In any field of scientific endeavour, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
- Murphy's Third Law

The sun was slowly beginning to set upon the city of Esthar, and the action made the city's landscapes appear so much more beautiful than when she had first taken in its sight. The blue buildings that crowded the streets and sky sat contrasting against the reds and oranges of the atmosphere, with the sun's ultimate brightness sinking into the horizon far beyond the metropolis limits. Many scientific minded people believed that the action was simply signifying of the night that would come, the temperatures dropping in response to the disappearance of its warmth, and some cynical people believed that it signified the darkness that people possessed.

Quistis Trepe, like most teenage girls her age, believed it to be romantic.

Unfortunately for the youth, she had little to no time to enjoy such simple aspects of life. For the most part, Quistis had been busy studying for her instructor's license, having had been revoked near the end of the previous term. In fact, it had been merely a night before the addressing of the Sorceress-turned Ambassador who killed the long-time Dictator of Galbadia, Vinzer Deling. Thinking back on it, the blonde woman thought that, to her at least, it signalled the beginning of the end.

The Garden Faculty had been the ones who believed her to be a failed instructor, having not followed on their practices of teaching a classroom. Her new method of teaching had somehow put them off and, with the influence of NORG behind them, the Headmaster had been forced to fire her. But with the disappearance of the Garden Master, Quistis had received another chance. She would take the test that would decide whether or not she was fit to be an instructor, and she would be graded on it by the other instructor at the Garden.

So with the amount of studying she had set herself to do, it had been a mild annoyance when she, along with Squall, had been forced out of the Residence to venture to the Science Center and then forced to sit through a tacky zombie horror flick.

Sighing to herself at the memory, she had to admit she had enjoyed herself, even if the movies had been awful. These were her friends, people who wanted to make sure she was enjoying herself, and indeed she had enjoyed their company. But she had been raised in believing that work came before pleasure, and she would study until she either had the entire book memorized or couldn't look at the guide she was using any more.

Whichever came first.

Currently, she resided in one of the rooms of the living quarters in the Presidential Residence. It was a nice room, with a bed and a cabinet where she could store her meagre belongings, an adjoining bathroom, and even a balcony. She was stretched out on her bed, lying on her stomach with her feet in the air, reading from the guide. Rather than the peach vest and skirt she had dressed in while fighting in the war, the eighteen year old was dressed simply enough in a pair of black kakis that reached just past her knees and a simple pink tank top. Since Laguna had taken up Presidency, he had managed to bring in a set of Galbadian style dress attire and had insisted that everyone use what they wished. She still wore her silver rimmed spectacles, in order to see what it was she was studying, and her hair was in a messy ponytail in place of its nicely shaped bun, out of actual laziness on Quistis' behalf. She hadn't planned on going anywhere that day, despite the arguments she received from Rinoa or Selphie, and since all she was going to be doing was studying, she figured that the less time spent on her appearance, then the more time would be spent on actually absorbing information from revision.

At one point during the last few days, Quistis had turned on the radio in an attempt to fill the air with background noise. Multitasking was one of the many things she had been able to excel at throughout her years at Garden, and as long as it wasn't blasting itself through the windows, she could deal with it. Unfortunately, after about three hours, she found that she was paying more attention to the new-age music that the Estharian radio-casters had put on multiple times during the day, so the contraption had been shut off.

That had been two days ago.

At the moment, she found herself scratching her head with her pencil, trying desperately not to look for the answer in the book, keeping her eyes closed. She was taking a pre-test quiz, and the answer to question four had eluded the girl. After a few minutes of trying to figure it out on her own, she turned the page, singling out the answer to the question and moaned out loud. She should have known that answer.

Sighing, she pushed the book away from her in disgust before pulling herself up into a crossed legged position, and clutching the pillow to her chest protectively. She couldn't understand why she just couldn't focus on things that should have been second nature to her. When she had attempted the test over a year before, she had aced it, but now she couldn't even answer the simplest of questions.

She figured that it was because she'd had a taste of outdoor combat after having been cooped up inside of a classroom for the better part of the year. A lot of the battles she had faced during that time had been trivial in comparison to her own experiences. The only exception had been Ifrit, the fire Guardian that traveled around with Selphie for the most part, during the pre-requisite in the Fire Cavern. The Guardian never dwelled outside of its pit of lava before, and had surprised both her and Squall when he had made an unexpected appearance and had even refused to allow them to leave.

