Solanum
I was visiting my wife, Anya Stroud, in the hospital that I work in. She was really sick with a terrible infection that started here, in Japan and is now going around across the world. We didn't know what this infection was, but we knew it was deadly. Me, and the other 5 staff named the infection 'Solanum'. Anyway, we worked at a 3 storey hospital, which could fit about 30 patients on each floor. We have equipment specially designed for the infection only. The hospital only took in people who were infected with Solanum. The wards were cleaned 3 times a day and were brightly lit. We tried to make it as 'homely' as possible so when families visit, they know we're treating our patients with the upmost care. The wards were shared between 2-3 people with their own separate section in the ward. There are many staff working here but I'm not sure (since I'm looking for a cure, along with 5 other people). I have been assigned to work with a partner named Kazuto, who is a Japanese medical/computer specialist whilst the other four have been assigned with a partner. We work under the hospital, literally. There's a lab that we specially designed and in our team, there are 2 Japanese men, 1 Japanese woman, 1 American woman, A Canadian guy and me. The people are; Kazuto, Akira, Asuna, Misty and Cole. As for me, my name's Marcus Fenix.
Anyway, I was walking to Anya's ward to check her health. Every other husband would be more than happy to see his wife, right? But I wasn't. Whenever I go to see her, heck, whenever anyone gets close to her, she goes mad around in her bed, smacking her head, wriggling her fists around, trying to break free of the cuffs that we put onto patients who we think are dangerous. I hate seeing her tied up and in pain like this which is why I don't like checking up on her. Most of the times I ask a doctor to check her health instead. But for a while now, she had been acting strange. Grant, who was a friend of mine that checked up on Anya's health, said that she had been showing more hostility than before and told me to see her. My heart started thumping. I had a feeling I shouldn't go. But I hadn't seen her for about 3 weeks and I was thinking to myself "What if this is serious?" I was thinking hard for 5 minutes, and in the end I ended up going to see her. I was meant to meet Grant at Anya's ward. I took a deep breath and went in. There was no sign of Grant so I figured he probably went to get medicine. Anya was wriggling around, constantly smacking her head on the bed, looking at me with ferociously. There was hatred and rage in her eyes. My heart sank. Tears were flowing out of my eyes. I walked closer to her. I saw her scars, her cuts and bruises she got from hurting herself, her deep gashes and… blood. "Blood?" I thought to myself. The blood looked fresh with pieces that looked like flesh. What I found unnatural is that Anya had a smile on her face. I first thought that she was happy to see me, but then that smile turned into a smirk. That's when I realised something terrible had happened here. I ran to the other side of the bed to confirm my thoughts. I was right. Blood was dripping from the bed, and under all that blood and pieces of flesh, laid a blood-soaked, half-eaten, torn apart Grant.
Grant's head was torn apart. I could see the inside if his head, with half of his brain shredded and the other half pouring with blood. His torso was a complete mess. All I saw was his flesh and the insides of his body. His lungs were ripped, his intestines were hanging out of his body, his heart had been shredded to pieces and his legs were across the other side of the room. But for some reason I wasn't shocked, nor did I feel sad enough to break into tears. I did feel sorry for Grant, but that's about it, no other sad emotions. I was staring at Grant's body when suddenly I heard a click. I looked to my right and saw Anya standing. She had pale skin and her veins were easily visible. Blood was oozing from her mouth with the bits of Grant's flesh dangling out of her mouth. She advanced towards me very slowly and with every step she took, parts of the flesh from her mouth fell to the ground. No time to think. I had to quickly come up with an escape plan. Within a matter of seconds, I thought of a plan. "Ok, there's a tranquillizer just behind her" I thought to myself. "If I can get hold of it and inject Anya, I can take her to the lab and operate on her body properly." She was walking slowly. It'll be a breeze but I had a feeling that it wasn't going to be as easy as it looked. And sure enough, it wasn't. Anya lunged towards me as I started to run. I was just about to punch her away when thoughts of Anya came into my head. I stopped to a halt and then I got knocked to the ground. Anya was on top of me. I couldn't hit her no matter what, because no matter what she did, she was still my wife. I tried fighting back but it didn't work. Then I forced myself to forget about Anya, like she was someone or something else. Anya was just about to grab a chunk out of my face when I thrust my right fist forwards and aimed straight for her head. She flew to the left which gave me enough time to get up and run towards the tranquillizer. I grabbed it while Anya was getting up and when she ran for me a second time, I stabbed the injection twice into her arm and she just dropped to the floor. I sighed with a relief, put Anya into a bed, covered her with a white sheet of cloth and took her to the lab underneath the hospital for a special examination and operation. I was about to break into tears.
