Author's Note!!

Long time no see, my lovely readers. I'm so incredibly sorry for the long long long long long long long long long looooooooooooong break, I've had writers block worse than ever before. I hope this short piece makes up for it and trust me when I say that there will be more to come! This is the recreation of the crossover of Mutation/They're Changing and How Does it Feel?

I hated Before Our Eyes. HATED it. I had no motivation to continue it, felt I was simply reusing ideas to keep people interested and hated how it was turning out. I'm trying again, with a new direction and some ideas that I wasn't able to use before that I really wanted to! I hope you enjoy!

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"Mission Control, come in. We have incoming, Mission Control, do you copy?"

"Copy that, we see them."

"What's the situation, Mission Control? Are they infected?"

"Stand down alerts. Targets are not infected. Repeat, targets are NOT infected."

"Are you sure, Mission Control?"

"Affirmative. They're carrying weapons. They have wounded. They have offered up their weapons in surrender and have stopped their advance."

"Send out a team."

"Copy that."

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The group of half starved, filthy, exhausted survivors didn't have to wait long before the fortified gates of the encampment opened and a team of armed soldiers hurried out, shouting at them all to get on their knees on the ground.

The survivors complied without hesitation, ready for the nightmare to end, ready for their journey to be over. While they were searched and relieved of their weapons, the armed soldiers asked them questions in no nonsense tones.

"Have you come in contact with the infected?" A woman was asking one of the men in the group.

"Of course." He replied with a drawl, grunting in discomfort when one of the other soldiers began to pat him down. "We fought our way here, after all."

"How was he wounded?" Someone else was asking, several soldiers preparing a wounded man in the midst of the group for transport.

"Shot. It was an accident, friendly fire. There was a fight, things got complicated." One of the female survivors answered, trembling. Tears had cut ugly tracks through the filth on her face, her blue eyes still filled with them.

"He needs help!" Another of the female survivors gasped, her voice accented. "Please, he needs medical attention."

"We're taking him in now, ma'am, please don't worry." A soldier said calmly.

"We're going to need to quarantine you until you can be processed." Another soldier informed the oldest of the group, the man's steel grey eyes narrowing. "I know you've probably heard stories of other bases… this one is mostly run by civilians, sir. This is all a precaution. We can't have a disaster striking or another outbreak hitting."

"Stories don't even begin to scratch the surface, son." The old man growled, the soldier offering him the barest of smiles before helping him to his feet. The others also stood, and moved as a group towards the gates.

They were taken first to a clean room, stripped of their filthy clothes and hosed down. It was harsh, but hardly unnecessary… it would be tragic indeed if the infection got into the camp now. Once they were cleaned up a bit, they were handed clothing and told to proceed to a quarantine tent for food, then assigned to cots, which most took to almost immediately after their stomachs were filled with warm, decent food.

For a time, all the survivors forgot about anything more important than the small comforts these people had given them. For a time, there was no way of knowing more about them while they rested away the weariness of their travels. Further interrogation would continue in the morning.

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Morning brought a flurry of movement and a lot of noise when some of the soldiers came into the room took one of the survivors away. Over the shouting voices of his friends, one of the soldiers explained to them that he needed to be placed in further quarantine, in an area of the camp that was designed to house what the soldier referred to as 'carriers' as comfortably as they housed the immunes.

"I know you're confused and you're all probably scared and tired still… so perhaps we can start today with explanations. Please, all of you remain calm. We'll find you someone to talk to and sort things out." He explained, but a few of the survivors simply couldn't be placated. One was the tall, muscular man with the scars, the shaved head and the tattoos while the other was one of the younger girls, the one with pretty blue eyes and soft, wavy brown hair.

It ended up that the girl and the tall man were taken in to see one of the resident shrinks first, much to the dismay of the man. Named Francis, he proved to be so incredibly unruly that the shrink came close to asking for him to be sedated in one way or another, but Francis finally calmed down enough to listen to what the shrink had to say. She explained that his friend, named Darren, had the infection in his veins but wasn't actually showing signs of the infection outwardly. They called the people inflicted with this phenomena Carriers and she explained to Francis that they needed to have extra security to make sure the Carriers didn't spread the infection to those in the camp that weren't immune.

The girl, Ruby, had a harder time than Francis did accepting that her friend had the infection in his blood. She demanded to know how it possibly could have gotten there so vehemently that it caused the people running the camp to start asking deeper questions…

If Ruby had been just a little calmer, perhaps the truth would have never come out.

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Author's Note!!

Thanks again for your patience, should have another chapter up explaining what the hell is going on shortly. XD