[This is a side story taking place simultaneously with the main story. It does not affect or resolve the fates of the main characters in Volume 3.]
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[Nurse Mali – City Hospital, Bangkok Outskirts – 11:35 a.m.]
The hospital I work at is a warzone right now, the air is thick with the sharp sting of antiseptic and the raw, this unending screams of the living and the dying. Beds are overflowing into the corridors, gurneys crashing against walls, blood smearing the white tiles in long and the dark streaks that no one has time to clean.
I wipe sweat from my brow with the back of my gloved hand, my nurse's scrubs already stained red but not all of it is mine. Patients are moaning in every direction, some still human while some not anymore, their eyes turning cloudy and their movements jerky and wrong.
My hands are movinh on instinct bandages wrapped tight, stitches pulled through torn skin and prayers I don't have time to finish. Every patient I touch is feeling like a countdown. Every breath I take feels borrowed. My daughter— Lin's face haunts me, hee trapped at that damed school. Her smile was always too bright for this hell, too full of life. I haven't heard from her anything since all this started yesterday. No calls. No messages. Nothing. I hope she's out there. She has to be.
I push the thought down because that's what I can do.
[11:40 a.m.]
A gurney slams through the ER doors, its wheels screech on the blood slick floor. I rush over as my heart kicks hard against my ribs. The boy is young, hardly seventeen, his school uniform torn, soaked in blood with a bite mark on his left leg spreading stain. His eyes are wild and skin pale as death. I freeze for half a second for I saw the crest on his shirt which says Suksa High. It's Lin's school.
My stomach lurches,
"Lin,"
I whisper, barely a breath.
No, not her.
Please, God, not her.
I snap back, grabing fresh gloves, forcing my hands.
"Quarantine him,"
I snap, but the ER is too packed.No room neither time. The boy or should I say the zombie, thrashes against the straps, it's teeth snapping and foam is flecking his lips.
[11:45 a.m.]
"The infection is spreading!" a doctor yells from across the room, shoving panicked patients back. But it's too late. The boy lunges, its teeth sinking into a nurse's forearm. Her scream is so loud that it splits the air.
Chaos erupts with patients scrambling, gurneys tipping, IV stands clattering to the floor. I grab a syringe from the crash cart, strong enough to drop him. But he's already on another orderly and the blood is spraying across the tiles.
My eyes dart back to his uniform again, Lin's school, her friends, her world. Where is she right now? Bitten like this? Worse? Is she even alive?The thought claws its way up my throat, as sharp as the moans filling the halls. I shove it down and focus on the syringe. But my hands are shaking now and the needle is trembling.
The bitten nurse collapses, her veins blackening under her skin and her eyes turned milky in seconds. She's gone, turning very fast. I hear another patient screaming, bitten in the chaos, their blood welling from a torn sleeve. The ER is a slaughterhouse now. There is blood on the walls, bodies twitching, the smell of copper and fear thick enough to taste.
My daughter's out there, maybe running, maybe hurt. Maybe like them. I clutch the scalpel, knuckles white, her bright, stubborn and alive laugh echoing in my head. I need to find her.
[11:50 a.m.]
The halls flood with moans newly turned zombies are shambling from the ER, their movements jerky and wrong. Patients barricade doors with whatever they can grab like chairs, beds, even their own bodies but it's no use. This creatures are relentless. I slip through a side corridor, heart pounding, scalpel ready. Lin's face is a beautiful hope. I need to see that face again. I know She's alive. She has to be.
I pass a window and smoke is rising in the distance, thick black pillars where the school is located or used to be. They bombed, they said it on the radio. Lin was there. My throat burns, tears stinging from my eyes, but I keep moving, boots slipping in blood. I need to reach her.
A zombie lurches from a side room and it's face is half-gone. I swing the scalpel, my blade sinking deep into its neck. It drops, gurgs, but more are coming, I can hear them. I run, corridor after corridor as I see the hospital falling apart around me.
The lights flicker, emergency generators whining. There are bodies everywhere patients, nurses, doctors some still while some twitching. I don't stop. I can't stop. Lin's out there. My daughter. My reason to live. I need to find her.
[11:55 a.m.]
I reach the stairwell with blood on my hands, only Lin's name is like a prayer on my lips. This hospital's falling along withlike the city. That schoolboy's bite started it here, but it's everywhere now. Lin's school. Hospital. Bangkok. Lin.
I grip the scalpel, her memory is sharper than this blade in my hand. I'll find her. Through the blood, though moans, to the end of everything. She's my daughter. She's out there. And I'm not losing her to this.
The stairwell door slams behind me. The moans are following, but I keep descending, one floor, two, three. The emergency exit is getting closer and closer.
Outside is chaos, but it's also a chance. I burst through the door into the parking lot, sunlight blinding my eyes and smoke choking the sky. I can see Zombies shambling between cars, but I'm faster then then, you know perks of being a single mother. I run with my boots pounding asphalt, the hospital's screams fading behind me. Lin's out there. I'll find her. I have to. She's the only reason for me to live.
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