CHAPTER 14: WALKING DISASTER

There was no oxygen left in the air for me to breathe, no matter how hard I tried to inhale. Regardless the fact that somehow I had been afraid for it to happen, seeing that the test hadn’t changed colors still knocked the breath out of me. The small paper trembled in my hand since I couldn’t keep my arms from shaking in fear.

“Ready to go?” Christophe startled me, leaving me with only a split second to decide what to do next.

Everything depended on my next decision - did I tell Christophe or was it better to keep this secret to myself? The right, thus the safe thing to do was to tell, of course, but it was by far the easiest option. 

Unable to face reality just yet, I rumpled the small paper stroke up into a ball. With a weak nod, I told Christophe that I was ready to leave and stood upright, cowardly hiding the hand that held the test in my pocket. It pained me to see an oblivious Christophe holding out his hand to help me up, a gesture I rudely pretended not to notice.

“The headache still isn’t any better?” Christophe wondered after a quick glance at me, and mentally I cursed myself for not having kept a straight face. If I planned on holding the contamination to myself, I would have to keep my face blank of all emotions. If I couldn’t do something simple like that, I would fail right from the start.

“It’ll pass,” I replied, unable to hide my distress once again. If it wasn’t the fear and wretchedness written all over my face, it would definitely have been my tone of voice that gave me away. The giant lump in my throat didn’t exactly make it any easier for me to speak, causing me to sound like I was at the verge of crying – which in fact wasn’t too far from the truth.

Inhaling deeply, or at least trying to do so, I began to walk. I didn’t wait for Emily or Christophe because I assumed it would only be in their interest to stay as far away from me as possible, so why not make it a little easier on their behalf? Plus, if I walked ahead of them, I wouldn’t have to pay as much attention to keeping my facial expressions under control, neither Christophe nor Emily would be able to see my face anyway.

“When do you think she’ll notice?” I heard Christophe’s voice behind me, followed by Emily’s giggling. I had absolutely no idea what that was all about, but didn’t bother to stop and ask.

“Keara!” Emily called for me a few seconds later, and when I turned around I saw they still stood in the exact same spot, they hadn’t moved at all. “You’re going in the wrong direction.”

Hearing that, I finally took a good look around and indeed, I was walking back in the direction we had come from. How I hadn’t noticed everyone else moving in the opposite direction of me was a big mystery, but then again, I had been lost in my own thoughts– something I seemed to be doing a lot lately.

With a sigh, I turned on my heel and headed towards Emily and Christophe who were both laughing at me. Any other day I would’ve joined in their amusement or given them some witty comment, but at that moment I couldn’t bring myself to do so. It didn’t take very long for them to become aware of my moody expression and before I even made it to where they stood, Christophe and Emily began to walk already, leaving me to follow a little behind. Once again I was thankful for the space they gave me, leaving me some time to myself to drive myself completely crazy with all my pondering and doom-thoughts.

Knowing that I was contaminated seemed to have prevented my body from functioning properly. Each breath I took was a struggle that felt almost impossible to win. I wanted to be able to breathe normal again, but at the same time it felt as though I was stealing the air from people who actually needed it. Being contaminated and still walking these roads made me feel like a walking time bomb, endangering everyone else’s lives and that because I was too scared to face the truth or to do something about it – not that there were a lot of options to choose from.