Patient Zero

Chapter 3

The doctor looked at me with a pained expression.

"How did they get that way? You said the military burned everyone who could've been infected," I was confused.

The security guard glared at me with a hatred that drilled holes into my soul. I would have shifted in discomfort if I could move.

"Did you forget that you were the one who started this whole thing?" He said it calmly, but his voice was on edge, his body tense. His hand was disconcertingly close to his gun.

"But, I was here, I couldn't hurt anyone, not restrained like this," I reasoned, "Plus, you said I was in a coma."

"We didn't induce a coma right away, and you gnawed through the leather restraints," The doctor added quietly.

"You got off your gurney twice," The security guard stated, his voice cold with pure, unabated hatred.

The orderly spoke up for the first time since the others entered the room, "The second time,you were in a locked room, you just knocked the machinery around. We induced your coma shortly afterword"

I swallowed, "And the first time?"

I shouldn't have asked, judging from the doctor and the orderly's grief stricken expression and the darkened look on the security guard's face.

"You want to know what happened the first time?" The guard started slowly, looking at me with murder in his dark brown eyes, "I'll tell you what happened the first time."

I shuddered slightly from his tone. He sounded like he was going to kill me, and laugh while he did so.

"The first time you got out, you invaded the hospital. You bit visiting children, adults with broken limbs, hospital staff, and, most importantly, you killed my wife and daughter when they came to visit me at work."

The calmness in which he said such a statement astounded me, but the murderous look was still in his eyes, and his hand inched even closer to his gun, and there was no doubt in my mind that he would use it on me.

"I... I'm sorry," I said slowly, realizing for the first time that this was all my fault. I was the reason my best friend's family was dead, I was the reason that guard was killed, practically before my eyes.

I was the reason almost everyone I knew was dead. Everyone I knew at school, maybe even my dad, I don't know.

"I did this," I slowly whispered, feeling a lump rise in my throat, "I've killed so many people..."

The doctor looked sympathetic, seeing that I was just realizing this.

"Why did you save me?" I asked quietly, "Why did you save this monster, when there were innocent lives that needed saving? Why didn't you just let me die?"

My voice grew louder and louder without me meaning for it to.

"Because we needed a cure."

I looked at the doctor, anger, fear, sadness, guilt, and self hatred flooding my eyes, turning all of it into tears.

Monsters like me shouldn't be able to cry.

I let the tears flow. The guard's face turned red, and he lunged at me. I was saved by the doctor and the orderly, who held the enraged madman back.

"You can't cry! You're evil! Evil can't cry!" He was hysterical, finally losing it, "I hate you! I hate you! Because of you, the only things that ever mattered to me are dead! You are a soulless nightmare that I can't wake up from! Why won't you just DIE?!"

He got free from the doctor's and the orderly's grips, and pulled out his gun, aiming it straight between my eyes.

I waited for the inevitable sound of a gunshot, and closed my eyes, expecting to never open them again.

I held my breath, and waited for the end.