Chapter 1
Zayn's POV:
Zayn looked up at the ceiling tiles of the hospital and sighed. It was getting worse and Zayn knew it. And by it, he meant his condition for lack of a better word. People could no longer be in the same room as him without getting light headed or developing a headache. Your probably confused so let me explain. It had all started the day he turned eighteen for some odd reason.
It had been a normal day, he had gotten home from school to find his family and friends all there and waiting for him. They had thrown him a surprise party and it had honestly been one of the best days of his life. That was until his mom kissed him on the cheek.
"I love you very much son," Zayn remembered hearing his mom say as she bent down to kiss his cheek as he blew out his birthday candles. She kissed him and had managed to stand up before she fainted. So pretty much standing up had been a waste. Anyway, she had fainted there on the spot and when people tried to wake her up they discovered she was unconscious. Zayn rode with his father and three sisters in their car as they followed the ambulance up to the hospital. They worried the whole way there.
They waited patiently in the waiting room until a nurse came and spoke to them. He told them that their mother was going to be just fine and they had no idea why she had just fainted out of the blue. After that Zayn thought everything was going to be all right, but boy was he wrong.
Over the next month everything got worse. During the week following Zayn's birthday everything was mostly okay. His sisters had gotten headaches most days of the week but besides that nothing really happened. The second week was when every body started coughing and complaining of a sore throat. During the third week was when it became apparent that something was seriously wrong. By this time everybody besides Zayn was feeling extremely sick and were all bed ridden and throwing up. Within one month's time of Zayn's birthday every single one of his family members was checked into the hospital with a sudden illness and were on the verge of death.
The odd thing was though, Zayn was not affected. He felt completely fine and normal There were no obvious external signs that he was ill and internally he felt healthy as well. The doctors requested though that he stay in a secluded room at the hospital because they believed he could be contagious and they didn't want him to spread this weird illness to anybody else. Zayn complied and he stayed in a room at the hospital completely isolated for a week while his family recovered. The only time he came in contact with another human being was during his meal times. Zayn noticed though that every couple of days he had a different nurse bring his food. This was curios thing to Zayn so he decided to ask about it one day.
"Where is the nurse that was hear yesterday?" Zayn asked politely to the woman currently filling the vase next to his bed with fresh flowers. Zayn had only been at the hospital five days but in those five little days the flowers in his room had already wilted three times.
"She didn't make it to work today," The short plump woman said as she took his empty tray of food from his lap. "Yesterday she was complaining about a headache. I didn't think it was that bad but I guess it was bad enough to keep her home for a day. Don't you worry though. She will probably be back tomorrow." She said with a grin and lightly pinched Zayn's cheek.
"Okay thanks for telling me," Zayn replied and watched as the woman rubbed her temples.
"Speaking of headaches," the short nurse murmured as she walked out of Zayn's room and down the hall.
Zayn stayed in the hospital for more than the one week the doctors had recommended. He was actually there for three weeks before he was allowed to go home, that was, if his family had recovered by then and we able to leave with him.
His father and sisters had been steadily getting better, getting stronger and eating more solid food each day, the same was not said for his mother. Her condition worsened with each passing day. The doctors had no idea what to do. They had tried almost everything they could think of. This illness was not a common one they were used too. They had no idea how it was spread, how to prevent it, or how to cure it. It seemed that the only way patients improved was over time and with little or no help from medication. The only way to recover was for the body to heal itself over time and Zayn's mom's body was just not up to it.
Zayn was in his room idly playing with the fabric of his blanket when he heard a light knock on his door. "Um come in?" he said hesitantly. Usually the nurses just came in whenever they wanted, not caring whatever they were interrupting that he was doing. Let's be honest though, he wasn't ever doing anything important, he was in a hospital for crying out loud.
Yet again a different nurse entered his room and pulled up a chair close to his bed. "May I help you?" Zayn was confused now, the nurses hardly ever sat down with him.
"Mr. Malik, there is something I have to share with you," The nurse began. She clasped and unclasped her hands nervously. "Your mother passed away an hour ago," She said and after that Zayn stopped paying attention to what she was explaining to him. He had gone numb and couldn't seem to process what the nurse had said. His mother couldn't be dead. She couldn't be.
The nurse tried to soothe Zayn by running her fingers through his hair and holding him against her chest while he cried. And boy did he cry. He sobbed into the nurses chest as he mourned the death of his mom. The death of the one woman in his life that he knew would love him no matter what. The woman who had raised and nurtured him. His mourning was soon interrupted though as the nurse hastily got up and apologized before excusing herself to go throw up in the bathroom for she was feeling suddenly ill.
