SMILEY

"Now" - Part 1

I was convulsing.

It felt like my veins were on fire. I could feel the Cordyceps pulsing through my body, riding my blood as it worked its way in through the gash on my palm. I shrieked, slamming my hand onto the concrete floor over and over, desperately trying to stop the pain as it rolled over me in waves. My body shuddered, virus working its way into the soft muscle tissue, and soon I lost control.

Black and red. I could see black and red.

I was thrown onto my back, weight landing on my arms and legs as something small bit my arm.

"Keep her down! Keep her freaking down!" A male voice shouted nearby, but my head swam and I stopped listening. A cacophony of voices around me, echoing.

I cried out, stomach turning over and clenching as a kind of hunger ripped through me, biting at my insides, ferociously itching for meat. I began to scream, writhing and fighting against the hands that held me to the floor. I could hear my voice becoming something else, something guttural, animalistic. It was all I could do to hold back from biting at the open air, shrieking and blinded with a rabid need. I was fighting against it, but I was losing. It felt good to finally give in...

Suddenly I coughed, feeling the breath sucked from my lungs - and a heavy pressure forced it back in. Out, in. Out, in. I bucked, struggling against it, but my forehead was held tight. Out, in. The pain began to dull, ebbing away in stages.

A second of lucidity. I became vaguely aware of an icy feeling spreading through my veins.

"Bishop keep it goin'," an older voice shouted, out of breath. "She's almost over the hill. Come on. Come on, hun."

"We're almost out," a panicked voice replied, somewhere very close. Bishop?

"Then use it all!"

"Alright, this is ridiculous. She's already turned," said a cold female voice nearby. A shotgun cocked. "We gotta go."

"Don't you fucking dare!" Bishop snarled. I could feel the hands around me tighten. "She's almost there. Come on, fight it, Lee!"

"If you don't shoot her, I will," said the cold female, and the weight from one of my legs was released. I kicked it around, fighting as the coolness flooded my mind.

Out, in. Out, in. I began convulsing again.

"Look, we have thirty seconds! Just give them thirty seconds!" begged a new voice across the room.

"Watch the fucking door, Slip."

"I am!" Slip barked back. "And we have thirty seconds! Now just let her die!"

I suddenly gasped out a strangled breath, gulping in fresh air. My lungs had a mind of their own, hungry for air, my stomach finally silenced. I trembled, freezing.

"Okay, hi-" Bishop started, his hands grabbing my neck, directing my face upward. "Hi Lee; can you open your eyes? Look right here."

I blinked rapidly, a bright light shining in my face, burning my retinas. I whimpered and looked away, but his hands pushed me straight again.

I was sweating, shivering. I couldn't stop.

I finally squinted, letting my pupils adjust - to stare right at a flashlight and the barrel of a gun.