Chapter Nine

Young SeeD candidate Amuke Inenuro woke up drenched in sweat, yet shivering from cold. She also felt like her night's sleep had done her no good. Shakily, she got up and dressed, planning to go to the Infirmary to speak to Dr. Kadowaki about this mysterious illness. She ran a finger along her love bite she had gotten from her boyfriend the previous night in the Secret Area. She thought on it; he hadn't been right yesterday, a bit listless, but more than willing to perform, even if he did seem a little keen to bite her everywhere. Though she was surprised to find the hickey was weeping a little.

Her head hurt as she staggered along the corridor to the Atrium, and was surprised to find that the place was deserted. Nobody was skipping along to breakfast, or warming up in the Training Centre. Even the conscientious students who would be finishing their breakfasts on the way to the Library, weighted down by books, were not there. This however, was not as unusual as Amuke thought, for it was still only three o'clock in the morning

Amuke didn't give a damn though, she was too ill to care. Her legs felt like lead, like there were heavy weights in the bottom of her shoes; she was so delirious she even sat on the edge of the fountain to check for this, setting herself tumbling backwards into the shallow waters, half on purpose, hoping that would refresh her somehow, but it didn't. As a result, she had a hard time hauling herself out of the fountain, feeling as if some force was keeping her in.

She was only relieved that there was no one around to witness her humiliation as she dragged herself further along the corridor. She paused to look at her reflection in the water, expecting to look a bit peaky, but she was shocked at what she saw. Her skin on her face, and as she noticed, her hands, arms and legs, was pure white, and her eyes harboured huge dark circles. The eyes themselves, looked slightly glazed over, bloodshot, and soulless.

Amuke gasped faintly; surely this wasn't her reflection staring back at her. It was such a shock that she felt her breathing become shallow, so thought she would make haste to the Infirmary and get treatment for whatever bug this was, so she carried on, her head feeling heavier by the pace, and her breathing becoming shallower with every step. Eventually she could no longer take the weight, and doubled over as she walked, finally slumping down onto the burgundy, blue and cream tiles.

Amuke Inenuro's life ended there, her breath leaving her on the Garden Atrium floor, her long, wet black hair matted across her once pretty face, ravaged by the onset of the infection, virus, or whatever had killed her.

Around three hours later, Charlotte Perryn and Brandi Ashor, Amuke's good friends came breezing out of the girl's dorms. The three had met as naïve twelve-year-olds, on their first day at Garden, and had stuck together ever since. They had always, without exception, been in the same classes, chosen the same subjects, and even had crushes on the same boys. Furthermore they had taken, and failed, written and field exams together, often with similar awful grades.

"I wonder where Amuke went this morning," Charlotte said to Brandi, commenting on the fact that Amuke had not been in bed that morning. The only instance the girls were split up was their dormitories; Charlotte and Amuke had always shared a double dorm designated for SeeD cadet use, Brandi had shared with many girls, most of whom had long since become SeeDs. Though her roommate, Nalek Cribbens, had packed her bag and gone home, presumably for the weekend. Yet it was now Wednesday, classes had resumed, and the usually punctual Cribbens had not returned. "She usually leaves a note when she goes off and my lazy butt's still in bed. Today… nothing."

"Must be at the Training Centre," thought Brandi distractedly, still concerned about Cribbens' AWOL status. "She was with Josh there last night."

Charlotte rolled her eyes. "That gormless retard," she tutted. "What does she see in hi…"

She was cut off when she heard a scream. "She's dead! Get Dr. Kadowaki, and quickly!"

Charlotte and Brandi exchanged looks and hurried to the Training Centre. The commotion, however, was coming from around the corner, and there was no trail of blood from an injured cadet. A crowd of SeeDs looking mournful, crouched around the body.

"How do you think it happened…?"

"Stand back, it might have been the plague!"

"That must be some disease…"

"Think she had it for long?"

Brandi turned the corner, intrigued, to investigate who had lost their life in Garden. Deaths here were fortunately, a rare occurrence, but it usually happened in the raining Centre, at the claws of the dreaded T-Rexaur. She pushed through the crowd, eager to know what had happened. She stopped and gasped. She had recognised the shock of long, jet back hair. "Amuke…" she gasped, sinking to her knees beside her deceased friend. "Whatever happened to you?"

