Chapter 27-Day One
Few months before
Dr. Mizuno fell to the couch and took a deep breath. Two back-to-back surgeries and she was spent. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.
Ding. Her cell phone pinged and she fished it out of her pocket. "Hey mom, I am going to my study session now. Dinner is in the fridge. Make sure to eat it when you get home." The doctor smiled as she read the message.
She hadn't been home for a few days now. She couldn't remember the last time she sat down and had a nice meal with Ami. The mother-daughter schedules just never seemed to line up. The doctor laid down on the couch again and closed her eyes. She just needed a little rest….only four more hours until her shift was over…
"Paging all available doctors to the ER." A voice boomed over the speaker.
The doctor bolted upright from her slumber. She stood up, stretched a bit and then took off running. Must be a bad day out in the real world. She would never get home at this rate.
The hallway was quieter than usual. Dr. Mizuno thought it was weird that it was deserted. She slowed her pace and looked around. Was she so tired that she lost track of time? Couldn't be later than 9pm...
Suddenly, someone grabbed her hand from behind and pulled her into the staircase. She turned and saw that it was one of her interns.
"Mimi? What happened to you?" Dr. Mizuno stared at the girl, covered in blood from head to toe.
"You can't go downstairs. Everyone is dead." The girl was sobbing, but was still dragging Mizuno up. "We need to get to the roof. Hurry!"
Mizuno followed the traumatized girl. "What happened? Are you hurt? Stop and let me take a look at you."
Her hand was swatted away when she tried to roll up the girl's sleeves. "I am okay. It's not my blood."
The pair ran up ten flights of stairs until they got to thetop. Once there, she was joined by the hospital chief and a few nurses. Some were covered in blood, just like Mimi. Some were shaking and mumbling to themselves…Dr. Mizuno looked over to the horizon and she could see a dozen buildings burning…
The night was not quiet. Sirens and screams filled the air, spreading fear and despair. Was there an attack in Tokyo? Dr. Mizuno looked down and saw that the hospital entrance was packed with a crowd of bloodied people.
Her first instinct was to run down there and helped them. Then her face paled as she realized the crowd was no ordinary people. Several of them have their heads bent backwards unnaturally. Some of them were crawling with half of their bodies missing.
Two police cars showed up and the cops came out, guns blazing. The crowd turned and walked towards the cops. Dr. Mizuno stifled a scream as the police started shooting...
"What the hell is going on?" Dr. Mizuno turned and asked Mimi.
Her intern sank down to the ground and shook her head. "At first, it was just a few people that came in with weird bites. We suspected rabies and we treated them accordingly. Then, they all start to die...and..." Mimi choked on her words and let out a wail. "They came back. They came back and attacked everyone..."
"What? Who are they?" Mizuno shook the girl. "Are we under an attack?"
The hospital chief came over and put a hand on the doctor's shoulder. "Dr. Mizuno, please calm down. We don't know anything yet. It must be a very different strain of rabies, because the victims were all pronounced dead. Yet, they came back to life and became extremely aggressive. Don't worry, the government would do something about this. We just have to wait for rescue."
Dr. Mizuno reached for her phone and dialed Ami's number with shaky hands.
"Hi, you've reached Ami Mizuno's voicemail. Please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible."
"No! No!" She could feel panic rising inside of her. "Pick up, Ami. Pick up..." She dialed the number again.
Suddenly, a gust of strong wind blew over and everyone looked up. A military chopper was approaching and everyone on the roof cheered. This must be the rescue team…
The door flew open and a soldier wearing a gas mask got off. He scanned the group and then looked down on his clipboard. "We have specific orders to bring in a Dr. - Mizuno. Where is she?"
Shocked to hear her name mentioned, she raised her hand. "That's me."
The soldier put down the clipboard and motioned for her to come closer. "Ma'am, we have to leave the city now. The chief scientist said to ask for you, so please come with us."
"What about the rest of them? I also have a daughter somewhere in the city. I have to look for her."
"Ma'am, we don't have time. The military will send other choppers into the city later to rescue any survivors. Right now, you are the top surgeon in Tokyo and we need you to come." The soldier inched closer, clearly not asking anymore. Seeing the doctor's hesitation, he took off his gas mask and looked at her directly. "We will get your daughter and your colleagues later. I myself have a wife and son waiting at home, but duty first."
Duty first. Dr. Mizuno felt like a sharp knife had just been plunged into her chest. She could've gone home yesterday, but she chose duty. Thinking there would be plenty of time for her to spend with Ami in the future...and now, she knew she had to choose duty again.
The doctor turned back to her colleagues and bowed apologetically. Mimi came up to her and smiled reassuringly, "Don't worry, I am sure they will send more choppers to save us…"
Dr. Mizuno nodded and then got in the chopper. That was the last time she ever saw her colleague and friends….
Ami felt a lump in her throat as she listened to her mother. They were both alone in the lab, unsupervised. It was a rare opportunity, a chance for the mother and daughter to talk since the apocalypse hit.
Remorse and guilt was written all over her mother's face. Ami wrapped her arms around her mother and nuzzled her face on her mother's neck. A gesture she used to do as a little girl, whenever her mother came back home, upset about losing patients. "Everything will be okay." She would whisper that over and over until her mother could calm down.
"I am glad you made it out. When I got to the hospital, it was already packed with zombies. The government did send more soldiers to help, but they joined the undead pretty quickly. Before I could figure out a way to get in, someone fired a missile into the building. I had to run, mom. I knew, at that moment, that you were dead. So I turned and ran..." Ami recounted that night, feeling the same despair engulfing her.
Dr. Mizuno wiped the tears away on Ami's face. She kissed the top of Ami's forehead and pulled her daughter in for another hug. "We don't have time to dwell on the past now. We have to find a way to get out of here."
Ami felt unease as she muttered her words. "Mom, I know you are planning to help us escape from this, but I don't think we should leave. If Demande is unfit to be a leader, then we have to plan a coup. Think about this. The lab is fully functional, and we have electricity and water here…We need this lab to make more vaccines, past the first batch. The soldiers and the rest of the research team, they deserve a fighting chance too. Michiru and Minako had been delivering food to the soldiers and charming them to talk. Demande had been reckless and he had been sending men on suicide missions outside of the compound."
"He wasn't this bad before...colonel was actually a decent man." Mom closed her eyes and sighed. "He was devastated when he found out everyone else was dead. This is the last of the country's defense."
"What happened to the other test subjects?" Ami had been afraid to ask this question before, knowing her mother would have been involved.
Her mother's face paled and she looked down in shame. "Initially, it was volunteer-based. People signed up, knowing that the vaccine could kill them if unsuccessful. They died knowing that their kids would be taken care of...that was when we first started the school. And then..."
Her mother inhaled sharply and tears rolled down her face. Ami placed her hand tenderly on top of her mother's and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"I didn't know for a long time. People come in, I assumed they volunteered. I didn't find out till later that these people were coerced. Elsa's team used to be a rescue team, but now it was nothing more than a human traffic ring."
"And now, we are the next batch of test subjects...disposable, replaceable." Ami filled in the blanks. She clenched her fists and felt the fire inside of her burning a little bit brighter. The wheels in her brain started to turn, she could see clearly now...
