"NIGEL!"

For him, being woken up early in the morning if he didn't ask for it is one of the things he hated so much. His mother knew about that since he was still a child, but today was different. The voice of his mother calling him was full of terror and disturbing; she kept knocking on the door, alarming him. He instantly got out of his bed to see her. He opened the door, their eyes met, and seeing her cry triggered something from the past that led to his overthinking. The last time he saw his mother afraid like this was a year ago, the day his father died in a terrible accident. He sensed he was about to hear bad news.

"What's going on?" He approached her, held her hands, and stared at her eyes intently while trying to calm her. "Ma...what's happening?"

"S...Something happened to our neighbors...they're s..sick!" she cried.

"What? Why? What happened?" He guided her to his bed and let her sit beside him.

"They just started screaming and crying. They said their stomach hurts." She was shaking. "They were coughing blood...and t...their eyes were red!" she explained in between her sobs.

"Which of them? Where are they?"

"Anna, her husband, and her parents. Also, Jojo, Kara, Ernesto, and...there's too many of them. Oh my God! I can't breathe..." She was gasping for air. "They were r...rushed to the hospital, they won't stop v...vomiting blood."

"Ma, please calm down. Take a deep breath." He knew the blood must have triggered her panic attack. "Did they consume something bad?"

"I don't know. Everything just happened so fast."

"Ma..."

"W...What?"

He froze. His mind went blank for a second. He felt like his heart skipped a beat looking at the thin stream of blood crawling out her nose. He instantly saw the fear in her eyes when she touched and stopped the blood before it could reach her lips. Staring at her finger covered with dark red fluid, silence filled the room and all he heard was his thumping heart and their deep breaths.

"No...not you too---"

"Nigel..." She immediately covered her mouth and coughed so hard. In between the fingers, blood just seeped through. When she removed her hand and stared at her palm, she just looked at him, face so pale, and beads of sweat forming on her forehead. She was still trembling. She stopped sobbing, but her tears kept falling.

"We need to go to the hospital." He instantly stood and aided her. But after a few steps, she suddenly groaned in agony and held her stomach tightly. "Mom!"

"Nigel..." She fell to her knees with him still holding her shoulder and arm. As he was about to pull her back up again, she screamed in so much pain, dropped back on the floor, and curled up in pain, crying, and uncontrollably coughing blood.

Seeing her suffer like that broke his heart. He didn't know what to do. He rushed to his phone placed under his pillow and tried checking if any of his friends were online to ask for help. But he realized it was too time-wasting to wait for a response. Her mother was in danger and every second that passed made it more complicated. He put his phone in his pocket and lifted and carried his mother with his left arm supporting her back and his right arm to her legs. Adrenaline kicked in. He rushed her down to their living room and headed outside, where he met his neighbors panicking.

They were in pain too, vomiting blood, and crying for help. The noise, sight, and smell of the air were terrifying. His heart was racing, seeing them all like that terrorized his mind. It was a scene he wished to be a dream...but it's not. There were no available tricycles or any vehicles around. No one gave a shit about them for the others were busy with their situation too. On any normal day, he probably passed out from exhaustion. But today, his mother weighed so light in his arms, that he couldn't even feel his body as he ran barefooted on the narrow street.

Reaching the main road after a minute, he immediately signaled the approaching taxi for a ride. Luckily, there were no passengers inside. When it stopped in front of them, the driver stepped outside and opened the door to the backseat. He helped him put his mother inside, and he sat beside her.

"Where to, sir?" the driver asked glancing through the rearview mirror after settling in the driver's seat.

"The nearest hospital, please," he said. "Please, make it fast."

As the vehicle started moving, his focus shifted to his mother who was lying on the edge of the seat and whimpering. She didn't talk. Her cries were shredding his heart. His eyes watered and his tears streamed down to his cheeks while keeping his sobs trapped in his throat. If only he could take all the pain so she wouldn't have to suffer for it. He didn't know what to do. Her nose was still bleeding and every time she coughs, she spits and vomits blood that dripped to the floor and pooled. And it wasn't just normal blood, it was very sticky and darker than it usually appears. He took off his shirt and used it to wipe the blood on her face and the hands of her shaking mother.

"Mom, please, fight. We'll be there soon."

"Uhm, sir. I don't want to pry in, but what happened with your mother?"

"I don't know, she just started coughing blood. She said our neighbors were sick like this too."

"Oh, dear God. I encountered so many ambulances earlier, the streets were busy and the people were acting strange and edgy like something was off. What is this?"

"I have no idea."

"Maybe the water is contaminated."

"Could be...but why am I not affected? We're drinking the same water." He sighed. "I don't want to think about it. Only the doctors can identify what's wrong."

Along the way, he kept shaking his right leg and rubbing his fingers together to ease his nerves, but it didn't help when his mind wouldn't stop overthinking. He kept talking to her mother, asking different and dumb questions just to know she was still conscious and to keep her awake. He kept glancing at where they were heading, hoping to see the hospital in the next few minutes. But as he glanced, he noticed some people on the roadside that were sick too, they were desperately knocking the passing cars near them and begging for a ride. Sad to say, no one opened for them. There, he realized the whole town must be suffering from this sickness. Something is spreading and it's affecting a lot of people.

Other cars and motorcycles were speeding up and overtaking as if no laws on the road. It seemed like everyone was in a race. Everything was chaotic, what was happening was like hinting at a very terrible thing that was about to happen. Hence why he kept praying for their safety, the recovery of her dearly beloved mother, and hoping no horrible thing would ever happen.

"People are going crazy, where are they going?" the driver uttered, eyeing the movement of people around. "We'll get an accident if they're going to be this reckless---"

In a snap, he felt like his soul came out of his body when the driver suddenly coughed and lost control of his car. The vehicle swerved to the left and everything happened so fast. With another speeding car approaching, ‌instinctively, he jumped to his mother and covered her with all of his strength. He heard screams. With a loud crashing sound, a strong force pushing and pulling them, he hit his head on a hard surface, and just as before everything went black, with his blurry vision, he stared at his mother's face which was covered in blood.

"Ma..."