After the nurse left Zayn cried again. He cried like he had never cried before and it wore him out. Zayn's tears had exhausted him and he fell asleep still crying. When Zayn awoke he hoped the events of last night had only turned out to be a nightmare. He pushed the call nurse button and a nurse entered and spoke to Zayn with caution in her voice. "Yes dear, what do you need? Would you like to see the rest of your family? We gathered them all into a room down the hall." She tried to smile but Zayn could see it was forced. Zayn didn't really want to go but he nodded his head anyways.
The nurse helped Zayn up, even though he didn't need it, and walked him down the hall and entered a door four rooms down the hall from his own. Zayn entered and found his father laying on the bed, puffy eyed and with a distant expression on his face. Zayn's sisters were scattered around the room. His youngest sister Safaa, was laying with their father all curled up next to him and trying not to cry again. His oldest sister Doniya was in a horrendously ugly green chair next to the bed staring out the window into the dark skies outside. Lastily Waliyah was sitting at the at the edge of the bed, playing with the frayed ends of the blanket.
As Zayn entered the room he cleared his throat and got the attention of his remaining family members. Apparently Zayn's presence brought back the memory of their mothers death to his sisters because Safaa and Waliyah started crying once more. Doniya tried to stay strong and not cry but Zayn could see her tearing up as she rose from her chair and gave Zayn a tight hug. The family spent the rest of the day in each others company, comforting each other and whispering it would be okay.
Within the next week all of Zayn's family had recovered and were allowed to go home. Their mom's funeral passed in a blur that was extremely painful for all of them but was especially painful for Zayn. He couldn't help but feel it was his fault his mother was dead. It couldn't be his fault though, he hadn't done anything. Luckily a distraction was coming up to take his thoughts away from the whole situation. He had a camping trip planned with his school that was going to happen next week.
The week leading up to the camping trip was not a good one for Zayn. He spent the majority of the time alone and in his room thinking. He hardly saw his family besides at meals and before bed. He had this voice in the back of his mind telling him that he needed to stay away from them. Zayn didn't know why but he avoided his family like the voice said. By the time the trip came up Zayn's family was worried about how much time he had spent away from them, they were desperately hoping that the trip would pull Zayn out of this funk he seemed to be in.
The trip should have been fun for everybody. They went up into the mountains and went hiking their first day. Looking back on it now, Zayn realized that if they had never shared water bottles everything would have been okay. Unfortunately they did though.
By the time they returned to the camp site from their hike seven of the thirty two boys were feeling ill. Coincidentally those seven boys had been in the same eight man group that Zayn had been in and had shared water with him. By the next morning none of the seven unlucky boys were able to keep down their lunch. By the third day at camp the boys needed to be transported to the hospital. The camp leaders feared that the other campers would get ill as well so they called off the camping trip and sent everybody home.
The doctors talked to the boys and they came to the conclusion that the only way all of the boys could have gotten sick was from being given the 'germ' by someone who was contagious. The doctors remembered the recent case they had had with the Malik family and they called to check and see if Zayn had been at the camp. After learning that Zayn had been there the doctors requested that he come back to the hospital to be checked for whatever illness everybody seemed to be getting and also to put him back in isolation until he was no longer contagious.
After staying alone in the hospital again for two weeks Zayn began to realize it was him that was making everybody sick. After his mom had kissed him she had died, after his family had spent time with Zayn they had gotten ill and nearly died, after the nurses had visited Zayn they developed headaches and illness, after the boys had shared water with Zayn they had became sick as well. All of the sickness was originating from Zayn. When Zayn realized this he understood what he needed to do.
For starters, he needed to pretend he was sick, that way he would be able to stay in the hospital. Next, he needed to be transferred to a hospital farther away from his family so the rest of them would not visit him as often. He did not want anyone else to die because of him. Zayn got his wish eventually and was transferred to a small hospital in London that specialized in contagious diseases, far enough away from Bradford to stop his family from visiting him frequently. Lastly, Zayn needed to figure out a way to stop being contagious but so far he had been unsuccessful.
The worst part of the whole situation though was that Zayn realized it was completely his fault somehow that his mom had died. He had killed her unintentional but he still had done it. Nightmares kept him up at night of his mother simply saying, "Why did you kill me Zayn? What did I do?" The image of his mother saying those things haunted Zayn and terrified him every night of going back to sleep. Zayn blamed himself for her death and now he was determined to never have contact with another person again, he couldn't kill someone else that he loved. He was disgusted and scared of himself for what he had done to his mother, he would never be able to deal with the extreme guilt of killing another person.
