9 Days Before

Lin rustles downstairs from being called for dinner, meeting him is his mother setting down plates—steam rising off of the delicious meal, the smell brings Lin a welcoming warm flame inside his chest—its scent sizzled with a pull of smooth natural elements.

He inhales deeply trying to pictate the meal, "what's for dinner?" He says giving up the guess.

"Glazed Steak with some smashed potatoes that have corn mixed into it." His mother says while serving his plate on the table, Lin sits down—stoked about the meal that lays ahead of him, the lifting steam of the food warms his face.

Lin's Mother leans over the table to switch on a portable radio to play soothing music while they eat, they pick up their silver forks—Lin stabs into the cut steak pieces, its glazed coat gleams on the overheard light. His taste buds burst as he brought it towards his mouth, "wow, this is really good mom." he muffles, tasting rich goodness as he chows down on the piece of steak.

His mother smiles, "I'm glad you like it." She places her fork into her piece and begins eating as well. As Lin chews, he takes a look around the table while tapping his foot to the gentle beat of the radio.

"Hey, mom."

"Hey what?" She says looking up at Lin—still chewing on her piece, a small set of flowers sits in-between them.

"Where's Rin?" He jabs his fork into another piece as he stares at the spot where Rin would be sitting at the dinner table. "She's staying at a friend's house for a few days." The radio cuts out for a split second, his mother chewing on a new piece as she stares at Lin.

He does a simple nod, pressing his upper lip up and they go back to enjoying their meal together.

Lin thinks about what his mother told him, trying to picture what friend of Rins' is she staying at—maybe a friend that has yet to be introduced?

His mother, capturing Lin staring at the kitchen table as he ponders the question, "what's up?" She pokes at another piece of meat, taking a glance up at him for an answer.

"Nothing, just daydreaming." He doesn't want to bring up the friend, believing that they've already been introduced to them and he just forgot, evolving it so he doesn't look like a jerk for not remembering—with the same feeling of yesterday raises, making him burrow his brow.

Radio gets interrupted then goes back.

Lin does a soft sigh and focuses on finishing his meal, carrying onto the mash potatoes.

The two sit silently listening to the radio as they eat their meal, his mother occasionally leaning on her elbow—looking up at the ceiling deep in her own thoughts about work.

Lin quickly polishes off his mashed potatoes, grabbing his plate, "thank you for making us dinner mom." He shifts up out of his chair to carry the dish to the sink to clean it off, "finished already?" His mother looked at the back of him, seeing him clean his plate and silver-wear.

"Yep, it was delicious!" He responds, finishing his cleaning—placing the cleaned dishes onto a drying mat and he takes off upstairs and into his room.

His mother sits there alone, finishing her own meal—after a moment she blankly looks at the radio as it starts to erupt a jitter of static noise.

Upstairs, Lin flops onto his bed after turning on his gaming station and television. He grabs the controller that's laying next to him where he had left it—a faint static line floats up the T.V screen causing him to get up from his bed to give it a bump on the side having the line disperse.

He turns back to the bed to crawl back into it, seeing his phone light up with the phone logo teeter-tottering back-n-forth.

"Kel?" He looks at the screen with a faint burn to his chest, debating whether to answer or leave it ringing.

{●}

Kel rests in an examination room, his chest slowly pressing the sheets up then it gently inflates—a Ventilator's whisper hums in the silent room, faint lights from the machines softly illuminate the cubical.

Kellic's breathing keeps its feathered rhythm of motion as life around him continues to sprawl: Nurses, doctors, and other workers patter through the hallways outside his room.

The tapping of feet follows a medicalist with a clipboard, a list of information about the patient's treatment, alongside the notes are a list of names—Kellic being one of many on the piece of paper.

On the nurses waist hangs a radio, they had received orders to check on another patient four rooms ahead of his.

Inside Kellics room, the continuing whispers of the Ventilator reverberate around the room, behind his shut eyelids the eyes move from left to right, repeating the movement like reading words on a page.

Blaring sounds of an alarm race towards his room, a stampede of boots rush to aid—Kel's eyes begin to rapidly move from side-to-side. An echo of screams breach the hallways—his eyes jitters faster, the light panels above the bed begin to shutter.

Series of footsteps speeds down the hallways following distant shouting.

Shuttering becomes an elongated beam, its shine lights up the entire room and the equipment next to the bed begins to frit, other neighboring rooms face the same dilemma having alarms being triggered.

With the commotion that came, it abruptly ended in a snap. Sirens had turned off, the lights above had died, the only noise accompanying silence was the hushed hums of the Ventilator.

