Well, I wasn't sure whether to put this in "Romance" or "Other Fiction"...romance is a key component of this story, but I'm not sure how much of a love story this is. Not to mention it's incredibly depressing. Read at your own risk.

Like a lot of my ideas, this one was inspired by an attempt to give a more academic subject (one I read about in National Geographic--proud member of the NGS, baby!) a more human touch. Namely, this is inspired by zoonosis...when an animal-harbored disease (like avian flu) gets passed on to humans. And even moreso what happens when the contagion evolves to the point of being able to be transmitted between people. But no, I won't give any more away!

Enjoy--

Victim Number Eight

Burning from fever, forever and always, sweat running in rivulets down her face--

This was how I saw her last, sprawled on her deathbed, one limp, lily-white arm flopped over the edge of the bed like a dead fish, dark golden hair spread in a sweat-soaked halo around her face, burning bright red from the fever that had arrested her entire body, that forced her to sweat all the water out of her body while her insides cooked...

The death bed was plaid. I do not know why I remember this; do not ask. I remember it was draped with a faded, green-and-brown plaid comforter, that she alternately threw off and pulled on in a futile attempt to stay warm, or to cool off, depending on what the fevers were doing to her body at the moment. Mostly the comforter stayed rumpled, and thrown carelessly over the threadbare mattress, to cushion her while she slept. The nights she could sleep, that is--the nights where she was not kept awake and crying from fever nightmares, or tossing and turning and whimpering.

Always the same words, the same words she would whisper over and over and over again, in her death-cracked voice:

"I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die..."

They told me it was a "virus", a new type of illness that had, out of nowhere, risen from the sewers of the city and began to infect the populace. It was not contagious--not like the illness that had stricken Mother down, a virus so contagious that we could not even touch her without gloves, and near the end, could not be near her if we did not put protective masks on--but when it did strike, it struck with deadly results.

She was Victim Number Seven. That was what they called her, in the news broadcasts. Victim Number Seven. They said it was to preserve her privacy, but I knew what it was really for--to strip her of her humanity. To make her but a number, not a name. The people who listened to the broadcasts did not know that she was a daughter, and sister, and lover and friend--to them, she was but a victim, a distant, far-away specter suffering from a disease that would not attack them. After all, the disease only infected numbers. It didn't infect people.

How else could they walk so blithely through the dark streets, day after day, talking about taxes, children, jobs and mortgages? How could they, when there was a killer in their midst? I will tell you how--because they never believed the killer would strike them down. Because they were honest people with jobs and families, and people who loved them and would mourn them when they died. They weren't numbered, nameless victims, so they were safe, right?

Tell that to her! Tell that to her mother and father, who gathered around her bed in late midnight vigils, eyes rimmed red from tears, hands clasped to their chests, unable to think of anything except their daughter--their beautiful, their sweet, their lovely, their one and only--dying. Tell that to her older sister, who returned from the countryside to sit by her sister's plaid deathbed, singing low, comforting songs to her.

Tell that to me.

I, who was perhaps her most faithful watcher, stayed with her day in and day out. I moved out of my own apartment--already little used, because I spent most of my days with her--to sit in a chair by her side, my head bowed, watching her burn and sweat, whimper and sob for her life...oh, the days I spent in that chair. I cannot begin to imagine how long I spent, simply sitting silent, my head bowed over her as she died, thinking of nothing but her--oh, how was I going to live without her? What would happen? Would the world end, or would life continue as always, the people of the city jamming elbows to cram onto the subway, grumbling about taxation and their jobs...?

It wouldn't continue for me. Maybe that was why I spent so long in that chair--so long I memorized it, practically, memorized its faded pleather surface, cracked and worn with age. I spent my days in that chair, watching her sweat over the plaid comforter, placing wet towels on her head in a futile attempt to lower the fevers, and, when she became wracked with the fears the disease induced in her, patting her on the shoulder, over and over again, telling her that it would be okay...that she would survive...

I think she knew that she would die before I did. How else could she whisper, "I'm gonna die", so many times, with such conviction? Victims Number One through Six had all eventually succumbed to the virus and died, and she knew that she was next. I knew this too, in the part of me that was able to still think. But most of me--

Most of me was in denial. I wanted--oh, how I wanted--for her to make a miraculous recovery from her illness, oh, how I wanted her to pull through and survive, and later, when we were much, much, older, rest her head on my shoulder and reminisce about those days in her youth when she had been ill. But this was the wishful thinking of a child. Deep inside, I knew she would die--but that terrified me even more. When the thought inevitably struck me I would snatch her death-white hands and would refuse to let go, because I knew that if I did, she would slip away forever-more. If I even so much as left the room...