I met kazuto in the lab who was working quietly on his computers and laptops. He told me that the others had gone off to another town to see how things were. He didn't notice that I had a body with me until he looked back to get a sip of his water. As soon as she saw the body, he choked on the water that he was drinking and almost puked. Kazuto then put his glasses into the right spot and asked with confusion "What the heck is in there?
"Anya"
"Why is she here? What is she doing in a bed covered with cloth? Wh-"
"Calm down, Kaz. I'll explain to you once I've put the bed beside me and once I've sat down." So I explained what happened to him and once we were done, he just sat there with his mouth wide open. I asked him if he could help me with the examination and straight away he agreed. I smiled, since Kazuto was a better surgeon than me. We pulled the bed with us to the operating room and got to work straight away. We put on hairnets, surgeon aprons, rubber gloves and wore medical face masks. Shortly after we were equipped, Kazuto linked the medical equipment to his computers and laptops. Before we started the operation I injected another jab of the tranquillizer since she was starting to regain consciousness but that didn't help, so Kaz gave her an anaesthetic. She lost her consciousness and so we began with the operation. Kaz operated on her head first, opening it up and examining her brain. He mainly murmured to himself without telling me what was going on and what he found out. After about half an hour into the operation, Kaz needed to get some better equipment from the upper floors of the hospital. "Marcus, stay here and leave the body as it is. I just need to get some equipment from top. If Anya shows ay sign on consciousness, inject a tranquillizer into her arms. Don't worry, she can't die from too many tranquillizers but she'll start to become immune to it soon. I'll try to be quick."
"Don't tell anyone 'bout this, Kaz. Especially the medical team up top. They'll all want to see what's going on, even the specially trained." Kazuto walked at a quick pace towards the elevator. When he was gone, I looked back at Anya. Her skin was paler than before, but the beauty didn't change. She was my wife and I still loved her, regardless of what she tried doing to me. I walked closer to her and memories about her came into my head again. I thought about the good times and bad times we had together. How we planned to have a family and raise our children well. Those thoughts made me smile. I was staring at Anya's body, thinking about what would happen if she died. What would I become if she left this world? The smile turned into a frown. Tears trickled out of my eyes. Suddenly, Anya regained consciousness and my smile returned. I was more than happy to see Anya awake again and I was just about to hug her when I remembered that Kaz told me not to touch the body. She was strapped to some cuffs so if she did wake up and things got out of control, she couldn't do much harm. But, as a stupid family loving man I was, I took the cuffs off Anya .I felt sorry for her and I felt that it was the least thing I could do to help her. This is where everything went wrong.
As soon as Anya had been freed of the cuffs, she tried to bite my face off. I moved backwards thinking that she can't get to me but then I remembered that I took them off. "ANYA!" I shouted. She jumped out of the bed and ran for me. I blocked her swing and pushed her away. "Listen to me Anya!" I tried injecting her with a tranquillizer but it didn't work anymore. The anaesthetic wasn't within my reach. The blood had dried from her mouth. Then I realised that she was conscious… with her brain was hanging out from her head. I was shocked and then thought to myself that this isn't the Anya I used to know. This was some sort of other monster. "GIVE MY WIFE BACK!" screaming while rage and fury built up inside me. She didn't respond, only shook her around and then ran for me again. She scratched my face and tackled me to the floor. Her mouth was wide open and her breath stank of dried flesh. The smell was revolting! She tried to bite the flesh out of my neck but I punched the side of her cheek. When she landed on the floor, I got up but she bit my leg. The bite took out a meaty chunk on my leg and I screamed in pain. This is where I lost it. Whilst in agony, I limped towards the woman- heck, the monster that she had become- and repeatedly kicked her. I grabbed something that looked sharp from the equipment that Kaz was using, and stabbed it right into the monster's guts. Nothing happened. She just stood up and ran towards me. I ran away into the other rooms despite the pain in my leg and tried looking for a weapon. I lost sight of Anya when I looked back and I think she lost sight of me too. I wasn't sure but this was the time for me to catch my breath. I took some pain killers that I found on the shelf and drank Kaz's water. I also injected a painkiller that our team invented which kicked in straight away and greatly helped. Looking around the room, I found a small handgun. "Great" I murmured to myself. "This'll do just fine" I cocked the gun and readied myself if Anya tried attacking me again. I limped around the underground room, staying in front of the elevator, so if I was in trouble, Kaz would be able to help me quicker. After about five minutes of limping around, I sat down and looked at my leg. My sense of vision had greatly reduced since the equipment that had been broken, interfered with the electricity. It was darker than usual but I could just make out what the room looked like. Then, I heard noises around me. My senses became sharp and alert. I heard smashing and glass breaking. Worried, I got up and limped towards a wall so there wouldn't be any surprise attacks. As I was limping though, I heard fast paced footsteps behind me. Before I knew it, I was punched to the side. I staggered to my feet, swaying a little. There was still anger inside me and I needed to let it out. "Either that or I die savagely here" I said to myself. I aimed the gun at Anya's head but she pushed me to the floor. She took a bite at my face but I blocked it with my forearms. She took a bite in my left forearm instead but I felt no pain. I kicked her off me and got back onto my feet. I aimed the gun at her head again while she was getting up. But, at that moment, Kaz came back in with the other 5 who had torchlights and lamps; they saw me pull the trigger. Tears burst out of my eyes while I was doing this, but it was for my own good. Her head exploded and splattered across the wall and near the others who just came in. As soon as I spotted them, I wiped the tears away and forced a smile. "Long time, no see" They didn't say a single word; they just stood there with their eyes and mouth's wide open.
