The Accident

Earth is overcrowded with people, and there aren’t enough resources to sustain life for all. So, the government hired scientists to figure out a way to kill off kids under the age of 20 without raising questions. Seven of the smartest scientists were rounded up, and taken to a secret lab in Nevadah. Amanda Shaw, a British scientist that specializes in the study of cells, and her associate Daemon Bates, who studies how traits are inherited, were the first two to start working in the lab. But, it wasn’t enough they needed other people with other skill sets they didn’t have. That’s when Carrie Wilson, who studies the spread of diseases, Edgar Knox, who Studies blood, and its disease, Freya Rose, a chemist, Ivy Miller, who Studies viruses, and Griffin Lee, a specialist in infectious disease joined Bates, and Shaw to figure things out. It took 3 years for a breakthrough to happen, but it wasn’t how they expected it to be.

“Bates, come look at this,” Edgar calls from across the lab. He was sitting in front of a pristine, white microscope with his glasses hanging down around his neck. He was staring at the blood component he had been working on for a couple of hours now.

“What is it now, Knox,” Daemon growls as he walks with long strides over to a hunched-over Edgar. Daemon’s icy blue eyes stare daggers at the back of Edgar’s head when he doesn’t answer right away, “Edgar.”

“Oh, shh. Look,” Edgar stands from his chair to give Daemon room to see what he saw. Daemon glares at Edgar one more time before sitting down and looking into the microscope. At first, he didn’t see a difference from what he saw last week, but right as he is about to pull away and yell at Edgar for wasting his time he sees it. It’s not noticeable at first, but there’s a subtle change in the blood. The shape in which the cells had been before have now transformed from a circle to an oval, as if the cells were about to multiply, but they don’t. What makes it even more interesting was that in the corner the blood had turned a dull purple color, and it was spreading fast throughout the blood killing off any cells in sight. It happened so fast that Daemon didn’t believe what his eyes were seeing at first until the blood went back to red, and the cells started to return rapidly in their original circle form.

“What.The.Hell did I just watch Knox?” Daemon’s eyebrows were scrunched together and his eyes turned a darker shade of blue as he looked at Edgar for answers.

Edgar shrugs his shoulders, “Lets ask the others,” Edgar pulls out his pager, and pages the rest of the scientists to come to the back of the lab. 3 minutes later five people walk around the corner, and step in front of Edgar, and Daemon.

“What is it, I almost made a breakthrough,” Amanda scowls.

“Watch this,” Edgar presses a button that turns on the monitor on the wall to their right. The screen is paused on the blood with the oval-shaped cells, and as he plays the video he watches each of their faces turn from bored to fascinated to confused.

“Edgar, what was that?” Ivy whispers in awe turning to stare at Edgar with her sparkling dark brown eyes. Her short light brown hair was in a half up half down look, and her bangs hung right above her eyes.

Edgar smiles softly in her direction before clearing his throat, “I used virus 67,”

“67?” Griffin questions, “But, we are on virus 70 right now. What reason do you have to continue to watch virus 67?”

Edgar scratches the back of his head, as half his colleagues glare at him, “I was moving virus 67 into the containment room when I noticed the slight hue of purple amongst some of the blood samples and decided to see for myself.”

“Good eye Ed,” Freya chuckles.

“Yeah, good eye,” Carrie replies in a condescending voice glaring hard at the back of Edgar’s head, “It’s funny how no one else noticed this the first time.”

Edgar shrugs, “Yeah.” Carrie grits her teeth before turning back to the screen in front of her.

“Now, all we gotta do is some more tests,” Griffin comments scratching his head, “Lucy, can you get virus 67 from the contamination room, and be careful,” he talks into a walkie talkie.

“Sure thing Boss,” Lucy chirps through the walkie talkie.

“All we have to do-,” red lights start to flash, and a loud screeching noise starts as a voice on a loud speaker says, “Code blue…… Contamination. The building is on lock down,” and it repeats over again.

“That stupid girl,” Daemon hisses through his teeth as he stands quickly, “We have to get out of here.” They all start for the door but remember that all main doors are locked, and bolted to keep the contamination in, “ugh, that stupid stupid girl.”

“BOSS!” Lucy shouts as she bolts down the hall, but before she could come any closer Daemon, Carrie, and Amanda pull out guns, and point them at her, “wait, wait ,wait don’t shoot. It’s Lucy.”

“We know, but you set off the contamination warning, so we don’t know what you have. Stay back,” Carrie growls.

Lucy gasps, as her eyes widen in fear, “That- it wasn’t me.”

“Don’t lie,” Daemon squints his eyes, assessing Lucy head to toe. Nothing seemed externally wrong with her, but he couldn’t be sure that she was absolutely safe without getting samples of her blood.