"Stand back, please," cam an authoritative voice. A well-built woman in her forties, wearing a pristine white lab coat dark hair pulled into a bun, cut through the crowd, followed by Xu Sukuri and Nida Rothedray, the assigned Garden medics, pushing a low wheeled stretcher solemnly towards the little crowd that had gathered there.

As Nida pulled back the red blankets on the stretcher, Xu bent to pick up the floppy lifeless form that had once been Amuke. "No…" Brandi whimpered. "Don't take her… don't take her away from me…" She felt hot tears of sorrow well up in her eyes. "Amuke! Wake up!" she cried in vain. By that time, a shocked Charlotte had joined her friend. She pulled the grief-stricken Brandi up to hug her, and watched over her friend's shoulder as they wheeled Amuke away to the Infirmary.

"We shall have to undertake some tests," Dr. Kadowaki said in hushed tones, "to find the cause of this girl's death, before her internment."

Charlotte heard this. It had all happened so suddenly. Amuke had been fine when she went to bed, and just eight short hours later, she was dead. She was bothered by Kadowaki's choice of words. Internment. It sounded so final.

"Come on," sobbed Brandi. "I wanna go to the Training Centre. Fight off this anger…"

Charlotte agreed, and, as the crowd dispersed, they headed wordlessly towards the Training Centre.

Brandi had had a hard upbringing, and used to have a habit of lashing out when things upset her. Two years ago, the late Instructor Trepe had taught her, that she should take out her anger on the Grats; it would give her a lot of valuable battle practice, too. It had been a while since Brandi had felt the need to do this, and Charlotte was with her all the way.

An unusually cold breeze struck the pair as they walked into the mock jungle surroundings. Usually there was usually a nice warm breeze from the heaters, to give the Grats the living conditions they were used to. Today the heating appeared to have failed, and the cold air blowing in was making the Grats shiver inactively underneath their rocks.

Brandi was determined to battle something, and headed, crying silent tears, towards a roaring, monster-like sound. There was bound to be something to fight there. And if it were T-Rexaur, so be it.

Worried about the risk her friend was taking, Charlotte followed her. "Brandi," she called, but Brandi couldn't, or wouldn't, hear her.

"I… I think we should turn back," she suggested. "Chill out in the common room, take the day off lessons… I'm sure Instructor Aki would understand our not being there…" Charlotte followed Brandi closer to the inhuman sound. "Come on, Brandi, this… isn't right.

There was a fire in Brandi's eyes, as she turned the corner and stalked over the little wooden bridge. Outside the Secret Area lay the once-mighty T-Rexaur, being gorged upon by what appeared to be a group of maybe a dozen teenagers, some of them in SeeD cadet uniforms. With superhuman strength, they were tearing great chunks of cold, raw dinosaur meat and shoving the bloody steaks hungrily into their mouths.

Brandi made her decision. She would pick a fight with these people. So what, it wasn't the right thing to do, but she was so wound up after the death of her closest friend, she didn't care.

"Hey!" she called, drying the tears from her eyes. "Hey, you freaks!"

Some of the group became distracted from their meal, and looked at the slightly built, tearful redhead. They looked at her with their evil, white eyes, and made towards her, slowly, anticipating the sweetness of human flesh, something that they once were.

"Oh, you want some, do ya?" she asked cockily to the advancing masses, their bony, pale hands, mostly covered in blood, clawed as if ready to strike. "Well, I'm up for it if you are!"

Charlotte, who had just crossed the bridge caught sight of the creatures that Brandi was planning to fight, and screamed.

This seemed to anger the people feeding from T-Rexaur, and those who had chosen to ignore the fiery, angry girl threatening their cohorts, now reared their heads, and looked at the slightly taller girl who had just disturbed their repast with her annoying scream.

They were angry.

A cold, blood-soaked arm reached out for Brandi, who, although she was having trouble seeing past her tears and puffy eyes, managed to duck out of the way before the monster could touch it her. She put it down to her superior skill, but the truth was that these things, deadly as they were, were also slow and lumbering.

Brandi pulled out her pistol, the weapon she had chosen as an excitable twelve-year-old, to specialise in, ready for action. She aimed at a being wearing a stained white T-shirt and bedraggled jeans. "Right, you," she croaked sadly. "This one's from Amuke."

She staggered back slightly from the recoil to find that the bullet had performed a direct hit to the thing's heart. However, since its heart was no longer needed, it loomed ever closer to Brandi.

