The suffering lasts for days. I'm not lucid for most of it thankfully. I am aware that I keep getting my blood drawn and that I’m left pretty much alone on the table the rest of the time. Somebody though comes in like they’re sneaking and not supposed to be there. Their smell is different from everyone in the room even the confused doctor or cologne wearing scientist that rubbed my back. This new person who I couldn’t see very well smelled distinctly like sweets and caffeine. I smile at the thought of a walking croissant. I think I’m still out of it. My gums hurt and I’m pretty sure my teeth are leaking a strange liquid.

A damp washcloth bathes my sweaty body and it feels amazing against my burning skin. Part of me realizes that this means they can see me naked and I flush embarrassed. I know they’re probably just doing their job. Still I wish I could do it myself. I also wish they’d dress me in more than a blanket. Except when the fever hits again I throw even that off myself and I’d probably die if I were constricted to clothes. 

I groan and try to open my eyes, a blurry image that looks more like color than any specific shapes. They pour a little water into my mouth and I swallow, licking my lips. I reach out and my fingers brush a badge. My vision clears drastically for a second. An intern. Which one? I only know of two. What if they were making a random intern take care of me? I rub my eyes and try to open them wider to see if my vision will clear again. Exhaustion hits me and I fall back into semi-consciousness. 

The next time I feel someone touching me, its lips brushing mine. I gasp, eyes opening and see clearly for the first time, familiar blue eyes. I sigh in pleasure, shivering which results in arms wrapping around me. A badge presses into my skin. 

The sense of comfort is torn from me as someone yanks the intern away. I fade from consciousness again as I hear sounds of violence. I managed to get up on my arm. The blur of a guard or some scientist beating the intern makes my teeth once again bare themselves. I stumble off the gurney and the assaulter makes a loud exclamation cursing as they back away from me. I won’t let it go. Apparently my vision goes wonky again and I feel the hunger return.

It’s a little bizarre not like I was spectating from above but still separated from myself, completely conscious while unable to control my body. I corner the person and in slow-mo start ripping chunks of their arms off with my teeth as they try to protect themselves. I blanked out a little bit of what I did next but finally I returned to full control. I lean back. Tilting my head up as I pant. My mouth feels warm. I’m balancing on my haunches as I look back at the still very alive person in front of me.

They don’t look like a scientist, guard, or anyone I’ve ever seen before. I get up and they scramble wounded to the door opening it and to my surprise I feel an almost overwhelming urge to chase them. I step towards the door. “Don’t,” a wounded voice chokes out. I turn to the sound and wince. The intern is shakily reaching for me. His face is already starting to swell. Lip and eyebrow busted he offers a reassuring smile. “I’m okay.” He coughs wheezily in the opposite of reassuringly. Holding his ribs he leans his head back and my breath catches at the sight of his throat. I stumble forward a step. 

I fall to my knees in front of him, making him drop his head to look at me in shock. I feel my hands come up in concerning claws. “I can’t control myself.” I say shakily trying to resist. He watches in a mixture of fear and acceptance. I wrap my hands around his throat albeit loosely. I hear his heartbeat and watch a bead of sweat go down his face. “Don’t.” He rasps. I struggle to keep my consciousness from slipping again. He lifts his hand to my face with an aroused breathiness, “Don’t control yourself.”

My eyes dilate and I lunge but instead of taking a chunk out of his neck our lips crush against each other. I hear him making shameless noises and I growl in a zombie way not a sexy way. The intern lets out a pained whimper when I bite his lip. I immediately let go, pulling away to look at him. He shakily pulls at his tie loosening it. I swear I can feel my heart beat for a second. I pull his shirt off and tie off and then something switches again when I see all the places I could bite. He sees my veins starting to go dark and goes in to mouth my neck to rearouse me. It’s not that hard and I close my eyes and start to feel hot and fuzzy headed.