It had been a difficult battle and the pair had beaten him, although just barely. It had almost gotten to the point where Quistis had to step in outside of her boundaries as a support for her student, but fortunately Squall had been capable of holding his own against the Guardian of Fire. After that had been the Dollet exam when the Black Widow of the Galbadians had tried to kill three of the students in the exam and she had emptied a clip from the machine gun housed on the very top of the transport ship they had used to get there. From that point on, Quistis had decided that trouble followed Squall just about everywhere he went.

Looking back on the experiences of just the past few months, Quistis suddenly understood why simple paperwork was much more difficult to sort through than cutting into an attacking monster. It was the exhilaration of it all. With that in mind, Quistis figured that she might as well request being an outdoors instructor, rather than being cooped up inside for the duration of the day.

Just as her mind had been made up, she heard her bedroom door open from behind and she sighed. Quistis suspected that Rinoa and Selphie had come to badger her on dragging her away from her precious study materials. "I'm busy, as I've told you multiple times today," Quistis responded without even turning around to face them. "Why don't you go bother Squall? He's been working non-stop since he's talked to that man who says he's his father."

She didn't hear a response. Not even a groan or an argument towards her remark. Raising an eyebrow in suspicion, she turned back around, only to see a Presidential Aid sort of staring at her. He was dressed in the same Estharian robes she had seen within the city, with a blue stripe running down his front. If anything, he looked a lot like the representative who had led them into Esthar in the first place.

Releasing the pillow she held, she swivelled around to face the man, a questioning expression on her face. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

Once again, there was no response.

Huffing with indignation, Quistis rose from where she sat on the bed. It was one thing to barge into someone else's room unannounced and uninvited, but to simply ignore the person asking a question was just rude. She didn't care if this man was on the payroll of the President. He had no right to treat her this way. "Excuse me. I just asked you a question!"

She cut herself off before saying anything more when she noticed the man appeared to be slightly paler than normal. Actually, his skin nearly disappeared against the white of his uniform. Indignation having disappeared, the SeeD immediately approached the man, helping him stand when he slumped over further. "Are you alright?" She received no answer.

Quistis wondered if the man was falling in and out of consciousness. That would have explained the reasoning behind having had no response to her inquiring. "Perhaps you should go to the infirmary. I'll take you there if you need help."

Before she could say anything else, she felt applied pressure upon her right arm before the Aid bent down. She thought he was merely supporting his weight using the closest thing he could and hoped that he wasn't about to throw up. However, before she realized what was happening, he opened his mouth, which revealed decaying teeth and gums, and bit down on her arm just above her elbow.

Crying out in pain, she reflexively pushed the man off of her, grabbing protectively at her newly inflicted wound, watching him fall onto the ground. What was going on in his mind to force him to bite her like that? She averted her eyes from the man to look at the bite, realizing that it was bigger than she would have ever expected a normal human being to be able to accomplish, not to mention bleeding profusely.

She looked back up, only to see that the man was slowly beginning to rise. She backed away from him slowly, but the man then lunged at her, grabbed her by her wrists and pushed them both onto the bed, as he attempted to bite her neck. Quistis bent her knee at an angle before slamming it into the man's groin, but the action only granted her attacker a slight jump, never removing his grip from her.

Cursing lightly, the SeeD managed the wriggle her wrists out of the man's hands before pushing at his head, mindful of his mouth, to keep his teeth away from her. She used her other hand to push against his neck. The man pushed back against her force, trying to bite her once again before her hand suddenly slipped and a resounding crack echoed within the room, the man slumping down on top of her immediately afterwards.

Quistis pushed the man off her out of instinct before literally jumping off the bed, breathing deeply and heavily. When she had thought someone was going to try and interrupt her studying, she hadn't thought he was going to try and bite her as well. After she managed to calm herself down, a sudden thought came into her head.

She had snapped the man's neck.

She had killed one of the President's Aids.

She immediately went to the man's side, hoping that she hadn't actually killed him, and merely broke his neck instead. This was going to look extremely poorly on Garden if it got out that one of their SeeDs had killed or critically injured someone outside of contract, let alone a government official's assistant. Whether or not it was self defence was insignificant.

The man's head had snapped in the direction of where she stood and upon checking his pulse, her heart sank, as the man was dead. Looking at his face, she noticed that his mouth was agape, and revealed the gnarled teeth that were still existent within his white gums.

But aren't the gums within someone's mouth pink rather than white? She thought to herself before looking at the man's eyes, only to find that there was a milky look to them. Rather than the normal eye colouring that stood out along the eye, it was white, the pupil having slightly dimmed to a grey colour instead of the protruding black of the iris.