I told them what had happened while Misty (who always helped out Cole,) was patching up my wounds. Her long brunette hair swayed from side to side as she was treating me. Her hair went all the way from her head, to just below her chest. Misty's sparkling hazelnut eyes caught my eyes which reminded me of Anya. She used a mix of historical medicine such as herbs, as well as modern day medicine. I told them how I didn't feel as sad as I would when I shot Anya. I never really noticed how everyone actually looked until now. Kaz had brown medium-length hair which went down and covered his left eye. He was sitting silently, constantly fixing his glasses. Akira had short and black spiky hair. He was listening to me whilst reading a medical book. Asuna had long orange-brownish chestnut elegant hair, which flowed down to her waist. And Cole, well, he was our boss. We all respected him and he showed it back. Misty always helped him out and they're the ones who started this secret medical team. Cole had really short brown hair and stubble on his face that you could hardly see. He had brown skin and looked really frightening with those big and strong muscles. And trust me, they were BIG! In actual fact, Cole was a really nice Canadian guy. Misty was walking around, looking for a bandage. They're the ones who started this secret medical team. We all had a close relationship with each other and we all worked really well together. As I said before, I and Kaz work together. There's also Akira and Asuna who are partnered with each other and Cole and Misty are partnered with each other. Before long, something really unexpected happened. We heard thumping and noises coming from upstairs but we didn't pay much attention to it. Soon after, screaming was heard and then we figured something bad had happened. We all looked at each other with confused faces and agreed to see what was happening. Misty bandaged my arm up and we all went into the elevator. When we entered the base of the hospital we saw People were running around, screaming as they ran. Then, what horrified us all was that we saw what looked like Anya became. But instead of one, there were about 100 of them, feasting on the fresh meat they could get hold of. "What the heck happened here?!" shouted Cole to us. When we came in, there was peace, and about half an hour later, there's a bloody mess?"
"Cole, this is dangerous! We need to go back to the lab. At least get some weapons or some sort and try to help these people out!" Asuna replied.
"AKIRA! ASUNA! MISTY! You three get these people to safety and try to calm them down. Here, take this pistol, it should help you keep things under control and provide a good amount of defence. MARCUS! KAZ! You two are coming with me! We're gonna' try and get all the equipment and weapons we can to try and kill these monsters."
"Sir, yes sir" Kaz and I said, with a big grin on our faces.
"You lot ready?" We all nodded and some even laughed. "LET'S GO!" This is when all hell broke loose.