  I feel his hands on my chest working their way down my waist to my hips. I gasp, grabbing them. He makes a questioning murmur. I pull him gently off of me and pull him to the door. I keep my head down as I tell him, “Leave.” I can hear the scientists and guards coming. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be here. I don’t want you to get into any more trouble than you’re probably already in.” He gives me a long, longing, lustful look and I can’t resist pulling him in for another long kiss, “Run, now!” I growl and he listens. I watch as he pushes past the group of lab coats. They freeze when they see me standing in the doorway. There's still blood on my mouth and chest. I back up a little to give them room to enter.

I let out a snarl, getting slammed against the wall by massive guards, and injected with something that makes me slump, going limp but not fulling losing consciousness. The guards then carry me back to the bed where the scientists continue whatever their experiments are. I manage a weak growl when one of the guards is unnecessarily rough, forcing my jaws open so they can swab me. “Guess the intern was wrong that he wouldn’t hurt him.” One of the scientists chuckles. Making me tune back in. “Doesn’t matter.” Another says coldly. “Now we know he’ll need to be sedated or have a muzzle.” I imagine having to be sedated like this all the time and protest. The guards tighten their grip as the scientist orders someone, “Might as well get a muzzle on him now.” 

I feel the padding of a mask placed against my face and then tightly secured in the back. There’s a beep from some sort of electronic lock as it sets itself. I shake my head weakly in protest. Only to choke as one of the guards grabs me by the neck shoving me deeper into the mattress. I’m definitely going to bite him I think. “That’s everything for now.” The scientists and guards leave and I roll over, gasping for air, waiting for the drugs in my system to wear off.

When I wake up I finally feel like myself. Opening my eyes I look at myself in the mirror surprised when I see that my eyes and skin are normal. I sit up feeling famished but for human food. I could demolish a hotel breakfast right now. I mess with the muzzle a little bit, looking at it and remember that just a few days ago I was stocking shelves and losing my mind from boredom. I peek at my teeth and close my eyes. ‘Yeah, they won’t pass as human anymore.’

I wait to see if anyone would come in since they do normally whenever I wake up. I check for any obvious cameras. While my head is up I notice a hickey on my neck. I hurry to the mirror touching it. The intern, the one they call Ragdoll, my mouth doesn’t know if it wants to smirk or grimace. He’s not some helpless, innocent individual. I wasn’t in control of myself but I definitely enjoyed it. He knew to turn me on and I wouldn’t eat him. But what was his motivation in the first place? I remember faintly that he was taking care of me. I push the thoughts into the back of my head. I turn back to the door and approach it hesitantly to touch the handle. It goes down and the door clicks open.

I return to the room looking for something to wear and end up wrapping the sheet around myself so that I could find someone to ask for clothes and food. I poke my head out of the room and look at the hallway which is almost normal except for the hyper sterile environment and occasional blood drips leading away from the many doors lining the one wall. I hear heartbeats but they are irregular so I assume they are from other infected and experiments. I don’t really feel like exploring the halls with nothing except a sheet on. 

I hear the door next to me click and imagine my luck when the scientist with a clipboard from before steps out. He makes a shocked noise and lets out a nervous, “Yes?” as my eyes light up. I hum happily devouring the eggs and bacon he brought me. The crumbs left from the pancakes a mushy mess in the pool of syrup. He watches nervously fiddling with the muzzle. I dip the bacon in the syrup, “So what are all the tests saying?” I point to him with the bacon. He flinches and sputters, “The tests? Well.” he pulls at the collar of his lab coat and I glance at my image in the mirror to see why he’s so intimidated, are my eyes black again? I almost look human only when I open my mouth do my teeth give me away. I click my tongue.

“They both took.” He finishes finally. “The nanomites attached themselves to the virus and are mutating on their own at a rapid rate.” I pause chewing for a second before finishing my food. “I’m guessing that’s new.” I say feeling a little queasy. He nods. I press my lips together and wipe the syrup from my mouth. Holding out my hand to take the muzzle back I ignored his flinch, “I like you so don’t get eaten by anyone, okay?” He nods and secures the muzzle when I turn around to be helpful. I look at my nails then seem normal but when I get stressed they turn into claws.

“You’re free to go wherever you have access to.”

