-Night In-

When Hailey got home, Sarah was sitting on the couch with popcorns. She was still wearing her medical scrubs. When Hailey hung her keys near the door, she saw a gun inside a holster. Hailey inspected it out of curiosity.

"Sarah, why is your gun here?", Hailey asked

"Oh that? I must have forgotten to put them away. My boss gave me a hard time at work. I went to the shooting range to let off some steam. Come on. Let's watch the movie. This one is called 'Dog Goblin'; it's a horror movie", Sarah replied.

The two enjoyed the rest of the evening alone. However Hailey still couldn't get her mind off from her conversation with Adams. Moreover, Sarah has been acting oddly around her. Hailey has been suspecting Sarah was hiding something for a few days.

Sarah and Hailey prepared to go to bed. Hailey was reading some research papers, and Sarah was brushing her teeth. Hailey couldn't focus so she decided to ask some questions for Sarah. When Sarah finished brushing her teeth, Hailey casually started a conversation, trying to avoid Sarah suspecting something.

"Hey, what happened to that missing patient?", asked Hailey.

"She was found in a toilet. She has Alzheimers so we sometimes have her go missing time to time. By the way, I mean to ask you about your work too. Has something come up? We're not facing a new disease are we? I'm a doctor so I totally need to know", Sarah said with a laugh.

"No, it's nothing. We're trying to figure out if prions diseases are curable. Quite impossible to research about it if we have limited data", Hailey lied. She then asked a question to investigate her. "So what do you think about it, I'm sure you've read some research papers about it."

"Right... Prions. Yeah, like you said there's few data on them. I think we are just limited by our current technology. I'm sure those viruses will be curable some day", Sarah replied nervously.

"Sarah... Prions aren't viruses. What's gotten into you lately?"

Sarah couldn't reply back this time. Hailey looked at her suspiciously while they both sat on the bed. In the awkward silence, Sarah held Hailey's hand. Hailey was both confused and suspcious.

"Hailey, I'm just really stressed about my work. My new boss is killing me from inside. I know you always have the urge to investigate things. Please, just let this one go", said Sarah with a tired voice. She scooted behind Hailey and put her hands on Hailey's shoulders. "Come on, I'll give you a massage like last time. You loved it so much that you slept like a baby."

"I did like that, but I'm not in the mood right now", said Hailey. Sarah ignored her and gave her the massage anyways. When Hailey didn't say a word, Sarah took her shirt of and proceeded to give her a back rub. Hailey fell asleep shortly after.

Hailey woke up in middle of the night because of her nightmare again. When she sat up, she noticed Sarah wasn't on the bed. She then started to hear someone talk in the bathroom. Sarah was on a phone call. Hailey went near the door to eavesdrop.

"No sir, I have nothing to report... No... She's fine... Yes, I'll continue to keep an eye on her... I assure you, she won't say a word...Thank you, sir", Sarah said quietly.

Before Sarah came out, Hailey quickly rushed to her bed. She pretended to be asleep. Sarah gently gave a kiss on Hailey's forehead. When she lied down on the bed, she sounded like she was sobbing.

-Unknown Adversary-

Even with a lot going in her mind, Hailey went back to work in her office the next day. Hailey and her team arranged a meeting with the quarantine staff to organize interviews with patients. Both, research and quarantine, departments agreed on 3 interviews a day. Even though Hailey didn't like this agreement, she had no choice.

Hailey's research team promptly prepared to go down to the quarantine floor. The quarantine floor has sections with its own air lock and/or decontamination chamber that connects each other. In event of containment breach, every entrances are overridden to be fully sealed. This means all ventilation system, doors, and sinks are automatically sealed to prevent any pathogens leaking to other floors.

In every section of the floor there are four areas. There is the hallway which is connected to the inspection room. The inspection room is where the quarantine staffs monitor patients. The quarantine cell is where the patient stays, and it has just about anything a person needs. Connecting the cell and the inspection room is the decomtamination chamber.

Hailey's team conducted interviews with the selected patients. Majority of patients' health haven't improved since their last meeting. After the interviews ended they gathered in the conference room and discussed their progress.

"Damn it. None of these interviews gives us any good insight on the disease. This is just a wild goose chase!", said Brad.

"We need to interview Patient 018. I feel like we have something missing from him", said Hailey.

"Why are you so obsessive over him? I personally think he's just a weird patient. Besides we already used up our interview chances for today. Let's just go through the patients in numeric order", said Jenny.

After few minutes of discussing and debating, they decided to call it a day. When they headed for the elevator, Hailey decided to visit the restroom. While sitting on the toilet seat, she kept thinking about Patient 018. She knew there's something unusual about the patient, but she couldn't figure out what it was. With limited data, everything frustrated her. It was like an itch on the back she can't quite reach.

When Hailey left the restroom, she looked at the section where Patient 018 was. After checking the elevator to make sure her team was gone, she went to the section to see Patient 018. There was an officer standing outside as usual, but there weren't any quarantine staffs in the inspection room. She decided the seize the moment.

"Hello, I'm here to interview a patient", Hailey said to the officer.

"I thought you guys already interviewed the patients", the officer replied.

"There must be a mix up. We couldn't interview one patient, because they were asleep. The quarantine staff already knows about this", Hailey lied.

"I'm still going to need confirma-", the officer was interrupted by Hailey.

"Sir, it'll only take a minute, let's spare ourselves the unneccesary delay. We have an unknown disease that is about to cause a pandemic"

The officer let Hailey in after giving an uncertain glance.

-Audio Log #20- Patient 018-

Today, we decided to do another interview with Patient 018. Well... 'I' decided. Apparently my team thinks he is just another socially impaired person who just happened to get sick. Maybe I shouldn't have done it because it didn't go according to plan.

Patient 018, is a white male in his thirties who lives in Muldraugh, Kentucky. Like all other patients he was exposed to a pathogen. He just seems like a normal guy. He doesn't have any pre-existing conditions and is a vegetarian. This patient probably was in better health than any other patients.

After every two question or so, 018 would stare at me without replying for few seconds. I asked him, what he was thinking. He responded by saying he wasn't thinking and looked at me in confusion. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he went into some sort of trance. This indicates some sort of short-term memory loss or an absent seizure.

Other patients didn't display any symptoms like this, but it's too early to tell if this pathogen attacks the brain. My analysis is that this could also be prion disease which is famous for degrading motor functions and the brain itself. However all other patients have symptoms that seem like it's attacking the body, not the brain. I can't report this to the people upstairs because like all medical researches you can't come up with a result based on just one patient. If I gather more evidence, maybe I can request for a brain biopsy in other patients.

He also requested that he receive more meat on his meals. This indicates sudden change of diet because, like I stated before, he's a vegetarian. I told him he can only eat accordingly to the strict diet we give each patients based on their symptoms. He responded by slowly banging his head on the protective glass that divided him and me.

I asked more question about his health and condition, and the banging slowly intensified. I decided to call it a day because he was uninterested and I was afraid he was going to hurt himself. As I turned around to leave inspection room. The banging intensified further.

He kept banging his forehead so hard blood started coming out from his head. I instinctively pushed the button that releases the sedative gas. Before he fell on the ground, he made an animalistic growl at me. By the time he dropped, all I could see on the glass was blood slowly dripping down.

Big boss is gonna find about this. So this could be my last audio log. Either I get fired or get off with a warning. I certainly hope it's the latter because I know I'm close to finding an answer.

Hailey out