That didn't happen until the person was dead, and thinking back on it, she had definitely noticed that his eyes had been different just before he had bitten her.

Which meant that he had been dead before his neck had been broken.

But that was impossible…

…Wasn't it?

The pain in her arm brought the former instructor's thoughts back to reality, and she looked down at her arm, blood having already slid down to her clenched fist. Upon inspecting the bite once more, she decided that it would be best if she stopped the bleeding. Quistis immediately entered the bathroom and grabbed some white bandages from inside of the medicine cabinet behind the bathroom mirror, as well as some Hydrogen Peroxide, and several inches of gauze to insure the bandage didn't change colour too quickly.

After treating the bite and wrapping it, she figured that the next step was to have it looked at by the infirmary doctors residing in the Residence. But she didn't want to go back into the room, just in case the man got back up and tried to attack her again. If he had really been dead when he attacked her, then there was a possibility that breaking his neck had done nothing and she most definitely wasn't looking forward to having to knock him back down.

She slowly left the safety of the bathroom and entered the bedroom again, relieved to see that he was still stationary on the bed. She didn't want to leave the room unarmed, just in case there were more of them out there, and she mentally knew that she wasn't. She still possessed her Blue Magic Skills, and she was pro-efficient in most assortments of weaponry.

She immediately approached the cabinet, and pulled out all of her backup knives and firearms before checking her holster for her whip, finding that it was missing. After a moment of thinking, she remembered having stashed it under the mattress for easy access just in case an intruder entered her bedroom late at night. Another one of her firearms was also positioned under her pillow, and since the corpse was currently residing on the bed, Quistis was not taking any risks, just in case he woke up again, and so chose to leave them behind.

Besides, she had three other hand-held guns, as well as a set of knives, so she should be alright.

She re-opened the cabinet and grabbed an off-white light sweater before pulling it on, the sleeves just barely covering the gauze on her arm. She was suddenly very cold, and didn't want to run around for Hyne knows how long with gooseflesh popping up. Rubbing her arms to get the circulation back into them, as well as avoiding the bandaged wound, she grabbed her boots and immediately headed into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

"Man! I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!" Zell Dincht shouted as he and Irvine Kinneas made their way towards the cafeteria.

"Nah…" Irvine waved the shorter boy off. "If I remember your eatin' habits right, you're too picky to eat a horse. I'd reckon a horse made outta hotdogs, but never a real horse."

Zell scowled at the Galbadian raised sharpshooter. "That's not the point, Irvine. I meant I'm starving!"

"Then why not just say 'I'm starving'?"

Zell's scowl deepened and Irvine grinned. It was fun taking shots of the martial artist, because angered easy. And since he'd had to keep his tongue in line during the war, he figured that he'd make up for lost time.

It felt great to actually have some free time, now that Ultimecia was as good as dead. The President had been gracious enough to let the group that had saved the world stay in the Residence during their much-needed time off, and Irvine had to admit he was enjoying himself.

After all, the ladies loved a hero.

Of course, there were two people who were being ignorant towards the meaning of the word 'relax', but that was their prerogative. The only reason he had helped the others drag Quistis and Squall to the Science Center the other day was because Selphie had asked him so nicely. He could never really deny the girl much. He'd always liked her, even when they were little kids.

But of course, he was too much of a flirt to settle for one girl.

He had to thank Ultimecia for one thing though. If she hadn't just appeared outta nowhere and tried to destroy time, he probably would have stayed at Galbadia Garden, never having been reunited with the rest of the orphanage gang. He wouldn't have had the pleasure to meet Rinoa, or team up with Selphie to get their 'lone wolf leader' and 'the Timber Princess' together in the first place. He wouldn't have gotten to pick on Zell or annoy Quistis with his incessant flirting. He had never really liked Seifer all that much, so it wasn't a big loss that he had to fight against him.

Irvine preferred to dress like a cowboy, the beige trench coat and the brown curved hat were the biggest distinguishing features about him. The brown pair of pants he wore hung around the pair of dark shaded boots he also took to wearing, and the purple vested shirt stood out against the otherwise mundane colours. His long auburn hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, with curled strands sitting in front of his face, refusing to be kept out of the way. He had his trusty custom-made riffle stashed away in one of his front pockets. Accompanying it, he also possessed two P14-45LDA's and USP45 in one of his hidden pockets just in case. Along with the hand-held firearms, he had two magazine clips for the USP45 as well as two clips for each with bullets for the 45-LDA's. His assortment of modified ammunition was situated with the rest of the ammunition he carried along the right side of his trench coat, positioned in separate hidden pockets. Irvine never went anywhere without his trusty riffle at the very least.

