Two years and five months later and New York city slowly began to return to it's former glory. Red, Yellow and Green zones had seized to exist, making it safe for people to walk the streets once more. The Hospital, however, remained abandoned.
Ragland didn't really mind. After-all, he wasn't exactly completely alone anymore. Even if there only was one other life-form he shared the building that had become his home with.
He knew that it wasn't merely another Infected being, but a creature who could learn and adapt, much like any other human on planet Earth. Who Ragland had estimated to be a "he" was also much smarter than he'd anticipated. Through simply observing the doctor's movements over the following months, it wasn't very long before the monstrous wolf was able to learn basic words and walk upright on only two legs.
He'd even received a name:
"Cameo", a Latin name for the word "Shadow".
However, something had begun to trouble Ragland and while he was usually able to repress such thoughts through work, even that was becoming unable to quell his worry. Cameo was, for a fact, much smarter than he could let on. The Blacklight virus following the flow of blood sells through his veins had adapted to the point where it could think much like a human would. A fact that it wanted to exploit.
While examining what was left of a soldier who had been cut in half by what was only known as a Hunter, Ragland had decided that a good distraction from peering over his shoulder every two seconds with a five-year old's curiosity was to put Cameo on a website that would help him further his knowledge of the English language.
Even the doctor himself was surprised to see that world wide web was still accessible from their point. What, with his computer being the age of a dinosaur and the internet signal being so weak due to abandoned cell towers. It may well have been that fact that made him oblivious to the wolf's curiosity at the time. By the time it crossed his mind once more, it was already too late.
"Like him..."
"Hm?"
"Like him," Cameo repeated himself, glancing over his furry shoulder to be in view of Ragland's surprised face. "I'm like him."
Even from ten feet away, Ragland could tell that the creature's curiosity had gotten the better of him. He couldn't see the cheerful blue's, green's and yellow's of the site he'd left him on. Instead, he only saw red. Blood red and black. The signature colors of a creature he knew all too well.
The scalpel dropped from the man's hand before striding towards him, giving Cameo his queue to turn back to the screen before him. Ragland's jaw dropped. One image that took up the center of the screen showed a mere man, holding a soldier by his throat, a blade catching the gleam of the sun where his right arm should be. Many more of the same images littered the rest of the screen, some videos having been paused to show two piercing blue eyes.
"Cameo do something bad?"
The silence finally shattered. While he didn't understand what it was, a foreboding sense of punishment began to settle into the pit of his stomach. When his "father" did finally look at him, Cameo couldn't help but fear the worst.
"Do you want to be like him?" Ragland asked simply. It wasn't as much a question as it was a response to test his "son's" reaction. A small sense of amusement settled into the man's heart when the wolf shook his head rapidly.
"No! Me want to help. Want to save! Not... kill. Destroy."
Ragland smiled, running his black skinned hand through Cameo's fur while simultaneously turning his head away from the computer. The wolf always enjoyed this act of affection, closing his eyes and enjoying the motion as the man's hand went to the top of his furry head.
"Then we still have a lot of work to do, Cameo."