...who know if she'd be alive when I returned?

It happened in the last few weeks, before she finally succumbed. This vague thought that had always clung to the back of my mind, as I sat in that cracked pleather chair by her side and gazed upon her dying and writhing on the plaid comforter, burst forth to the surface--and paralyzed me. It infected me with the speed of a disease, and caused me to abandon all restraint and--

And stay by her side, forever and always. In those last few weeks, I did not leave her apartment. I did not even leave her room. I stayed, in that worn pleather chair, warmed from my body's constant presence, holding her hand, whispering quietly to her. Nonsense, mostly, babyish babblings along the lines of "Oh don't die don't die please don't die please please please oh please don't die don't what will I do what will I do???" By that point, she had gotten too sick to reply, but I could see the pain shining her pewter gray eyes when she opened them, could see the tears that welled in them and rolled down her burning cheeks...

I would wipe her tears off, but I could never seem to get her face dry--probably because as I leaned over her face, tenderly wiping the tears off, my own tears were falling, rolling from my swollen-feeling eyes, down the bridge of my nose, and landing with gentle little plips on her face. In those final weeks, the wetness never stopped. It stayed bone-dry outside and the forecasters and common people grumbled, desiring rain, but inside, in that room where she died--

It would never stay dry.

We stayed together for so long, through those terrible final weeks, that we became one. It is a cliche, I know, and one that we--when we first met--pledged to avoid. We would be our separate people. She would be the girl who loved to laugh, and loved theater and sweets and the jewel green of grass; I would be the boy who was quiet and serious and liked a good book to immerse myself in, and a strong cup of black coffee by my side as I read. Through our differences, we would enhance each other, but would never become one.

Until the end.

In the end, our differences--always entirely minor, entirely cosmetic--gave way to a new understanding. The understanding of the dying that she would soon leave the earth--the understanding of the grieving that all life must come to an end. We remained, our hands symbiotically linked, foreheads pressed together, tears mingling, filled with the knowledge that her time on Earth was ending and we had to make the most of it. We were so close that I began to feel the same blazing heat, the same chills, that arrested her--but I logically knew that I was not sick. She was the one who was sick, and she was the one who would die. I could only stay by her side, sharing the heat of her fevers, sharing the misery in her heart, but that was...that.

I cannot remember what her last words were. I know that last words are supposed to be the most important, the most treasured, particularly when you are young and the one person who means the most to you dies. But I...I can't remember. Perhaps it was because they were nothing significant. Near the end, the only thing she ever said was that one three-word-phrase: "I'm gonna die". She repeated it so often that it became a mantra, a mantra that I eventually came to share. We spent our nights and days, our hands intertwined, whispering, together:

"I'm gonna die."

And truth be told--I cannot remember exactly what happened at her death. I know--another moment that should be burned indelibly on my memory! But I don't remember. I don't even remember the exact date of her death. I cannot remember if it was still as whispery-dry as it had been all autumn, or if it had finally decided to rain. I cannot remember if her parents were in the room with me, or if her sister was. I cannot even remember if I was holding her hand, and if I was crying.

All I remember is that--some time after her death, perhaps a week or two--it rained. I remember because I remember walking through the shadowy streets of the city, wrapped in my favorite brown tweed coat, while the heavens poured down over my head, drenching me and filling the thirsty holes in the middle of the street. It seemed to me that the storm would never end, and indeed, it seemed like it had been raining forever and always. I couldn't imagine the sky as dry and white as it had been in the weeks before--I could only imagine it heavy and gray and overbearing, unleashing its contents over my head, rumbling in quiet rage.

I wished I could empathize with the rain, but I didn't. I didn't feel rage at her death--only a curious, dull, aching emptiness somewhere in my stomach. What would happen to me now that she had died? What would happen now that I had died? I could never imagine pulling out a dusty tome from the library and settling down to read it, coffee mug by my side--such an activity was too mundane, too normal, in the wake of the disaster that had happened. If I returned blithely to my old life...

I knew she would never forgive me.

What could I do? I stood with her family as they put her deep in the earth, watched as they lowered her heavy ebony coffin into damp earth of the city cemetery. Her sister sang, and a man I did not recognize spoke quietly about her. I could not see her--there was nothing to see, for to "neutralize" her ability to infect others, she had been promptly cremated after her death.