Zell was shorter than Irvine's height of six feet, standing about seven inches shorter. He had short blonde hair that sat up in the front thanks to hair gel, and a distinguishing vine-line tattoo imprinted on the left side of his face. He was dressed casually in a white t-shirt with a black and red hooded jacket overtop and a pair of blue cargo shorts that reached past the knee. They possessed zippers at the bottom, which indicated that there were attachments to make them longer, but the blonde teenager appeared to prefer them at their current height. A pair of black and red runners sat upon his feet, and a pair of knuckle gloves rested on his hands.

They finally managed to reach the canteen, and found the area to be disserted. Irvine took this moment to search the place around. It was as large as the auditorium back in Galbadia Garden; possibly even twice the size, and much taller in height. Tables decorated the room, but not as any traditional cafeteria would. These tables were round and each held different sizes in order to accommodate any size group that chose to eat there. There was even an upper level eating section for when the place was filled to the brim with workers, rushing through their dinners so that they could return to their duties.

This was one of those times that the cafeteria should have been busy, and yet it was desolate.

"Must've missed the dinner crowd…" Zell shrugged in response before grinning at the cowboy. "Guess we don't have to wait."

Irvine nodded in response, but wasn't too thrilled about the sudden change. True, this meant they could get their meals faster, but he didn't like the quiet. It seemed far too quiet in fact, and that notion bothered him. He couldn't understand why Zell wasn't bothered by it, since he was a trained SeeD, after all. Although sometimes, Irvine found himself wondering how the blonde boy managed to pass the prerequisites.

"Well…" Zell said, stretching his arms up over his head. "I'm gonna go get some grub. Maybe the cook's still here. Want anything?"

Irvine mumbled a response, one that didn't register in his own mind, but Zell managed to hear it and headed off towards the pick up area of the room. Irvine took the time to investigate his suspicions. From what he understood, places that should be bustling with people that were empty was definitely not a good sign. He looked under tables, around corners, even up on the second level, only to find that nothing seemed out of place.

Coming down the stairs, the sharpshooter shook his head dismayed. It just didn't seem right. It was as if everyone else just dropped out of existence. Scanning the room with his eyes one last time, he was finally able to locate someone.

A pretty someone, in fact.

Donning an expression of concern for her benefit, Irvine sauntered over towards the figure, who was sitting against the wall. She was dressed in the same Estharian getup that all the other officials wore, with a purple stripe running down her front; only her headgear had fallen off at some point and revealed short strawberry blonde hair. Her hands were folded on top of one another and her head was hanging in front of her chest.

She didn't stir when Irvine approached her, and he figured that she was just asleep.

"Hey, little lady." Irvine remarked, tipping his hat in her direction. "My friend Zell and I were just wondering why the place is so empty. Not that it's a problem though, just curious is all."

The woman lifted her head slightly at being addressed, but her hair managed to keep her face hidden from view. Irvine didn't mind at all. A little mystery never hurt anyone. "Well, now that it's just you and me, I was thinking; why not figure out what's going on. I'm sure that you've been wondering why everyone suddenly disappeared."

She lifted her hands from their folded position, and upon looking at them, Irvine noticed that they were a sickly white colour; almost disappearing into the white fabric of her uniform. There was blood seeping through the sleeve that covered her left arm, suggesting that she had been bleeding, but that the flow had been stopped. He suddenly dropped the flirting act and immediately bent down to check her out, not looking forward to catching what she had. "Hey, you okay? You don't look so good. Let me take ya to the infirmary."

Just as he helped her to her feet, she suddenly grabbed a hold of either of his arms and forced him against the wall. As much as Irvine was normally flattered by this course of action, she really didn't look healthy and needed to see someone.

Still, the pathway of his thoughts led straight to the gutter and Irvine had to smile at the course of action. "Hey, we can finish this later. Seriously though, you don't look so…"

He cut himself off and screamed when she lifted her head and opened her mouth, revealing dark stumps that should have been her teeth before leaning forward, intending to bite him in the throat.

Zell had hopped over the bar table that separated the cooks and chefs from their customers and searched around behind the counter. He had rung the bell three times, trying to get someone's attention, but had been left waiting, and as far as he recalled, that wasn't very good for business.

