The day after Wayne had sealed Anna and himself in the lab, Anna began to develop a fever, indicating a progression into the second phase of the disease. He did his best to make her comfortable while continuing his work, searching for a cure.

Her blood analysis was showing greater amounts of infection, but he'd expected as much. Once the blood was separated from the immune system of the body, it had no defense against the disease and succumbed very quickly, making most blood samples useless within a day of their being taken. Tissue samples suffered from the same problems, forcing any testing to be done with either fresh samples taken the same day, or working on a sample already fully transformed by the contagion.

Wayne chose to work on the samples he already had. With Anna's condition worsening by the hour, it seemed unlikely he'd be able to find a cure in time, so he concentrated his efforts on restoring her afterwards. It was a slim hope such a reversal would be possible, but it was the only hope he had. Also, he didn't feel like sticking Anna with needles every day for fresh samples. She was miserable enough without him adding to it.

The fever reached full intensity by the next morning and lasted three days. During that time, Wayne tried to get her to eat, but what little she managed to consume, Anna ended up giving right back into a bucket. Her lack of ingestion caused her weight to diminish. Her face became more hollow and sunken as the flesh tightened around the skull. It was also noticeable around her fingers as they became more skeletal.

Wayne's efforts in research weren't doing much better either. Finding the right mix of chemical components capable of resisting the disease without harming the patient was proving problematic. Most of the serums tested so far had proved either too weak to repel the disease or too damaging to the cell structures for the body to survive once the contagion was removed.

On the fourth day, Anna's temperature began to plummet. The skin around the bite mark on her arm became cold to the touch. Her eyes hardly opened any more, and her movements were limited to the occasional twitch of an arm or hand.

Day and night, Wayne never left her alone. Either sleeping on a cot he'd dragged in from another room, or working at one of the lab tables nearby. He knew the end was near, and he wanted every second he could get.

On the fifth day, Wayne was roused from his sleep to the sound of Anna throwing up in the bucket he'd provided for her. He rolled off his cot and sleepily staggered over to where she was in order to change out her receptacle. He halted in his tracks when he noticed the interior of the bucket was coated in red as he knew the final stage of the disease was vomiting blood. It made him realize she most likely wouldn't last the day. He slumped to his knees on the cold floor.

Anna opened her eyes to look at him, but their normal, vibrant blue had become so pale as to make her eyes almost entirely colorless. She inhaled with difficulty, making a long wheezing gasp.

"I think it's about time," she managed to whisper before slumping backwards on her hospital bed.

Wayne left the blood filled bucket on the floor and scooted over to her side. Her breathing was slow, almost once per minute, and her heartbeat was practically imperceptible, even with a stethoscope. Although he didn't want to, he knew he couldn't wait any longer.

Releasing the brakes on her bed, he pushed the wheeled unit to the far end of the room. Once it was in position, he returned to his computer and activated the containment protocols. An L-shaped isolation door slid down from concealment in the ceiling to cut off the majority of the far end of the lab behind a sheet of reinforced glass.

At the short end of the L-shaped partition, a small airlock for the processing of items in and out of the interior was mounted at waist height. The door and pressurized chamber was too restricted in size for her to get through and breach quarantine, but Wayne could send her food through if necessary. He suddenly wondered if he'd be able to feed her or if her new nature would make it too grisly a matter for him to stomach.

Wayne pushed aside the discomforting thought and concentrated on getting the internal sensors up and running. A trio of monitors came to life as he typed on his computer and sent the relevant commands into the system. Each monitor was filled with information relating to her current conditions, including pulse, respiration and neural activity. He was just finishing the initial examination of the data when a different terminal began beeping at him. He ignored it and completed his work.

Finally, he walked over to the computer and opened the communication channel to silence its incessant beeping.

"Yes," Wayne said in tone more brusque than he'd intended. "What is it?"

"We've been monitoring the declining...," Councilman Kirby said through the computerized communication terminal before amending his statement, "your situation. I think it's time you shut down and came out. We'll handle the cleanup."

"She's not dead yet," Wayne growled.

"You can't keep torturing yourself like this," Kirby pressed. "Your testing shows no indication you'll have a cure before she's gone. What are going to do, work beside a flesh-eating corpse?"

"If I have to," Wayne confirmed.

"Don't be ridiculous," Kirby denied. "You're wasting time and only making things more difficult on yourself."

"It's my time to waste, Councilman," Wayne snapped. "Whether she lives or not, you'll need this cure, and I'll never be as motivated as right now. I'll keep you advised of any further progress. Until then, stay out of my lab."

Wayne pressed the key to end the communication and the screen went dark. He could only hope the Councilman didn't send a strike team to storm the lab.