I remember her sister taking my hand, and telling me that it would be okay--but it would not. Her sister knew this also, for how else could she cry so, the tears running down her cheeks and causing her to shake and stammer when she tried to speak? Her parents were wiser, and did not try to console me. They merely threw their arms over each other, sobbing deeply in their shared pain...

As I watched them, I reflected on what her and I could have been. Her parents had been together for years, for so long they could barely remember a time where they hadn't known each other. They had had their first daughter years before their next, almost ten years, if memory serves me correctly. They were closer than anyone could be, too close to ever be separated. I had the feeling that if mother and father were ever split from each other, both of them would wither away and die. Such was the power of their connection.

Did we have such a connection? We were just children, who had known each other for two or three years at most (it breaks down near the end, because try as I might, I cannot remember how long she spent dying on the plaid bed)? I certainly felt that way near the end, when we had held our hands so tightly our sweat mingled, and where I almost felt that I could share her chills, her burning fevers, her nightmares...

I stayed with her parents in their old apartment, because I no longer had an apartment of my own and they could not imagine a life without me. Not to say that I, in essence, became their son to replace their daughter--life does not work that way. I simply became someone they needed, because I was the only other person in the city who could share their pain. To everyone else, their daughter was "Victim Number Seven". Only to them--and me--was she someone else, someone with a name, a history, a personality.

Months passed after her death and I felt the rain would never stop. It didn't--after the months of drought, the skies finally unleashed their pent-up rage in a seemingly endless torrent. The same forecasters and people who had prayed for rain now grumbled about how they wished the storms would stop. I did not care much, for I spent most of my time inside, in the room where she died. I did not sleep on her bed--that would be just wrong. I simply slumped, in a half-doze, in my faithful cracked pleather chair.

The disease fell silent for some months after her death. No new cases were reported, and for some time, the people were able to breathe easy. The diseases that continued to infect and strike them down on a day to day basis were not a threat to them, for they were too used to them. But this new disease, that had risen from the city's rotting sewers--it was something they feared and didn't understand, so they were glad when the threat subsided.

I did not share their sense of relieved peace. Truth be told, I don't know what I felt in those long months after she had died. I think I must have felt like--nothing. I certainly must have, if I did nothing more than slump in a chair all day, staring straight ahead at the graying walls of her room, thinking about nothing in particular. I remember feeling listless, apathetic, and empty. With her death I had lost any purpose I might have had in life. I think I expected to stay in that room, unmoving, until I myself eventually died for a lack of doing anything. Oh, her parents fed me...but I felt my spirit would cave long before my body would, and that when it did, I would essentially die.

It was because of this sepulchral, apathetic state of mine that I didn't notice when the fevers came. I don't know what I must have attributed them to, at first, or even if I felt them. I did not know how long they had been affecting me until one day I awoke to find my vision obscured by faded green and brown plaid...and sweat coating my entire body, from my scalp to the soles of my feet.

And the heat...the heat that blazed somewhere deep in the core of my being and spread out through my limbs and neck into my extremities, burning, blazing, unrelenting. I felt it would never end. The torture of having my insides stewing somewhere deep within me, all the while her parents patted me down with wet towels and whispered assuring nothings to me--"It's just the flu, it's just pneumonia, it's nothing, it's nothing--"

Then the chills came. They came as much more of a sudden shock than the fevers, which had been slowly stealing up on me over the course of months. The chills were a cold knife that stabbed in the middle of the night while I sweated and burned. At first--can you believe it?--I welcomed the chills as a relief. A relief from the endless burning that I felt had overtaken my being. But then, gradually, I came to hate and resent them as much as the burning fevers. I hated how they stole up on me, arresting my body and causing me to shiver endlessly and twist the comforter agonizingly around my body in a futile attempt to get warm. Then, her parents piled blankets and blankets on top of me, trying to keep me warm...but as soon as they'd accomplished that, the fevers returned and they had to remove the blankets and place damp cloths over my forehead.

I do not know how long I struggled with the fevers and the chills, forever alternating, slowly sucking the will to live out of my being. Weeks, perhaps. Maybe months. I do not know. I only know that some time into my illness--

Came the dreams.

They were dreams of her, at first, but she was different--her skin was glowing red, and peeled off in long, angry strips when I tried to touch her. Sometimes, if I looked at her out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the sickness running through her veins--a million tiny blue invaders, glowing hideously against the red of her body, crawling through her veins and cycling through her heart and lungs, filling her eyes until they turned a unified, horrible shade of brilliant blue.