When he didn't find anything behind the counter, he slipped into the kitchen, hoping to get someone's attention. He knew he was going to get into serious trouble for sneaking into the kitchen, but at that moment he didn't care, he was hungry. He'd missed lunch, and he'd be damned if he was going to skip dinner too.

He knocked on the door leading into the kitchen, but as soon as his knuckles came into contact with the wood, the door opened marginally, signalling that it had already been open. "Hello? Is anybody home?" Zell said out loud. The only response he received, however, was his own voice, echoing back at him.

Frowning in response, he couldn't help but think to himself how creepy that was at that moment. He'd been in kitchens before, but they didn't echo when no one was in. It reminded him of a movie he had seen, before the Sorceress war of course, where this one guy had entered a room, called out to someone and then someone came up from behind him and slashed him in the throat.

After turning around and making sure that no one had come up from behind, he turned back to the task at hand and had to laugh out loud. That scene had been in a doctor's operation room, not in a cafeteria kitchen. But still…weird things did happen…take the Sorceress' War.

Just as Zell took a step forward, he heard foot falls behind him, and turned around once again, only to see one of the chefs shuffling by him. His head lolled from side to side, and his abnormally white hands blended in perfectly with his uniform. His hat wasn't on his head, and revealed a rather large indent on the back of his cranium, a stream of dried blood managing to cover one side of his face.

From what Zell understood, to have a head injury as serious as that and to be walking around wasn't healthy. He also knew that if the injury was that big, it should have still been bleeding, and yet it was dry.

He knew it was coming from the guy's head, so it wasn't someone else's blood.

Which could only mean one thing: he was already dead.

Zell started backing up out of the kitchen. He had seen enough horror films in his lifetime to know that it wasn't a good sign when the dead walked.

A scream from the canteen caused the brawler to jump about a foot into the air. He had jumped at an angle, and landed hard on his arm, parallel to the exit of the kitchen. Just as he clutched his gloved hand over the spot where his heart was, he immediately recognized just who's scream that was.

Irvine.

He was just about to get up when he felt very cold hands grabbing onto his right elbow. Slowly, he turned to his right to see one of the cooks, looking pretty hungry herself. She had black teeth and even uglier looking gums and eyes. Just as she was about to bite him, Zell wriggled his arm out of the dead woman's grasp and pushed himself as far away from her as possible. Just as he had gotten himself out into the open, he looked around, only to see that he was surrounded by zombie cooks and chefs.

Standing up, Zell tried to keep himself as far away from the chefs as he could as they shuffled closer to him, and did the only thing he could think of doing.

He screamed.

One of the chefs grabbed a hold of one of his arms, and in response, Zell ploughed his fist into the man's face, barely avoiding being bitten in the process, but successfully knocking the man off his feet and onto the floor behind him. Another chef went to do the same, but Zell elbowed her in the nose, grabbed a hold of her head from either side and rammed his knee into her face, breaking bone and cartilage. Even as that worker fell, Zell was twisting in the air, slamming his foot into the head of a third, and slamming his fist with a lot of force into the chest of a fourth, sending both to the ground around him, having sent bone into the third's brain and knocking a piece of rib out of the fourth's, the bone ripping into her heart.

After jumping onto his hands and using his feet to break another zombie's neck, he forced his legs forward, knocking them into yet another zombie's chest, fracturing more bone and puncturing more arteries. Zell found that there were still four more zombies left standing, and they were shuffling towards him from the opposite end of the room. Finding that his path was clear, he made a run for the door leading out of the kitchen and closed it, making sure that they wouldn't follow him.

The martial artist leapt over the counter and re-entered the cafeteria, looking around with his eyes hoping to see the sharpshooter that had accompanied him into the cafeteria. At last, he located the taller boy, desperately trying to keep another zombie from biting him. Zell rushed towards the girl, grabbing onto a chair as he passed by a couple of tables, and slammed the metal bottom off the back of the girl's head, knocking her out and causing her to slump against Irvine.

The Galbadian teenager immediately pushed her off of him and scrambled to his feet, his hat having fallen off of his head during the scuffle. Zell cracked a smile in response. "Never pegged you as the type to reject a girl, Irvine."

"Oh, shut the hell up Zell." Irvine remarked, and Zell could see that the cowboy had a couple of scratches from where the girl had attacked him. "Let's just get the hell outta here."

"You get no complaint from me," Zell said, but as soon as they headed towards the cafeteria exit, they noticed the doors behind the kitchen open up and three of the four zombies still wandering around head towards the counter, heading straight for them.