Some uniformed monsters were gaining on Charlotte, who was left defenceless, as she had left her weapon, a cumbersome crossbow, in her dormitory, and had yet to junction. She began sweating profusely, and shaking, for she had noticed something. One of these bloodstained fiends looked remarkably like Amuke's boyfriend Josh, just as gormless and clumsy, but there was something different about him. He had changed, he was vicious, detached, and ivory eyes stared at her as if recognising her, as if targeting her…

Charlotte stood, frozen to the spot, unable to move, cry, shout or gasp, as the brutes gained on her. One, a girlish mutant, her SeeD cadet uniform as if one of the male abominations had tried to violate her in their primitive states, grabbed Charlotte's right arm and tugged it firmly.

Charlotte finally squealed in pain, as her arm was rent from her body. She continued to scream, trying not to notice the blood pumping out of her severed stump as an increasingly faster rate. The girl creature then proceeded to chew upon the disembodied arm, fighting off her male counterparts who clamoured for it, failed, and then turned their attention to a rather fresher piece of meat.

Charlotte felt whole fingers rip across her face, taking skin and eyelids with it. She screamed, which made the beasts' behaviour worse. Unable to stand the shrill sound of the girl, an arm grabbed her throat and squeezed until the screams died in her throat, along with Charlotte herself. Mercifully, she did not feel her abdomen being ripped apart.

Satisfied, the creatures advanced on the live meal, defending herself with her gun.

Dr. Sheila Kadowaki sighed as she studied one of the several vials of blood taken from the corpse of Miss Inenuro. Whilst she had estimated the time of death as 3.45am, every single test she had undertaken had proven inconclusive. She sighed, and threw the sealed test tubes into the freezer, and approached the unfortunate corpse, the arm purposely left dangling to take blood from, the rest of the body respectfully covered up.

As she walked to the cupboard to prepare another needle to take the last of Inenuro's blood, so she could send it to a specialist lab in Esthar to do some further tests she glanced over at the body. She swore she saw from the corner of her eye, the arm appeared to move, ever so slightly. The doctor wasn't fazed, though; it was the body just twitching its last before rigor mortis set in. I'd better hurry and take some more blood, thought Dr. Kadowaki, before the blood congeals.

She approached the arm and squeezed it tightly with a tourniquet to raise the rapidly sinking veins to the surface one last time. Once a satisfactory vein had popped up, Cr. Kadowaki inserted her needle to take a final sample.

As the needle pierced her pale, clammy skin, Amuke's misty eyes snapped open. Curious to know what the disturbance was, and teach the perpetrator a lesson, she sat bolt upright. Her head moved mechanically to the right, which is where she saw the shocked woman in white, a hypodermic syringe crushed in her hand, crackling the crunched-up plastic in terror.

The monster that had once been Amuke, reached for the woman, but grasped at empty air. The woman gasped in terror, beginning to sweat. The sharp broken plastic had cut her palm a little, and the blood and sweat were mingling. The monster smelled this and curiously stepped towards the cowering doctor, grunting with a new hunger for human flesh.

"Please…" whispered Kadowaki. "Please… don't hurt me." She was trying to reason with the creature that was advancing on her slowly, craving her blood. In a fit of terror, Kadowaki foolishly backed into a corner from which there was no escape.

Amuke's sinister twin finally lunged at the doctor with a terrible roar, bursting her skull open with her hard fist, as effortlessly as cracking a groundnut. Kadowaki lost consciousness, as well as her life, as soon as she felt the contents of her head dripping down the side of her face…

Panic stricken, having realised that Charlotte was dead, Brandi took flight from the things she was fighting. It was a terrible day; she had already lost her two best friends before breakfast; what more could go wrong?

As she came out of the Training Centre, she joined a throng of panic-stricken staff and students, and somehow, the news was being relayed that the Headmaster and the doctor had been brutally murdered, and the order was to evacuate. Pushing past the group of hurrying people, looking for a small refuge of space, she finally jumped into the fountain, but promptly clambered out of it when she found two bodies, one obviously a teacher judging by the SeeD uniform, bobbing lifelessly in the reddening water. She didn't investigate; she had no desire to know how horribly they had died.

