Oblivion {n.h.}

Chapter 67.

We'd left the safe zone and set out like Kaya said we would, and she ended up deciding to take Lydia along with us also.

It was only a half hour out before we'd stumbled on someone who had been bitten, and it had just happened hours ago.

A middle-aged man, alone with his wife, who was of course feared nearly to death. His fever had hit and I sit next to Kaya in the front seat of the truck, looking back at the man who lay his head in Niall's lap and over his wife.

"What's your name, Miss?" Niall asks, wiping the man's forehead with a cold washcloth.

"Anne," she stutters for her next words, "Anne Hawthorn." The woman speaks.

"And your husband?" Niall questions again, this time looking up at the woman as she brushes some of her brunette, greying, hair out of her face.

"Robert."

'Uh-huh', Niall counters to the woman, his attention on Robert again. "Kaya, how much longer we got, I don't think he's gonna be awake much longer."

"Almost there." Kaya replies, pushing her foot on the gas a bit harder now.

I turn around in my seat, now facing Niall, Lydia, and Anne in the back.

"Robert, hey–" Lydia grabs the man's jaw, twisting his head to face her. "My name is Lydia, we're going to help you okay, you just need to stay awake for me." She tells him, the man's eyes fighting to stay open as beads of sweat fall down his temple.

"Can you do that for me?" She asks again, watching as the man shakes his head and grunts a little in between his pants.

"Are you sure you all will be able to help him?" Anne then questions, and all I do is turn to face Kaya, who replies for Lydia.

"I'm one hundred percent sure."

Kaya snakes the truck around the side of the wall just under a large oak tree and runs up to the gates, knocking hard.

"We're back!" She calls while she runs back to the car and opens Niall's door. By this time I'm already out of the passenger side and around to help Kaya.

The gates open loudly and echo throughout the area, Niall hopping out of the door, reaching back inside for Robert.

Anne is not far behind after Niall holds Robert in his arms, running into the safe zone.

A few people stand to watch, some coming over to help like Harry and Steven at our sides.

I run beside Niall, wiping Robert's face with the cloth every so often. "He's out Kaya, we have to go now." I call after her, opening the doors to the hospital for Niall, as we make our way to the lab.

Kaya isn't but thirty seconds behind us, wasting no time to pull on her gloves and sample some of the vaccine into a syringe.

Robert looks out cold, only breathing heavily and now drenched in so much sweat he might as well have ran the whole way home.

Kaya quietly presses a cotton swab to Robert's arm and inserts the syringe into the vein behind his elbow.

"I'm gonna need you both to get out of here now." Kaya speaks timidly, not turning around to face both Niall and I, only staring down at her patient beneath her.

"Why?" Niall asks, exchanging a look with me quietly.

"Just go watch through the window." She brushes us off, pointing her thumb over her shoulder at the window. A large rectangular window on the side of the lab, normally used during quarantine.

Anne already stands at the window with her arms crossed and tears down her cheeks, now waiting for us to greet her out there.

Niall and I do as we're told, walking toward the exit of the room quietly, but as we exit and I turn around to look back at the door, Kaya was there, locking herself on the inside of the room.

"Hey!" I slam my hand against the glass, my ring making a loud noise as it makes contact.

"What are you doing?" Niall calls also, turning his head to have a clue as well.

"She's fucking mental!" I scream, slamming my fist against the glass again, Kaya just locking herself in a room with a potential dead guy.

Kaya stands over Robert, seeming to wait for the results of whether her product will work or not.

Walking over to the glass, she reaches over the top of the window, grabbing something; the curtains.

My jaw drops and eyebrows knit together in confusion as she does this, pulling down the curtains, stopping them over her face and mouthing a 'sorry' before dropping the cloth. Leaving the three of us blind to what happens in the room.

"Nothing we can do about it now." Thomas speaks, he and the others, Perrie, Steven, Jackson, Louis, and Harry joining us now; all anxious and hoping the results are positive.

I lean my back against the door and slide down it lazily, sitting down on the floor in waiting.

As soon as I make myself comfortable, the others do also, some leaning against the hallway and others sitting just as I had, everyone having small conversations and eagerly trying to pass time.

My stomach turns anxiously as I, every few minutes, press my head to the door of the lab in order to hear any noise that may be coming from the inside.

Some people leave to find other things to do while waiting, while some people join, everyone coming and going as they please.

Just when it was Liam, Anne, Thomas, Perrie, Lydia, and I, I feel myself becoming more and more paranoid as the seconds pass.

"How fucking long does it take." I groan, banging my head against the door once, then turning my face in order to listen on what may be happening in the room.

A scream, one that everyone could hear, but especially loud for me against the door. Another, another, scream after scream and call for help.

I hop to my feet, shaking the door handle forcefully and eagerly. Still not budging one bit.

"KAYA! ARE YOU OKAY?" Thomas calls, banging on the glass window loudly.

Kaya's screams getting louder and louder as the seconds pass.

"Here,–" Lydia squeezes past me trying to shake and bust the door handle just as I had, throwing her side into it, once, twice, before she kicks the door forcefully.

The door goes hanging on its hinges, creating an entrance for all of us into the room.

"KAYA!" I shriek, running into the room, Kaya on the ground next to Robert who has seemed to fallen off of the lab table. "ARE YOU BIT? ARE YOU OKAY?"

I sprint to the older girl, grabbing her on the shoulders and leaning down next to her.

She looks up at me, not seeming to be terrified or hurt at all, in fact, a huge open-mouthed smile plasters on her face.

"It worked." She says, her voice crackly from screaming so much.

Robert lays motionless, yet an obvious steady breathing raises and lowers his gut peacefully.

"What?" Thomas stutters, the only response I would have thought of as well.

"I saved Robert, and now I'm saving the world."