Neither boy said anything to the other, merely exchanging glances before running out of the room.

As they raced down the hallway, they recognized a familiar looking brunette dressed in a yellow sundress and brown boots heading in their general direction. Zell took notice that her skin was the normal colour it was supposed to be, and upon looking at Irvine, realized he had come to the same conclusion.

"Grab her!" Irvine shouted, and Zell nodded, both hooking their arms and grabbing either of Selphie Tilmitt's as they dragged her down the hallway.

"Hey!" The Trabian raised girl protested, trying to wriggle out of their grasps. Zell figured that she hadn't junctioned Ifrit, and was both thankful and ungrateful at the same time. "The cafeteria's back that way! I'm hungry!"

"You don't wanna go that way!" Irvine said in response. "Trust us on that one."

Selphie twisted in their grasp more upon being told what she wanted to do, but then she suddenly stopped, gasping at whatever it was that had caught her attention. Zell took a look back and realized that he really shouldn't have, seeing more zombie workers heading towards them.

"Lemme go! Lemme go!" She shouted, and was finally able to free herself of their grasp before taking off at a dead run, Irvine and Zell close behind.

Quistis was thankful that she hadn't run into any more walking corpses since her initial attack in her room when she approached the infirmary. Her arm was extremely sore at that point, and she seriously hoped that it hadn't become infected. She was certain she had treated it the way she had been taught to treat any inflicted wound, but since the throbbing had only gotten worse, she was beginning to worry.

The infirmary office door was open, and upon noticing that fact, her SeeD instincts went on high alert. Normally, the door was closed, but left unlocked, so as to alert the doctors of new entry. Something had happened to them, and she had a strange feeling that she knew what.

Pulling out her .9mm automatic, she held it raised, despite the throbbing in her arm, and silently approached the door, blowing strands of hair out of her face in the process. Taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she mentally counted to three before suddenly entering the room, and firing the weapon, hitting one of the walking corpses dead center in the head and watching as it fell to the floor. She fired another bullet between the eyes of another and a third went straight into the throat of the last corpse she could see. Nodding to herself, she bent down to identify the three she people who had already been dead. Two of them were doctors, and one of them was a nurse, from their clothes and identification it was easy to surmise these facts. Looking up and around, she certainly hoped that there weren't anymore.

Eyeing a shadow forming from behind her, she readied her pistol, but just before she rose to use it, she sensed magic surfacing from behind her. Looking back up, she noticed a man who appeared to be a businessman, only his head had caught on fire due to the spell that had been conjured. The man tried to grab at Quistis, seemingly oblivious to this face, but his head was sawed off at the neck due to a flying projectile having leapt from behind, and the rest of his body collapsed onto the ground and didn't move again.

Stepping back, Quistis looked around and caught sight of a familiar looking projectile, flying back onto the device that was strapped onto Rinoa Heartilly's arm. She was dressed in a black tank top and a pair of black jeans, but her blue cape seemed to have vanished, although the girl didn't seem to care at all. Her black hair had been put up into a ponytail, the strands with the reddish-brown highlights being left to hang down around her face.

The raven-haired girl beamed upon seeing the former Instructor. "I was hoping that you and the others were alright!" Rinoa shouted happily, walking over and grabbing a hold of the elder girl. Quistis caught sight of Angelo sitting next to one of the dead corpses, wagging happily as well.

"What are you doing here?" Quistis asked in surprise. She would have thought Rinoa was in the library or something.

Rinoa released the blonde and looked back at Angelo before speaking. "Well, I don't know exactly what happened. Do you know when you find a scratch on you and you don't know how you got it? Well, I found one going down along my leg, so I wanted to get it checked out. It wasn't all that deep, but I wanted to make sure anyway. Just as the doctor was cleaning my leg, one of the workers just came in and started biting the patients and the doctors. And then the patients that got bitten started getting back up and biting everyone else. It was gross! It was almost as bad as watching Zell eat hotdogs! Do you know what's going on?"

Quistis shook her head. "I don't know. One of the Presidential Aids came into my room and attacked me."

"It's a good thing you're alright." Rinoa interrupted. "You don't know where the others are, do you?"

"Squall's probably still working, but as for Selphie, Zell or Irvine, they could be anywhere."

"Then let's go warn Squall," Rinoa suggested.

Quistis nodded in agreement. "Good idea. He needs to know that something is definitely not right, that's if he doesn't already."

With that said, both girls left the infirmary, heading towards the business section of the Presidential Residence.