Virus
Chapter Five

The next day, I skipped school. I had no one to make me go there, and this made me even more depressed. I was shrouded in clouds of misery, soaking in my own sorrow. I didn’t remember having any other relatives- it wasn’t like there was a fuss over it- we simply didn’t have them. Soon I would be discovered- maybe I would tell them myself- that I was living alone. I would leave the area- go to a foster home- the scenarios were overwhelming my brain. This was escalating extremely fast I could barely keep up with the turn of events. Again, in books it always took a while for events to take place, but here, in the real world, it could be possible that I would be in a foster home in a couple of days. I would have to abandon my life behind, which, glancing back at it with the critical eye of someone who knew they might never see it again, didn’t seem so terrible at all. Then, I remembered something that made my blood run cold. I had a doctor’s appointment tomorrow- a serious one. Because I had one secret that no one outside my family knew- not even Lance and Kira, who were closer to me than any siblings I could have had- but didn’t, as I was an only child. I had to undergo surgery, for reasons unknown- meaning that my parents had never told me what is was- except that it was lethal. They had seemed to be acting weird, when they announced it last Friday, but I was not surprised- I trusted my parents with my life. And now, as I sat there without any family, and orphan, every happy memory seemed to become sad, as it was a reminder of what now could never be. However, with each lonely thought, my only option became clearer and clearer- there was only one thing I could do- I would track down my parents. It didn’t matter that the police didn’t replace anything- most of the security officers I have met didn’t exactly seem to know what they were doing. I could do this. I had to.

I started compiling things I would pack with me, before I realized that I was already at the scene of the crime. I would move as needed, but stay here, after the surgery. I turned everything in the house upside down looking for anything, anything, that would help me in my quest. I was rifling through a stack of papers in my father’s office when I head a knock at the door, followed by Lance saying, “Open the door, numbskull!”

Shoving the papers aside for further inspection, I ran to open the door. Standing in the door were Lance and Kira, who was carrying her computer equipment. “Are you OK?” Lance demanded. “Seriously, you just skipped school today, and your parents went missing?”

“I’m fine,” I stated, and then assessed the untruth of that statement. “OK, I’m not fine. I mean, what do you expect?” I ceded.

“You don’t need to be mad at us,” Kira responded in a soothing tone. “We just want to help.”

“Sorry I snapped at you guys,” I replied. “I barely slept last night, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, I have a soccer game, and Kira has a tech club meeting, but we’ll come back later… Bye!” Lance ended the conversation.

“See you later,” I remarked to an empty threshold. I resumed rifling through the stack of papers, while my mind began to wander. What if the kidnappers got them too… However, I had little time to spare on these treacherous thoughts- I needed to fake my parent’s absence for the doctor’s appointment, and then I would leave. I couldn’t let my mysterious ailment get in the way of the search for my parents. At least I knew where I was going for surgery, so I went online, printed out the necessary documents, and forged my parents’ signature. Time seemed to fly, when I had nothing else to do but let my thoughts meander…

The next day, I woke up fully refreshed and ready to continue the case. I ate a breakfast of cereal and orange juice, the basics, and this made me depressed yet again- usually, this would be the time when my mom would come down the stairs, only half-awake until her morning dose of coffee. The house was eerily silent now that almost all but one of its occupants were gone, and the friendly atmosphere it once possessed was dispelled and replaced with a bittersweet, almost menacing one. My friends were at school- good. This would make what I had to do easier. I read about how surgery feels like- I have never experienced it, and therefore would like to know what I was going into. Now, time seemed to slow down, every tick on the grandfather clock in the living room seeming minutes apart, even though the rational part of my mind knew it was only mere seconds. Soon, the time came. I packed all my paperwork in my backpack and walked to the bus stop. It was a matter of minutes before the next bus showed up- I used the emergency cash kept under the potted plant, which was in the kitchen, to purchase a ticket to Scalpel Medical Center. Not exactly a friendly name… I entered the building and was hit with a blast of cool air. It wasn’t exactly warm outside, since it was still early spring, but I couldn’t see any reason to keep the building cold.

A stout man with a receding hairline, perhaps in his late 40’s, hurried to me from across the room. “You must be Ms. Zeneddevaia!” he exclaimed. “Come, it’s all set up. I know you are a little worried, since this is your first time, but it will all be fine.”

Something about his voice was off, and he didn’t seem to care that my parents were absent- he didn’t even give me a chance to use one of the plethora of carefully manufactured lies that I had concocted the day before in case of such a situation. As I watched the man pull out a handkerchief and dab at the sweat accumulating on his brow, I knew something wasn’t quite right. I was ushered in a room, with the doctors already present, when I realized this was a dangerous situation. Didn’t they have the nurse explain things to you first… I tried to sprint from the room, trying to escape this scenario, but the man quickly blocked my way. “I have been waiting for a long time,” a voice slithered from his mouth. Slithered. It was not the voice I had heard before- this was something else entirely. I screamed. “Now the process begins…” the voice continued. “I have my suspicions about you, Eva Zeneddevaia… Time to test if my algorithms were right.” With another pang of fear, I realized that the voice was simultaneously coming from all the people in the room- I was officially freaked out. One of the doctors tasered me- where did he even hide that- and injected something into my neck. I didn’t feel a thing- should I have- as the doctors lifted me onto the table. I decided to play along for now and went limp in their arms. Then, another masked menace took a large knife from under the table- I wasn’t expecting that- and sliced into my arm.