Chapter 5

Christy got to Shedrack's home downtown. She knocked on the door, and his voice answered.

"What are you doing here?" he said as soon as the door opened.

Christy pushed past him before he had the chance to protest, and she wasn't prepared for what she saw. Her jaw dropped in awe.

"C'mon, Christy, you can't do this." Shedrack stood in her way, blocking her line of sight, but Christy slipped past him without sparing him a glance.

Shedrack sighed in frustration.

His perfect-looking mansion from the outside looked more like a storage house on the inside, with shelves lined up with different canned foods. There were countless rows of food, as if she had entered a supermarket; the difference was that in the middle was a couch and a TV. The floorboards seemed to thud as she walked, as if the building itself was built on metal.

Tears blurred her vision, her constricted emotions a mix of pain and relief.

The system suddenly appeared.

[Status Updated]

[Warning Credibility level: 18%]

He had believed her, and the system acknowledged it.

Shedrack walked quietly behind her, his thoughts in shambles.

She moved deeper, and after what seemed like two meters of walking past lined-up food, she saw a huge bed and a door which, without being told, she knew led to the bathroom.

Just as she was about to move further, Shedrack gripped her hand and turned her around.

"If you have anything to…" He trailed off at the sight of Christy's wet face.

"What the fuck, Christy? Why are you crying?" he asked, worry mixed with confusion written on his face.

Christy thought: he didn’t die. Her death hadn't been for nothing; she had saved someone. No wonder she hadn't seen him. He had actually survived the apocalypse.

"I just got emotional for a bit. You had actually believed me when I said the world was coming to an end."

"Well, I know you never say things you aren't sure of. I just bet on you being right," he said, looking everywhere but Christy's eyes. "But don't cry. Of course I should believe you. I'm your friend," he added, stepping closer and wiping Christy's tears away with his palm.

"So why didn't you tell me? I mean, this is huge."

"I wanted to. I swear, you can't imagine how hard it was for me to keep this a secret from you," he said, his tense shoulders relaxing a bit.

"Well, you're forgiven if you tell me what you know about the 30 dead patients in our hospital."

"Wait, what? How did you know?"

Christy rolled her eyes. "Know what?"

"That the patients are all dead?"

Fuck! Christy had just slipped. How was she supposed to tell him she had a floating board only she could see, and that she had also died in the future timeline that no longer existed, more like everyone they knew had died?

"I happened to see it at the hospital," she lied, and of course Shedrack caught her. He raised a brow at her.

"No one knows yet. The last among the 30 persons just died now. I was on the call when you knocked."

"Look, I'm just trying to help here. Either you will help me help people, or you won’t."

"That's the thing with you, Christy. You feel like you have to shoulder everything, shutting out and hurting people who care about you."

His face was covered in a deep frown.

"What are you talking about?" Christy asked. She didn't know why he was mad, and somehow she felt she had no time for this argument. While she stood here wasting time on a futile fight, the apocalypse drew nearer by the second.

"You know what? Fuck you, Shedrack." She turned around and walked away. She had her hand on the doorknob when Shedrack gripped her hand and turned her around.

"I didn't mean to yell. I'm sorry. I will tell you about it," he said, his previous frown replaced with sadness.

“I will tell you the few things I know too, but I can't promise it will be of use." Christy said.

"They brought a blood sample of 28 persons before I left, and all had the same parasite in their blood. It's a threadlike parasite, none like we've ever seen before. I did research, and this disease first appeared on the 15th of February, and it's around the world. In the space of a day and a half, it has affected one thousand people around the globe," Shedrack said.

His words confirmed Christy's suspicions. If only she had done research in her past timeline, she would have compared how the timing of this disease varied from the first time.

"But the most confusing part I found during my research was that this parasite resembles the body's cells. It even has the same properties but a different reaction. So far, we can't say yet whether the parasite is harmful or not."

Shedrack looked lost in thought. It felt like his mouth was talking but his mind was somewhere else.

"Can we trace where the parasite came from?"

Shedrack shook his head.

"For now, we don't know yet."

"It's not communicable, right? Because if it were, we should be carriers too."

"So far, we haven’t found evidence that it’s transmissible from person to person.”

"Then have you thought about the source? It has to be something all humans can't do without…"

Shedrack squinted his eyes, trying to make sense of Christy's point.

"C'mon, Shedrack, it's water… the people are getting infected by water," Christy said.

"That's a plausible theory, Christy, but you and I drank water today and we haven't fallen ill. Think about it… if it were water, we wouldn't be counting 30 people; we would be counting thousands, if not millions, of people."

Christy's instincts never played tricks on her. If those burrowers were really the cause of Ru-Zero, and if there was any little chance of getting any information to alter thousands of people's deaths, her theory was worth checking out.

I mean, the burrowers live underground, and all the water pipes lead underground. To her, the theory was plausible.

"But it's worth checking out. I will bring different samples of water I can lay my hands on, and you will test them."

"Okay, I will just get dressed, so you meet me at the hospital," Shedrack said, immediately turning around.

"Hey, Shedrack," Christy called. "Thank you."

He flashed her a cheeky smile and waved at her.

Christy’s thoughts raced. If the water was responsible for the disease, then what? She could tell people to stop drinking it. She could warn the authorities. She could save thousands of lives. But a disturbing thought suddenly crossed her mind.

What if stopping the disease leads to greater consequences?