The website will try to tell you that this is chapter 2. It is lying. This is chapter ONE! I DICTATE THE NUMBER OF THE CHAPTERS, NOT THEM! Now that I've got that out of my system, let's get on to the story.
Chapter One: What We Don't Know
Yugi's chin slid off the heel of his palm. He jolted, wide purple eyes blinking blearily. He inhaled through his nose and palmed his face. Ryou elbowed him. Professor Romero was still talking. Crap.
"I'd like section three-point-two covered by Monday. The quiz is online as usual. However, you are only getting one try. Several of you are abusing the multiple chance policy," she continued. "I'm not going to name any names. You know who you are. Class dismissed. I'll see you on Monday."
Yugi shoved his textbook and binder into his backpack.
"Before you put your chin on your hand, your mouth was open. I was tempted to toss an M&M in there, Yugi," Ryou said playfully.
Yugi chuckled. "I could use some candy. I'm hungry."
Ryou offered the bag. "Here."
Yugi smiled brightly. "Thanks, Ryou." The other young man carefully dumped the colorful chocolates onto Yugi's upturned palm.
Yugi contemplated them a moment before slapping his hand to his mouth. He just barely had enough room to chew.
They walked out of class together. Ryou politely waited for Yugi to finish chewing before he spoke again. "It isn't normal for you to doze off during class."
Yugi smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, Joey somehow convinced me to stay up all night to play video games with him." It hadn't taken all that much convincing, to be perfectly honest.
Ryou chuckled. The gleam of amusement in his brown eyes made clear that he, too, knew. "Uh-huh."
Yugi shrugged his backpack into a more comfortable position. "Hey, you wanna go to the cafe with me?"
Ryou smiled brightly. "Sure, why not?"
They exited the graphics building and trudged across the square. Students sprawled out across the grass, enjoyed the gentle autumn sun and crisp breeze while they studied and chatted and ate.
Yugi's stomach grumbled. He picked up speed a little. Ryou's longer legs easily kept up the pace. They made it to the cafe door, and Yugi held it open.
"Thank you."
The aroma of icing and doughnuts and coffee assaulted Yugi's senses. He groaned. "It smells like heaven in here." He swallowed down the saliva gathering in his mouth.
"Hey, you two!" a cheerful voice greeted. Big blue eyes smiled from behind the register.
Yugi grinned. "Hi, Tea!"
"What can I help you guys with today?" she chirped.
"Uh, I'd like a club sandwich and an espresso," Yugi answered. He waved Ryou forward. Ryou ordered, and Tea tapped it into the system.
"How's your grandpa doing, Yugi?" Tea asked gently.
Yugi sighed and shrugged. "Better, I guess. Still has to take it easy, you know? I'm glad it wasn't anything more serious, like a heart attack or something." Yugi dug around for change in his backpack. "He's complaining like no other, though…" Ryou went to reach for his wallet, and Yugi gave him a stern glare.
"Throwing your back out will do that to you."
A person behind them cleared his throat. Yugi flushed and moved out of the way.
"You didn't have to pay, Yugi," Ryou said quietly.
Yugi smiled. "I was the one who invited you to come along with me."
Their order quickly arrived to the counter. They took the tray and moved to their seats. Yugi was too busy eating to talk much from that point onward.
Crimson eyes blinked. Feverish breath fogged up glass. "This host is dying."
The espresso was a bad idea. Yugi's tiny body could not handle that much caffeine. His fingers shook from where they were clasped around his pen.
Did his eye just twitch.
He poked himself.
He couldn't tell.
He poked himself again.
He exhaled and scribbled some notes down. Every time he paused, he poked his eyelid. Maybe it was just his imagination. It didn't seem to be twitching.
Wait…!
No. It wasn't.
He scribbled some notes down and sighed shakily. His knee bounced up and down. No more. No more late night video games with Joey. No more espresso. No more caffeine in general.
He rubbed his eyebrows. It was already a long day. He just wanted to go home. He doodled on his notebook before scribbling more notes. Maybe the instructor will let them out early.
Yeah, right. Professor Mack liked holding them hostage.
His knee bounced impatiently.
The cheeks of their coworker were dark and sunken in. Sweat slicked him in a thick layer. His shirt clung to his back. He occasionally stood up to hover close to the window and stare at them with those unsettling crimson eyes. He mostly sat against the wall, eyelids fluttering and head twitching. A growl would often accompany the spasms.
Their boss showed up eventually.
"So… this was what was in the box?" he asked.
"Yes. Some sort of parasitic organism."
"And the box itself…"
"Well… we haven't retrieved it. It's in containment with him."
"Go get it, then, you fools!" he boomed.
"We don't know how dangerous it is. It's telling us that he's dying. We don't know how easily it can transfer hosts."
