The Dystopian Perception

8

When Gerard suggested they drive into Baltimore, he had not anticipated that Frank and himself would find their truck crashing into a building and having to flee from flesh-eating creatures down it's streets. Gerard also did not anticipate that they'd be yanked into a building by unfamiliar hands just as they were to catch him and Frank. He didn't anticipate that, as of now, he and Frank would be sitting down in a waiting area of an abandoned hospital, encircled and being stared at by three unacquainted, but all the same comfortingly human, faces. Yet, here they are.

It's silent for a while. The three strangers exchange looks of consternation in those moments; the tallest scratching at his head and muttering under his breath, whilst the other two - a man and a woman - hold hands and are seemingly trying to calm themselves down. It had been these two that had yanked Frank and Gerard into the building, Gerard knows. It'd been these two that had dragged Frank and Gerard to the centre of this painfully white room; worming through the countless ill-lighted corridors of the place. It's like Frank and Gerard are sharks at SeaWorld - like they're terrifying, in spite of their spectators' knowledge of their safety. And it all happened so fast. All of this lack of violent action and then warningless occurrences of such are giving Gerard whiplash.

It's not until Gerard distinguishes the blood on his right arm and his breath hitches tumultuously in his throat that he notes that the room is no longer silent and that the tallest man is talking. Gerard wills prohibitively for the blood to not be his own; closing his eyes and pursing his lips. He's sure he feels no pain - he's certain that none of them got to him. Oh, God.

"Have you been bitten?" he inquires, his eyes wide; backing away and signalling for the others to, as though Gerard is not cognisant of what the man is doing.

Frank looks at Gerard and then at the blood on Gerard's shaking forearm. Gerard daren't look.

"Surely he'd have turned by now?"

"We don't know that."

"There's usually only around twenty seconds until it happens."

"How do we know the disease hasn't mutated in some way?"

"It won't have done!"

"You can't possibly know that, either!"

Gerard's brain starts to get loud as he hears the other voices in the room debate over him. Frank's eyes scan over Gerard for a second, and then he looks up at the first man and speaks for him.

"No, he hasn't," Frank says, matter-of-factly. His voice is orange against the red-blueness of the atmosphere of the room, and Gerard appreciates this greatly. "The blood's from somewhere else."

The second man unlinks his arm from the woman's and peers at his own hand. Gerard is puzzled as to why he does this. The man's eyes appear fractionally relieved though, and this is a soothing notion to Gerard.

"It's my blood. I must've scraped my hand or something on my way out," he says, in a far more warm and friendly manner than that of the first and tallest man. He puts his hand out to show to Frank and Gerard and then the first man, before escaping off to another room. Gerard hears running water, and so he assumes he's cleaning his wound. It was quite pallid, from the brief look Gerard took at it. It was gushing, and there was residue of some sorts of wood splinters embedded into it. Gerard marvels at how it was that he would not have noticed it for a second, but then he guesses it's unimportant. These people are going to want answers.

It's silent again, until the second man re-enters the room; a dirtied towel wrapped around his cut. It bothers Gerard that it's not clean. He wonders if the man knows how hazardous that is to himself.