I carried Alicia down while Alex followed behind me. He was thankfully not sick enough to need help moving yet, she was… I don’t know how she made it down to the breakfast table. Her entire body was drenched in sweat, and she had one of the worst fevers I’d ever seen. I think this could be the effect of the stronger virus coming off me.

Or they both just got a bad form of the virus. The virus didn’t even kill ten percent of people, it was the zombie bites that spread the virus that killed people… But both of them most likely died of it in a previous life. Howard and Brandy weren’t dressed up in their doctor uniforms. They moved down here with Ellen, and if they didn’t need to wear their work outfits, they wouldn’t.

Brandy was the first to notice the two sick people I was bringing down. “What!? I-I’ll go prep the beds. Howard! We got two sick kids here!” The toilet flushed, and he came running around the corner, almost tripping over his own feet. Any workplace etiquette they had faded as if they were in their own home, expecting doctor work to show up when they least expected it.

His eyes went wide as they scanned the children. “Both are… What is this?” It was the first time he was dealing with the virus. The infection method was solely unique in that it could appear as almost any illness. From hiccups to spots, pox to sudden death. I even heard a rumor that someone had seen a person spontaneously combust.

He let his inquisitive side win as he adjusted his thinner glasses and muttered to himself. “Interesting…” I cut off his train of thought. “The same virus that’s turning people into zombies is making these kids sick. Don’t try to figure it out, it’s completely random, you can get it more than once, and it’s almost always different… Unless it’s not and it’s the same because it’s completely random, and that can happen.”

They both looked at me as the expert on the subject now. “There are two methods to treat it.” I pull out the vials again. “One would be to take this enhancement liquid, it gives almost complete immunity to the virus, but the person will be forever locked out of getting or upgrading their power.” I held up and gestured at the blue vial for the enhancement liquid before gesturing to the other orange syringe and explaining further.

“Or you risk the person’s life with this power activation syringe. It’s about a coin flip on whether or not the person will die, but there are ways to lessen the chances of it going wrong.” I didn’t wait any longer; the longer we waited, the worse they’d get, the more of a risk it would be. Jabbing both with the orange liquid, their bodies lock up for a moment.

The reactions of both were vastly different. Alicia looked immediately better, her fever beginning to fade in front of our eyes as the sudden relief had her falling asleep in my arms. Alex was unfortunate. His body began to seize as he fell to the ground from the drug failing. Brandy yelled out. “What the fuck is wrong with you! It’s a goddamn coin flip for death and you gamble their lives away when there’s a solution to the problem in your other hand!”

I hold back my smile. It would be incredibly unfortunate if I risked their lives and then they died because of it. I slowly walk over to the bed, gently put her down, and move back over to Alex. As his body was spasming, he could be doing significant damage to himself. This method thankfully gave him plenty of time to fix. He wouldn’t die right away, so there was a good chance to save him. The next moment, as he looks at me, tears forming in his eyes, I pinch his throat and explain. “The virus is fairly peculiar. Powered people can become zombies, but after becoming zombies, their power will never grow from that point onward. The virus stops growing and switches to the zombie variation of the virus after the person dies. So all we have to do is to kill the person in a way we can revive him from.”

Brandy is freaking out while the doctor is thinking it through logically. “That seems to be a terrible method you’re using. We could just stop his heart with adenosine.” I clear my throat as I hold his arm down with my other hand. You’re not supposed to do this with flailing people, but I wasn’t a trained doctor, and he keeps slapping me. “No, that doesn’t work. He has to be dead for a while to flip the virus; that’s when we use the other syringe to weaken it and revive him.”

His body finally runs out of energy as I start to count in my head. One Mississippi… Two Mississippi… Three Mississippi… “Choking people to death seems to be the easiest way to guarantee they can be revived in that time frame, but you’re more than welcome to test it out on other patients.” The room went quiet as I kept counting in my head. Pulling out the next syringe, I wait another five seconds just to be safe.

Pulling the cap off with my teeth, I explain. “The medicine also shocks the system, sometimes reviving the person on its own, that’s how it was found out it could be used to cure the person after they gained a power. Which it seems like we weren’t lucky enough to happen.” I started to perform chest compressions as I looked at Brandy. “Can you give him mouth to m-.”

Alex started breathing again, and I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t guaranteed that his heart would start pumping again, but it was better odds than a coin flip. It was a simple yet effective way to increase the odds of success and… They don’t know how bad it is not to have a power in the apocalypse yet. He might have been able to get by in our group, but… If, for some reason, he ever got separated, having a power was the difference between life and death in most situations.

Imagine running away from a crowd of zombies inside a crowd of people. If most of the group dies, any method to increase the chances of survival will add up over and over again to the point where most of the people left are powered individuals, and those without powers are treated like absolute garbage. A ton of leaders would use non-powered people as distractions for zombies, or outright kill people, hoping they turn into zombies so they can harvest their cores.

It was risky, but I’m glad it worked out in the end. It wasn’t my choice to make… But I did it this way for them. Thank god I didn’t have to go explain why one of the kids died. I would downplay how much of a risk I just took until they see the people who are going to show up completely destitute at this gate once the weather calms down enough.

The biggest cause of death, over everything, was mass starvation or fighting over food resources. I’d put twenty or thirty percent for people starving to death and twenty or thirty percent on conflicts involving food. The people around me would never have to worry about food, but I could only feed so many people.

Ellen came out of the other bathroom in the basement, brushing her teeth as she looked around the room. “Heard the lady doctor screaming her head off. What I miss?”