We scurried down to the lab. Cole and I were looking for weapons to take while Kaz was fixing the electricity for the underground lab. He fixed it within a matter of minutes and then he started looking for weapons to grab. Cole told him to look for remedies instead. Cole was looking for some equipment to take, I was ordered to get as much as weapons I could carry and Kaz was ordered to look for Misty's remedies. About 10 minutes later, things sounded much worse above us so Cole hurried us and commanded us to quickly grab what we have and get out of there. I had about 20 different types of weapons, each with a couple of mags and stored them into 2 different bags. I also had about 5 grenades that I found clipped onto a belt. It wasn't enough to last for a long time, but we could buy more weapons and ammo from a weapon's store. Kaz had a lot of remedies with him and grabbed his technical equipment, just in case. Cole had some flares, torches, hammers and pretty much anything that could knock someone out unconscious. Cole directed us to the elevator and we went up. I handed a Ruger LC9 pistol to Kaz with the ammo and he armed himself. He didn't like using assault rifles, just pistols. I had a Robinson Armament XCR (XCR for short) and a Walther PPS pistol. I handed Cole 3 grenades with the belt to strap around him and a VHS assault rifle so he was pretty much heavily armed. Cole was a man with big muscles and he could take a few scratches or two. We came up the elevator like 3 men from an action scene, waiting to save the day. I smiled to myself as I thought of that, but that was all in my head. In reality though, this was much, much worse. Kaz spotted the other three and it seemed like they did a good job. Many of the people had been evacuated with about 20 people that turned into monsters were on the floor either dead or slowly crawling, almost at their death. Kaz called them towards us but then one of those creatures grabbed Asuna from behind her. Kaz and I couldn't shoot since we would probably have shot Asuna. Cole aimed his gun steadily and then... BOOM! The creatures head exploded onto Asuna's face and she ran towards us. Misty told us that they found out what happened. One of the doctors told her that it's the Solanum which made them turn into these creatures. "Patients who have… been infected with Solanum… for more than 2 months go mad" Misty said in short breaths. She steadied her breathing and carried on. "Solanum takes over their brain and nerves. They don't have any control over their bodies and only thrive for human flesh. Solanum infected people are like humans, but only stronger and can run for a very long time. For now, we'll call them Sola's" Cole shot the remaining Sola's and told me to hand out firearms to the other 3. As I gave them out, Cole made a plan. "Listen up guys. I've got a plan that should work, depending on how many Sola's there are out there. If there are about 40 then that's ok but 50 max. If there's more then I'm not sure if this will work. What we do is Marcus, Akira and I are at the front, killing as many Sola's as we can. You three will be right behind us. Asuna behind Akira, Kaz behind Marcus and Misty behind me. We're gonna kill as many Sola's as we can and once we're reloading, you three take over our positions. We should only have to do this about two times, but like I said, it depends on how many Sola's there are. Understood?"
"Sir, yes sir!" we all shouted in sync, as if we were in the army.
"Then let's move it!
Each and every one of us was happy and couldn't keep the grin away from our faces. I guess it was probably because this was the actual time that we all worked together on something so important. Or probably because we were ordered to use firearms and kill a whole bunch of crazy, infected people and save the day. I wasn't so sure but I liked this feeling. All of us ran through the exit. When we were out, Cole just swore loud enough that we could hear. I was readying my gun, double checking it 'til I heard sighs. I looked up at their faces and they didn't look too happy. "What's wrong with you lot? One second you're happy, the next you're all down." Akira pointed ahead of him. I looked up and saw more than 100 Sola's that were surrounding us. "OH CRAP!" I shouted out loud. We all double checked our guns, ammo and got ready for the fight to the death.
And now here we are, encircled by waves of Sola's, getting ready to fight for our lives. "Get into a circular formation and kill as many as you possibly can." Cole said. "It was nice knowing you all" There were no time for tears, just farewells.
"We've not lost this yet" Akira said.
"It's 6 VS over 150 Sola's…" Asuna replied.
"We'll make it through, don't worry" Misty was smiling and trying to keep us encouraged, but under that I could see the fear.
"It was nice knowing you Marcus. I've learned a lot from you. Thanks." Kaz and I shook hands
"Yeah, I've learned a lot from you too –hell- all of you guys. Let's make it through this ok?" As I bid our final farewell, we formed into a circular formation. The Sola's started to grunt which made me think that they were going to attack VERY soon. Some were still chewing on human bodies that they had just attacked, while others had the flesh and guts in their mouths. Suddenly, two Sola's ran towards Cole and Misty. Although they were both experienced with firearms, it took almost a full magazine to kill two Sola's. Carefully and quietly, I said to myself "This is for you, Anya." Then, I spoke loud enough so everyone else could hear. "This is gonna be one HECKUVA fight! You all ready?" Everyone loaded their guns with new magazines and nodded. I turned around and asked Cole if I could give the last command. Cole turned around and he was smiling at me. "Sure, go ahead. You've earned it." A great big grin appeared on my face. Then, commanding everyone for the last time, I was speaking loud and clear. "Let's Do This!" And with that, the Sola's grunted and leapt for us from all sides. Ending with us screaming and shooting and the Sola's charging at us with full speed, screeching…