Kellic's eyes jolted open with his chest arcing towards the ceiling, flopping back down on the bed, he lay there with heavy eyelids.

Kel's arm moves without a reaction from his body, the hand grips the tube and does a curve angle—yanking it with a thinner tube stringing out of Kellic's mouth.

His upper body lifts up from laying down. Kel's eyes spelled with a haze, he stiffly gets up from the bed. Beams of passing lights spew from the blinds pairing with thumping of shoes against the glossy flooring.

Eerie silences clings inside the building after the patter of footsteps.

Kellics lifeless tone moves throughout the room, bumping into a shelf with appliances and items that have been found inside his clothing, his hand raises with a ghostly shift—it slides towards his phone that was placed next to his folded clothing, picks it up and dials a familiar number having it ring out under the name 'Lin'.

Kel's lifeless gaze stares at the dimly lit wall from the ethereal light of his phone—it continues to ring for some time before it eventually ends without an answer prompting a voicemail. His grip on the cell becomes limp, dropping the phone onto the ground with a plastic thunk.

He stands there emotionless, the pale light bathes onto his legs with a more fainter glow skimming Kel's face, then he begins to sluggishly move out of the room and into the dark hallways, shuffling his bare feet across the hospital floor, echoes of dragging vibrate the corridors as he presses onward of the silent building.

Kellics emotionless body makes its way into the E.R, the space was a ghost of a room—not a single soul to aid him back into his room, the hospital gown says with every drag as he passes empty chairs.

The lights where the front desk is located strobes, making a flickering ambiance across the wooden desk, then the lights he passes begin to stutter, following the faltering of lights, the main entrance sign begins to mimic the others.

Automatic doors part ways for Kellic to exit the ghastly hospital, he turns towards his right and shambles his way into an entrance of a forest, his fading body is soon lost with the density of the foliage as breaking of twigs and branches becomes the only sign of him.

{●}

Kel's Father sits on a recliner in a darkened room with the only light being the illumination of the T.V screen, he shifts through channels trying to find something to watch while pondering the events at the school—having his son and one of Kellics best friends engaged in a fight has left him drained of energy.

This was new for the two of them, they've never fought like that before—the only fights that sprung were due to competition, never any fists flying at one another.

Clark looks at the paperwork given to him by Kel's school peers, holding a nice thick stack to last him for a while, Luckily for Kel—he'd gotten off a bit easy having him do the rest of his classes with the packet to pass him to the next grade.

He sighs, flopping the packet onto the end piece, Clark gives it one more glance while taking a swig off of a chilled drink and places it down to resume watching television.

Clark takes a deep inhale, smelling the staleness of the room following an explosive scent of rain, he sniffs the air some more to confirm that he's smelling the sweet-iron of rain.

"Better go close the windows then." He mutters to himself, grunting as he gets up from the recliner, he strolls to one of the kitchen windows, he looks off in the distance seeing the forest he used to go hunting with his son in, scanning the night he spots the incoming rain cloud—a darker smudge across the landscape, stretching towards the forest.

"Hopefully it won't be as bad," Clark says, closing the kitchen window, then waltzing to the other window and doing the same.

After closing the windows so that the rainfall doesn't puddle in, he goes over to the fridge grabbing another flavored drink, closing it with a quiet thud so that he doesn't disturb his son sleeping in the other room.

He walks back to his chair, his socks dragging onto the cold kitchen tile then onto the carpet. Seeing the Television casting thin dark lines, "not this again." He groans going over to the electronics giving it a smack to the side, the screen flickers—giving it another go it does the same this time going back to its normal display.

"Just like that" he places his left hand on his waist, his posture filled with a sense of pride. Clark takes his drink, cracking it open with the carbonation hissing.

He watches the television for a few moments before he back-steps into his chair, flopping his rear on the comforter—letting out a sigh of relief.

While watching the show, the lights dance in the dark doing a series of different tones of light.

Somewhere in the other room he hears his son still awake, the sudden noise triggers a concern he's been having sense Kels been home—he's been acting strange lately, almost like it's not the same son that he had raised alone out of all these years.

Something about him is off and he isn't sure if its due to the fight between the two—just something about his son doesn't scream that it's him.

{●}

Sam hunches over her desk, questions brewing in her mind as to why she hasn't received word about her orders to check up on a patient within the hospital, she grabs the radio off of her desk gripping it tightly as she firmly presses the button on the side.