"I don't care about him. What don't you get?! I want the box, now!"
They gulped.
Within the next half hour, they had two people suited up. The creature managed to get through a Level B suit. They secretly worried it would make short work of the Level A ones, too.
They stood in the airlock. The man felt a bead of sweat crawl down the side of his face, even in the ventilated environment of his suit. The… thing seemed to be asleep, curled on its side. The decontamination sequence completed with a trill, and the doors into the quarantine zone hissed open. The pair cautiously stepped in. The woman gritted her teeth. The suits rustled and squeaked with every step, and the staticy warble of their breaths crackled loudly in the oppressive silence of the lab.
The subject remained on the floor.
The man stepped up to the metal lab table. His gloved hands gripped the gilded sides of the box.
Crimson eyes snapped open.
With a restrained grunt, the man lifted up the box.
The creature's head lifted from the floor. Red, sunken eyes blinked slowly at them. They paused. It slowly sat up. They edged back.
"We just… need this…" the woman murmured.
"You're killing me," the creature replied quietly. Its voice… their coworker's voice…
"We haven't-"
Arms and legs slowly gathered. It crouched bestially on the floor. They shuffled back toward the door. Veins throbbed black. A long, slick tongue drawled out. Layers of jagged teeth like broken glass.
The woman gasped. "Seal-"
It all happened within a few seconds.
It leapt. It slammed into the woman with the force of a speeding car. She crashed into a cabinet. The crumpling and bending of material tore through the air. She slid, limp to the ground. Crimson stained the transparent surface of her mask. The man reeled away, stumbled. The box fell from his hands and plummeted to the ground. Right on his foot. The sickening crunch of bones. The creature whirled. It descended upon him in a dark, animal frenzy. Claws wrapped into the suit and yanked. Shredded to ribbons.
A hand pressed to his chest. He watched the black, web-like sludge coalesce around the arm within a split second, and then it was soaking into his shirt. He gasped. The cold wrapped around his heart.
The archaeological researcher toppled to the ground like a fallen log, the other man, with inhuman speed in consideration of his shattered foot, lunged for the airlock.
Outside the quarantine, a woman slammed her hand on the containment button.
But a new host gave it new energy.
Arms lifted, black slinging from it to wedge into the door and yank it open with crushing force.
Red lights strobed, a shrill alarm whined and cried into the din of panic.
The next, weaker set of doors gave way with little fuss. The monster tore down the hall. Blood and shattered lights and scattered bodies trailed behind it.
"The subject is out of containment! It has intent to kill! I repeat,
It has intent to kill!"
Yugi shivered. After his caffeine crash, he'd fallen asleep in the library. He'd only planned on studying a little before the last bus.
He missed the bus.
Now, he had to walk home. He could have called a friend (Tristan or Tea, Joey too if he weren't working, would have dropped everything to come pick him up), but the thought of inconveniencing them made his chest tight with anxiety.
It wasn't too bad. A little chilly. The shortcut to the apartment was… eerily quiet, though. Yugi palmed his cell phone in his pocket.
He glanced down an alley. He normally went that way… but…
He kept walking.
The roar of vehicles echoed off the towering brick walls. Three black vans rushed by. They had logos plastered on the side, but they were going too fast for Yugi to see. He blinked. They certainly seemed to be going faster than the speed limit. He shrugged. Whatever.
He crossed in front of another alleyway. Something crumpled and crashed, metal hit pavement, glass shattered. Yugi nearly jumped out of his skin. A groan, so throaty it seemed inhuman, echoed along the walls.
Wide purple eyes stared into the darkness. It was person. Whoever it was sounded injured.
He quickly, but carefully picked his way through the shadow-shrouded alley. A figure leaned heavily on the wall. A metallic smell, tangy and acrid, assailed Yugi's senses. The person's skin gleamed slick and dark.
Blood.
He gasped, rushed to the person's side.
The person was a man. His clothes were shredded and bloody. The remnants of a white rubber suit clung to his body.
"Are you okay?" Yugi asked, voice shaky and frantic.
A gurgling growl.
He surveyed the man's body. His foot was oozing blood, his leg bent at an unnatural angle. One bare forearm was shredded with glass and dripped red.
"Oh my god. You need to get to a hospital." He went to touch the man's shoulder.
Suddenly, he was airborne, and just as suddenly collided with the wall. The air rushed from his lungs in a painful heave. He fell a short ways to the ground.
Coughing, groaning, he looked up.
Glowing red eyes and a sunken, bloody face flashed. They rushed toward him. A thick, cold hand wrapped around his throat.
The cold. It crawled through his veins like frigid vines.
Black feathered the edges of his vision.
"Perfect."
Then there was emptiness.
END PART