And then, when I looked down at myself, I saw the little blue invaders as well. I saw them, hundreds, thousands, millions, swimming languidly through my blood and building up behind my heart, settling in the pit of my stomach, a hundred, a thousand, a million more arriving with each and every day. The cruel little minions clambered through me and gradually, piece by piece, atom by atom, claimed my body for themselves. I was no longer me--I became nothing but a vessel. A home for them.

The first time I realized this, a cold shock that had nothing to do with the chills shot from the pit of my stomach into my heart, stopping it dead for a terrifying fraction of a second. When I was finally able to breathe, my breaths came short and shallow and panicked, and when I had gained enough breath to speak, I did, chanting in a desperate mantra over and over again, what I had learned from my dreams:

"I am going to die. I am going to die. I am going to die I'm going to die I'm going to die I'm gonna die--"

From then on the dreams became more fearsome and vivid and life-like, until I could no longer be sure what was dream and what was real. Sometimes I was convinced she was back again and sitting by my side, patting me gently on the back while I sobbed the truth, tenderly resting damp cloths on my forehead when the invaders inside me made my insides cook. Those times she felt so real, so life-like, so heavy and solid and it was just like she was back again...but then, when I looked at her, her eyes glowed blue and I knew she was not real.

Eventually, though, I stopped caring. I stopped caring about what was real and what was fever dream--they all intermingled, became one and the same. Impossible things happened, not just her returning--sometimes I saw Mother, smiling at me and telling me I was a good son, and other times I saw the friends I had left behind when I was only a little boy, so long ago I could barely even remember them. Sometimes her parents came in and consoled me, and these times I was never sure if they were real or dream. Oh, sometimes it was obvious they were dreams--like the time where they glowed green, and red, and then alternated slowly between glowing the two colors, all the while their eyes emitted a brilliant blue light...but other times, I was less certain. When I felt hands resting on my forehead during the night, I was never sure if it was her, or Mother, or my boyhood friends, or her parents.

Time ceased to exist. Everything, in fact, seemed to come to a complete end save the threadworn bed with its scratchy green-and-brown plaid comforter. I clung to that comforter like a lifeline, because to me it was the only thing that existed--my only connection with reality. Even when I burned from fever, I still clutched that comforter close to my chest, desperate in the thought that if I let go, it, and the world around me, would disappear entirely.

So you see, I do not know how long it was until the tiny blue parasites within me completely took over, and I, as a living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being, ceased to exist. All I know is that it was raining, as it had been ever since her death months--years?--ago. That, too, was my only other connection to the real world. As long as I could hear the regular drumming of the rain on the roof, I knew I was still in the here and now.

The day the rain ceased, a man came to visit. He was tall, and unfamiliar, but I did not see him because I could no longer see anything but blue, a hideous shade of sky blue that had permeated my skin and settled into my retinas, so I could see nothing but that endless blue. All I had was the comforter pressed against my body, and the drumming of the drain outside--other than that, what did I know to be real or a fantasy?

I do not know if this man was a fantasy, or if he was real. I like to entertain the notion he was real, but at the same time, I can never be certain. All I know is that he entered the room I was in, very carefully, and looked at me for a long, long time. He did not say anything. He did not touch me.

At long last, after what felt like hours, but could have been minutes--I could not be certain of time any longer--he turned to her mother and father, and spoke. His voice was low and grave, and somewhat muffled, as if he was wearing a mask. "I'm terribly sorry." The words lacked sincerity. "This boy...he is..."

Her mother burst out sobbing at that point, so I did not hear what the man said next. I did not hear what anyone said next, and I could not even hear the drumming of rain on the roof. I couldn't even feel the comforter by my side anymore.

All I saw, all I knew, all I felt--was blue. The endless, endless color of the sky, surrounding me completely, and I knew, with a flash of terror--that it had happened. The invaders that had begun colonizing me all those nights ago, when I bent over her and squeezed her hand and pressed my face against hers, had finally succeeded. I was no longer human--I was theirs.

When everything slipped away from me and became blue, that was when I knew. That was when I knew what the tall man in the mask had said. He had said the words that all in the city had dreaded ever since the first man had fallen ill with the deadly virus from the sewers--

I was, as it happened, Victim Number Eight.

---------

Hope you enjoyed this depressing mess. >_> I'm sorry for my recent spate of extremely depressing works. I'll try writing happier things...

Anyway, since you people are awesome, you'll critique. Won't you?