Lunar Virus ✔️

Chapter Two: Elodie

I’ve been awake for the last five minutes, but I'm not going to let anyone know that. Currently, there is at least one person in the room waiting for me to wake up--which I think is more than a little creepy. My plan is to pretend that I’m asleep for as long as I can so that I can possibly collect information on where I am by eavesdropping. They probably won’t directly tell me anything, so I might as well find out as much as I can now. The only problem? These guys are like mutes. So far, this is what I’ve heard:

1) Very soft flatulence.

2) Stomach-rumblings of a lunch-deprived person.

3) Tapping sounds of someone angry-texting on their phone.

I don’t think I can listen for much longer, though. Why? These geniuses decided to place me in the most uncomfortable position ever. They just sat me in a chair and tied up my hands with my head hanging like a sack of potatoes. Necks aren't made to withstand this amount of abuse.

You know what? Screw it. I lift my head. Oh, ow, ow, my neck . . . okay, ease into it. I reach up to massage my neck, but, of course, I’m tied up. I’m in what I would have to describe as the classic interrogation room. Why would they put a clueless, confuzzled teenager in a room like this? I have no idea. To my left is one of those classically unfair one-way windows. The surrounding walls are made of concrete blocks, and in front of me is—SHIT! My heart stops for a second and I have to force myself to not puke for the second time this morning. In front of me sits the body of a man who I swear was alive just one second ago. The body is slumped over in a chair. A phone lies softly clenched in cold, lifeless hands. No more stomach grumbles. No more flatulence. Just dead.

No, no, no, this is not happening. NO. Okay, I need to get myself out of here. Evaluate the situation. I twist around in the chair, but there's nothing behind me. What killed him? I slowly stand. Apparently, my captors weren’t smart enough to tie me to the chair, just dumb enough to tie my hands together with rope. I’ll bet he has a knife. I slowly approach the body, fighting nausea and terror. There, in his side pocket, I find keys. On the key ring, is a pocket knife.

After some painful twisting, I manage to saw the rope off with only a couple nicks on my wrist. I go for the gun next and pull it from the holster attached to the dead body’s belt. I have no idea how to use one. The only training I’ve ever had on gun handling is compliments to Chief Hopper from Stranger Things.

With shaking hands, I approach the door. The doorknob shines evilly in the harsh lighting of the room. I twist it slowly, only to find that it's locked—it needs one of those fancy key cards. Okay, it’s okay, I can deal with this. I turn back to the body. All I need is a key card. It’s all good. It’s fine, I can get it.

I stagger back towards the corpse and slip my hand into the suit's breast pocket just as the body falls out of the chair. It’s face bumps my shoulder and slides off to the side, and I realize that the shoulder of my hoodie is now wet. It’s blood. I know for sure that the body didn’t have any blood on it before. The blood definitely isn’t mine . . . which means . . . oh, God. Without touching anything, I kneel to look at the side of the corpse’s face that bumped into me.

Skin. The skin freaking peeled off his forehead! Like wet tissue paper. He’s diseased! I strip my hoodie off so that I’m just wearing just the shirt underneath and shove the key card I extracted from the suit pocket over the sensor. The sensor buzzes and blinks red. “Card deactivated.”

No.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Another idea forms.

The phone. The phone with the corpse. I’ll call the police. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I grab the phone and try to switch it on. All the comes up is an empty battery icon. NO! No, no, no. I can’t die. Not like this!