He reminds me, then asks, “But I’m assuming you want to go back to specimen zero?” I lift my head so fast. He laughs a little, “I’ll take that as a yes.” I follow him nervously wondering if I’ve gotten taller or if he’s just really short. ‘Will specimen zero get aggressive when he smells all the new things on me, the fact I’m a zombie now?’

I guiltily remember my passionate kiss with Ragdoll, “maybe I should take a shower first.” I say out loud and the scientist lifts his head.

“I can take you to the showers but, well the zombie guards usually use those around now.” I hesitate, remembering the guard that ripped his opponents neck out. The way they all watched silently as I walked by. I shiver saying, “I guess you could show me but I’ll wait for a little bit until they’re gone. The way my virus responds to them is…unpleasant.” I say thinking about the visceral reaction, my heart beats once and I feel the stress turning my vision and clench my fist, claws cutting my palm. The scientist goes very still like I was motion activated. I cover my eyes and take a few calming breaths. “Yeah it’s better to avoid them.” I rasp. 

He nods and leads me out of the pristine hallways towards the training area. “Their dorms are across the building there,” he says pointing, then hesitantly glances at me, “Your dorm would be around there too but-” I look at him and he clears his throat, “I’d look into moving it as far away from theirs as possible if it’s not already.” I nod a little starting to get excited about the shower. I haven’t felt warm water in so long. I barely listen to him the rest of the way there.

He pops his head out of the door, “It’s all clear.” I unfold my arms from where I was waiting outside the bathroom. He points at an open locker, “There’s all the showering supplies you need in there, including clean clothes. So, if that’s everything.” I lean over him a little, “I was serious about it before.” He blinks. “You are one of the better ones, take care of yourself.” He gets a guarded look but nods a little. I smile, “Thank you.” He flushes a little and leaves quickly. I chuckle a little at his flustered reaction to being complimented. 'Now,' I think to myself looking at the shower supplies.

They’re all pristine and smell clean, thankfully and amazingly. I go to the shower as far away from the doors as possible. It’s pleasantly clean like most everything here but I’m still grateful for the flip flops. ‘Imagine if you could get zombie foot fungus?’ I shudder and place all the showering supplies on the shelves, there's a number nine in roman numerals carved into the top shelf. That’s weird. I think and peek out of the shower counting them. As far as I can tell there’s 12 but the way it would be numbered doesn’t make sense.

Still I’m desperate for a warm shower so I turn on the water and wait for a second, it’s able to get scorching hot. I lower the temp just enough to not cook me and shiver in pleasure as its warmth cascades over me. I scrub my armpits with fervor and run suds over the rest of me until I can finally relax. The smell goes away for the first time in too long. Blood and dirt swirl around the drain.

I feel my blood moving, rushing through my body. I take deep breaths, eyes closed. I wonder why the nanomites chose to work together with the other virus. If my reaction to the guards meant anything, other viruses hated each other and saw each other as a threat. I worry again how specimen zero will react to me being zombified. He's one of the reasons I’m treated so well. Am I only using him? I guiltily think about his freezing cold pressurized showers. I promise myself to get him a nice warm shower. After putting my guilty conscience to rest I lose track of time and honestly it’s amazing. I feel relaxed like I haven't had in a while, then the door opens. 

The sound of the door opening alerts me and I hear the sound of multiple loud guards entering. I freeze, hand hovering over the nozzle. There were so many showers no way they’d go all the way back here on purpose right?For all they knew I was one of the scary scientists. The thought of the large burly guards coming in to shower scared me more than anything. Knowing how feral the zombie got I wouldn’t want to know what it was like with them. Training finished late from what they were loudly complaining about. I tense up grabbing the water spout to try to turn it off but I hear them lower their voices already mentioning it. I suck in my breath and listen as they casually blow it off and hurry into the showers, laughing and growling at each other. 

The sound of running water relievingly far away, and low voices carries on. After a minute the loud chatter and laughter resumes. Just normal conversation between the extremely close knit guards about training, laughing at who was dumb enough or weak enough to die, etc. After my heart rate slows I actually start to enjoy the murmuring laughter and gossip. It’s like nothing is wrong with these throat ripping, limb removing guards. Almost like they weren’t that threatening at all.