The Atrium was crawling with people, girls screaming, men shouting, whips and nunchaku whipping everywhere, the occasional burst of gunfire and clanging swords and knives doing nothing to calm the chaotic atmosphere. One group found that their planned escape route through the car park was blocked, and were turning back the way they came; straight towards the dripping wet Brandi. Looking to get away from the retreating group, she found another advancing gang, mainly composed of qualified SeeDs, running, weapons drawn, in a rather gung-ho fashion, prepared to kill or be killed.

A sword-wielding Seed, who must have been twice her weight, knocked Brandi to the floor. She fell stupidly onto the tiles, and though she tried to regain her footing, the floor had become slippery from the waters of the fountain, which people were desperately jumping in… or being thrown in.

An injured creature, clutching its gnarled hands to a deep hole in its chest, its horrible features twisted, its foul-smelling mouth drooling a greyish-pink substance fell on the ground next to Brandi. It was impossible to tell whether this bloated abomination had once been a man or a woman, but it sported a knitted red tank top, very similar to Headmaster Cid's. It moaned slightly before a large black boot came down on its head, quite on purpose, after which it ceased its twitchy movement and slumped to the ground.

Some of its clotted body fluid splattered onto Brandi's pretty face, and she screamed, and hoped that someone would look down, notice she was uninjured and in distress, but her screams went unnoticed, mingling into the crowd.

Trying once again to scramble to her feet, she grabbed a strong looking pair of legs. The body they belonged to fell promptly to the floor, and some three people of a similar size came after him, toppling upon the slight, unnoticed form of the stricken Brandi.

Brandi's bad day ended there, for she was crushed under the weight of the three men, her spine splintered into pieces, her lungs squashed uselessly into the ground.

Xu and Nida, waited anxiously in the former Headmaster Cid's office, waiting for those who could fight through the crowds, to make it up to the third floor. Xu had been checking her e-mails after she had attended to Amuke's body, and had sent out a further plea for anyone who could, to make their way to the Headmaster's office, the only safe place left in the Garden. She was worried that no one would make it, and had begun to bite her nails, a habit she had not succumbed to since childhood, when she heard the familiar whoosh of the lift whirring into action.

"Be prepared," she whispered to Nida, drawing her weapon. "It could be a lift full of those… things…" She shuddered, thanking Hyne that Cid had the good sense to keep ammunition in a closet in his office; she had wasted so many bullets against those humanoid things, some which just wouldn't die.

The elevator door rumbled open, and in rushed Raijin and Fujin, looking unusually small and scared, a far cry from the big burly Discipline Committee they had once been, along with the arrogant Almasy.

"Just… just got in," he wheezed. "Town crawling with those things, ya know."

Xu, who was not exactly on friendly terms with these renegades, smiled tightly. "We shall wait another half hour," she explained, "before we stock up from the Headmaster's emergency rations, and attempt an escape plan." She chose to ignore the fact that the pair were holding each other's hands very tightly.

"HOW?" demanded Fujin, certainly reluctant to face those things again. She had barely fought them off without a scratch, even with Raijin's help.

"Half an hour?" Raijin snorted derisively. "We've not got half an hour, ya know. Have you not seen how bad it is out there?" He gave Fujin's hand a supportive squeeze, as she let out an involuntary shudder.

"You know what?" came a voice from the door. "I hate to say it, but the man's right." Irvine, closely followed by Zell, strode into the room.

"Indeed," Nida said in agreement. "We must save ourselves."

Zell had said nothing; he was a little freaked out that the transformed beings had been most curious about him. He had his unarmed combat skills, and Irvine's sharp shooting techniques, to thank for his life.

"Right," chirped Xu as cheerfully as she could. Cheerfulness was in short supply, yet she managed it. "We should get our stuff together and get going. Irvine, there's some ammo in that cupboard over there. Everyone else, help yourself to healing supplies and anything else you might need."

Zell finally found the nerve to speak. "Wait a sec," he said, "where's Squall? You don't think he's…" He gulped loudly.

Xu shook her head. "It's okay," he said. "I think Squall managed to make it out of Garden before all this started. Did you read the memo he sent?"

Zell shook his head.

"Well," Xu chirped, trying vainly to keep everyone's spirits up, "I think Squall is fine." She whipped a mobile phone from the back pocket of her uniform skirt. "What he wants us to do is flee Garden and meet up with him, er… possibly in Esthar." As the Garden's co-pilot, she knew about the safe locations on the globe, perhaps better than Squall did. She flipped her phone open and began to dial a number. "I'll give him a call."