"Cerina, do you copy?" She releases pressure, static rumbles as she waits for a response from the agent she had put there as a nurse.

With what little patience she has, she presses the button again. "Cerina, do.you.copy" she repeats again giving a harsh tone to her voice.

However there is no response, only the static of the radio is what's welcoming her.

Sam groans, tossing the radio on the desk placing her fingers on her lip as she thinks about what's happening over at the hospital.

Dwindling on the current events with these storms and the freakish occurrences.

It doesn't sit right with her, she places her hand down on the office chair handle—her face etched with temper.

She quickly gets up, pushing the office chair with the motion, Sameria gathers thoughts as she paces around her cubicle.

"I could—no, I already have enough men stationed elsewhere" she half bakes, continuing to go side-to-side.

Sameria groans in frustration, picking up the radio again to call in any available agents to scout the hospital, within a few moments there's a response on the other end confirming her request.

She exhales, letting the tension go, the camera screens flicker yet it doesn't capture her attention. Sameria exits her room to check on other projects, one of them being Eve.

{●}

Eve concocted the serum with a variety of ingredients, her sweat pouring down from the working heat she had created, she took her forearm and swipes her head. Eve's eyes squint, lifting up the vile to examine it.

She gently places it down on a holder, the microphone blurts congratulating her on a job well done.

Eve takes a look at it in response, then back down to the serum—it looks different from the normal liquid they've made before: thicker of color with weaves of waves sprawling inside it.

Eve does a big inhale getting any fresh air she can then does a huff right after, she's curious as to what this serum will be used for.

She doesn't know everything about the serum, they've done a decent job of keeping its contents a secret—decent enough to make Eve try to dig through files leading her to finding the anomalies of the storms that now has a sense of dread behind it.

The loud speaker booms, ordering her to step aside from the vile, doing the routine from last time she waltzes over towards the wall and placing her hands up.

Series of sounds gather at the hidden entrance, before it opens she had been ordered to turn around to face the padded wall.

Clanking comes from behind her, singling that the door had been opened with stomping of boots—letting her know that guards had entered the room, alongside the sounds of the guards boots came a tapping of another pair of shoes.

She squinted, her eyes looking towards her right; thinking on who was accompanying the guards, with the last pair it sounded like boots, but these sound like a lighter haul to them.

The tapping travels towards Eve's work table, she hears the vial glass clinking on the holder she had placed it on then the tapping reaches the door with it thumping off its closure.

With a moment of silence, she holds her pose facing the wall.

What may seem like hours, the silence had erupted with the speaker relieving her of the position, she turned to her table with the confirmation that the vile had been taken.

Eve folds her arms to her chest and paces around the room, wondering what the situation is, what may be in-stored for her in the future, and what the outside world is like.

Fatigue grasped her, believing that it could be night—sleeping with these lights on among the blaring white of the room makes it difficult.

Although she still tries, taking her pace towards her bed and sitting criss-cross applesauce on it, the covers being rippled from disturbance. Even if she's stuck in here she'll still keep up with her routine of making her bed.

She looks up at the camera seeing the light under it green—she's being watched this very second.

The lights around the room fade into a dim source, it's like her wishes about the lighting were heard somehow, that or they just rewarded her for creating the liquid early.

She's slightly aggravated at the thought: being rewarded something that should be a common thing for patients but it's not.

Eve flomps her head on the pillow, her right side hitting the soft cloud. Thoughts storm, bouncing around in her head as it leads to the outside world amongst any sort of treatment she'll face.

Her legs slowly relax from them being crossed, now lying fully on the bed, the chaotic thoughts are somewhat a tool to get her tired enough to pass out within a few moments.

Outside Eve's room, the group that took the vile strides towards another room within the facility, giving it to workers in lab coats to have them deliver the serum, they rapidly pace towards an elevator bringing them down into the underground floors.

With machinery clicking the doors open and the lab worker continues their fast-walk down the corridors, they turn a corner towards a room that's locked by a high-class security system, having them do a series of steps to enter the doors.

As the worker enters they can hear the humming of classical music played on a violin and pianos.

"Here's the—-" they say before being cut off with a hand covering their mouth, another person in a different, sleeker looking lab coat takes the vial and silently gives it to a guard that's in an early stage of a high-class armor.

The medicalist that carried the vial inches closer to a large glass window, it looks down on the figure in the middle that's locked in place.

Its shrouded appearance gives the observer a shiver down their spine, having the higher up medicalist look back at them, getting up from their seat to escort the doctor out of the room—closing the door tightly shut in front of them.