So here we are now, a year and a half after Zayn's eighteenth birthday with no progress whatsoever on his illness. Zayn was staring at the ceiling and thinking to himself. Lately it seemed that Zayn's condition had gotten worse. Before nurses were able to sit in Zayn's room and chat with him for as long as they wanted. All the young nurses especially liked to talk to him. Let's be honest, he looked like a sex god and he had nothing to do all day besides sit in bed. If you had the chance to entertain him would you? Of course all the nurses were happy to oblige and so they spent countless hours in Zayn's room chatting away with him. Zayn made sure that none of them ever touched him though. It seemed that physical contact was what made people sick faster so he was very stingy on never touching anybody.
By never touching the nurses and doctors Zayn was able to talk to them for at least 3 hours before they started developing a headache from being in the same room as him. That was before at least. Nowadays it seemed that he was barely able to be in other people's company for more than thirty minutes before they started becoming ill.
"I wonder who they will send in today?" Zayn spoke aloud to himself. Some people may think that he was crazy for talking to himself but he had nothing else to do and had run out of paper to write his thoughts down so he was just going to say them out loud. As of late the nurses had started disliking visiting Zayn so they usually rotated who had to do it amongst themselves. Zayn didn't have to wait long before his new nurse arrived at his room.
With a cheeky grin his new nurse entered the room and spoke, "Hello there Mr. Malik, I'm Niall and I'm going to be looking after you today. It seems that Stacey is sick." He said with a thick Irish accent. Zayn was breathless for a moment as he took in the beauty that was in front of him. The boy had fair skin and light blonde hair that was styled quite excellently. Zayn couldn't help but think of what this boys white skin would look like pressed against and contrasting with his tan skin.
Zayn drew in a quick breathe as he continued looking over his new nurse. His face was like an angels Zayn thought was he analyzed it. The boy had a cheeky grin with the cutest crooked tooth Zayn had ever seen. His face was lit up with his smile and Zayn's mouth forced itself up into a smile without being told to be Zayn. Zayn thought this guy was pure perfection from his body, which was nicely outlined from his tight fitting scrubs, to his smile and his accent. That was all before he saw his eyes.
Zayn actually let out a small gasp as he caught Niall's eyes in his own. They were prettiest blue Zayn had ever seen. They shone like the ocean and Zayn was captivated. The blues reminded Zayn of warm afternoons lying on his back, staring up at the sky and making shapes out of clouds. Those eyes were perfection and Zayn couldn't help but stare at them.
"Mr. Malik? May I help you?" Niall said awkwardly. The patient was staring at him so intently and it was really throwing Niall off. Zayn was brought back to reality by Niall's words and he cleared his throat and looked away after he realized he had been gaping at Niall.
"Um no sorry." Zayn mumbled under his breath and looked at the wall while he spoke so that he didn't stare and Niall again.
"It's all good," He said with a small laugh that Zayn loved. It was great laugh and Zayn wanted to hear it again. He couldn't hear it again though he told himself. He can't get close enough to people to make them laugh, then they would be in danger from being around him. "So do you need anything or want to do something?" Niall asked. "I have nothing to do today really so I can chill with you for most of the day. You seem like a pretty cool dude," Niall said with a smile.
Zayn grinned like a silly school girl at Niall's words. He thought he was cool. Zayn didn't know why but he wad immediately attracted to this guy and that was a problem. Zayn mentally shook himself and brought himself back to reality. He couldn't hang with Niall or anybody or else they would get sick and maybe die because Zayn was dangerous. Zayn straightened himself in the bed and cleared his throat before he answered.
"No I don't need anything so could you leave me alone," Zayn said coldly without looking at Niall. He didn't want to see the hurt in Niall's eyes that were always in the nurses whenever he pushed them away. He couldn't be nice to the nurses because then they would want to come back to his room more and that was a no no.
"Um okay then," Niall said slowly and turned around to walk out of the room.
"Wait," Zayn said a little louder than was necessary.
"Yes?" Niall turned back around to face Zayn.
"Don't come back here," Zayn said. He needed to warn this beautiful boy, he couldn't ruin him like everybody else, he didn't want to make him sick as well. Niall looked hurt by those words but soon he recovered and replied.
" I don't think I can do that," He said with a smile. "For one it's my job to look after you and I just can't abandon you. Also, I can think of a few other reasons to visit again," He said with a wide grin and wink. With that he turned around and walked out of the room with Zayn still shocked at his words.