“I’m not…… oh please don’t shoot,” she pleads, dropping to her knees, as the tears she was holding back finally burst free, “please….. I’m not lying I swear it wasn’t me, but you need to know that-” she gasps.

“Lucy?” Edgar questions staring at her unmoving body. She seemed as if she was frozen, her mouth hanging open slightly, as if she was about to say something, but no sound came out. Edgar takes a step closer disregarding the other scientist's protests, “Lucy, are you okay darling,” before he takes another step she gasps again, and her body falls forward onto the ground with a thud. Her body starts to shake violently, and her skin turns a ghostly white and her veins, which were once a faded blue turned a deep, dark purple. Her choked gasps could be heard over the blaring alarms still ringing all over the place. Edgar staggers backwards, as violet blood puddled underneath Lucy, and starts to grow bigger coming towards him.

“DAMNIT!” Daemon kicks the wall next to him, and grips his dark hair in his hands.

“Daemon calm down,” Freya holds her hands up in front of her, palms facing Daemon, as his glare turns to her, “I mean…… we all need to have a level head right now”

As Daemon opens his mouth to say something but Edgar makes a choking sound before turning towards the wall on his right side, and retches. After a few seconds of him gagging,and heaving he scurries away from the pile of vomit stumbling, and falling onto his butt.

“Goddamnit, Knox. What the hell is wrong with you,” Daemon shouts turning away from the gruesome sight.

“Leave him be Daemon. He was close to her,” Ivy moves to where Edgar sat unmoving, and wrapped her thin arms around his shoulders, “hey it’ll be okay. We have to get out of here Ed.”

Edgar blinks slowly, “She… she had just found out she w-was pregnant. She was going to resign t-today.”

Ivy sucks in a sharp breath glancing at the ghostly body of Lucy before turning back to Edgar, “She wouldn’t want you to die too. She was a sweet girl, and she would have made a great mom, but she came to warn us risking herself to get us to safety. So, you cannot die you hear me?”

Edgar takes a moment to get himself together, he could grieve when he gets out of here. Nodding his head he wobbles to his feet taking one more deep breath before nodding to his companions, “Let’s get out of here.” They all start to run in the opposite direction as where Lucy came from, leaving her body there for now. After three rights, and two lefts Carrie abruptly stops, and a loud gasp leaves her lips.

Her eyes widen, as she feels a tingling sensation moving from where her heart is, and spreading throughout her body, “Oh no,” she whispers.

“What's wrong?” Daemon turns around, but doesn’t move towards her, “Carrie…… your eyes.” Daemon lifts his finger to point at her eyes, the white part of the eyes have turned black, and her pupils were glossed over.

What’s wrong with my eyes?” she chokes. Her body was shivering even though it wasn’t cold, her eyes unfocused, and a thin trail of blood started to come from her nose. Carrie brings her shaky hands up to gently touch under her nose, pulling her hand away she noticed the blood was violet just like Lucy’s was. Carrie’s eyes sting with oncoming tears, but instead of water it was the same violet blood running down her cheeks as she sobbed, “I don’t---- I don’t wanna die.”

Edgar looks away from the scene not yet fully recovering from the sight of Lucy face down on the floor dead. Griffin, Freya, and Amanda look away as well.

Ivy gives Carrie a small, shaky smile, “It’s gonna be alright,” her voice shakes with the effort she puts into not crying as Carrie steps forward. Everyone takes a step back away from her, “we’ll figure this out just-”

“We can’t help her, so stop lying Ivy,” Amanda spits with a sneer on her face, “you’re just giving her false hope. She’s going to die, and we can’t do anything for her, but put her out of her misery, or leave her here to die alone.”

“No,” Carrie shouts, and stumbles away from her comrades, “you can’t……. Daemon please,” she pleads with wide black eyes, as her veins begin to turn dark purple. Pain raced up her body making her muscles contract painfully. Carrie shouts in pain, as she falls to the ground in pain, “Please….. Help me,” she sobs.

Daemon turns his head away from her, “Do it Amanda.”

“Daemon no!”

“Please don’t!”

“What the hell!”

“Okay.” Amanda pulls her gun out, as Ivy, Carrie, and Griffin protest. Edgar jumps in front of Carrie, and straightens his back.

“Don’t shoot!”

“Get out of the way Edgar.”

“Edgar move.”

“Don’t shoot…Edgar please….Help me,” everyone was yelling over each other. Some begged Edgar to move, Amanda threatened to shoot both of them if he didn’t move, and Daemon watched silently from the sidelines as chaos ensued.

BANG.