REPUBLIC OF AMERICA
(Formerly the United States of America)
September 2077

"Now, while it's unknown who the first victim of the Corruption was," the low tremor of Professor Whitman's voice bounced off the gray walls of the lecture hall. "We do know that it began in what was then known as Germany." The elderly man straightened from the whiteboard, placing the cap back on the marker in his hand and spinning to face his class. "We now refer to that area as The Desecrated Land."

He pushed his spectacles up further on the bridge of his nose, clasping his hands together behind his back. Professor Whitman began to the pace the small area at the front of the classroom.

Sam stifled a yawn and leaned her cheek on her palm, perching her elbow on top of the desk she was sat in. Her gaze shifted to the window beside her, squinting at the sudden light hitting her blue-grey eyes. Outside, she focused on two birds squabbling over the remnants of a banana peel, rather than Dr. Whitman's lesson on the beginnings of the Corruption.

"This is so boring," a soft voice mumbled to her right, sounding exasperated. Sam cast a glance to her side to find her roommate also disregarding their professor, choosing instead to sketch on the corners of her notebook. There was a distinct lack of class notes on the page. "Why did you make me take this class again?"

"It was an easy elective," Sam shrugged. Reaching over, she grabbed the pencil from her friend's hand and traced a small skull beside a rough sketch of a Corrupted. "You said you needed a history elective too, Maia."

Maia gave a withering look and said, "But we learned this stuff in intermediate school."

"Makes it even easier, if you ask me." Sam smiled, leaning back in her chair. Maia shook her head and extended her hand, palms-up, for her pencil back. Sam dropped it neatly onto her friend's palm.

Maia hunched over her desk, continuing to add to the doodles already littering her notebook. Sam took note of how her pale blonde hair seemed to be almost translucent in the sunlight. Her curls were more chaotic than usual today, falling over one shoulder and ending mid-way to her waist. Whereas Sam had dark blue eyes with specks of grey, like the color of a stormy sea, Maia's eyes were the clear waters of the ocean.

There was no doubt Maia was beautiful. In comparison to Sam's dark brown—nearly black— hair and tall stature, Maia was all light, petite and slender, like a swan. She even smelled like roses and nature. Sam frowned and pinched a tendril of her own hair, giving it a cautious sniff.

"What are you doing?" a new voice emerged, startling Sam. To her left, a strong pair of hands grabbed onto her khaki brown knapsack, which was sat on the chair of the empty desk beside her. He dropped it carelessly onto the floor, before sliding into the empty seat.

Sam ignored his question and said, "Nice of you to show up twenty minutes into lecture, Pete."

Peter grinned his signature dazzling smile, all teeth, before reaching into his own backpack and retrieving his notebook and pens. "I overslept."

"You always do," Maia quipped from beside Sam, her eyes never wavering from her drawings.

"What did I miss?" Peter asked breathlessly. He was always breathless, as if he were running a mile, always moving from place to place. His golden brown hair was sticking up in all directions, making Sam cluck. She grabbed at his head, disregarding his cries of protest, and smoothed out the frays.

"We just got to the start of the Corruption," Sam replied, dropping her hands from him and trying to ignore the thumping of her heart.

"Ah, the good stuff," Peter said. He opened his notebook to a clean sheet. Sam turned her attention back to Professor Whitman.

It was obvious that their professor was deeply passionate about the subject; Whitman was known for his numerous theses on the cause of the Corruption. It made Sam a little sad that those who took his class mainly took it for the easy grade, rather than a genuine interest in the topic.

It wasn't as if the Corruption wasn't important— in fact, it was the very core of their lives, whether they wanted it to be or not. The effects of the Corruption were immense— socially, economically, politically, and religiously. Though of course, everything paled in comparison to its physical effects on humankind. It was common knowledge that the Corrupted were once human beings, before the disease coursed through their bloodstream, turning them into monsters.

Everyone knew that there wasn't a cure.

But Sam wanted to change that.

---

"Alright, I'm going back to the room to take a nap," Maia announced, hoisting her backpack over her shoulders. The three were now outside the building, surrounded by the collective noise of students hustling to their next classes. The main road that connected the small college town to the rest of the Sector was just as loud as cars whizzed down the freeway. "You two still have classes today, right?" With a nod from Sam and Peter, she gave a slight wave and began to head towards her shared dormitory space with Sam.

"Shall we?" Peter extended his arm.

"We shall," Sam smiled, looping her arm through his. The two began to walk, their footsteps thumping against the pavement and crunching through stray leaves. Sam tucked loose strands of hair behind her ear. "So..."

"So?"

"Why were you really late?"

Peter smiled sheepishly, bumping her lightly with his shoulder. "I can't hide anything from you, can I?"

"Of course not," Sam huffed indignantly. "I can read you like an open book."

"Okay, hot shot. Take a guess."

Sam mulled this over and retracted her arm from his, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her oversized hoodie. "You were with Sophie."

Though she knew the answer as soon as the words were out of her mouth, Sam couldn't help the small feeling of dejection when Peter's grin returned to his face. There was the answer.

"Guilty as charged. How could you tell?"

"Your hair," Sam shrugged one shoulder half-heartedly. "Every time you two.. canoodle... you never bother to fix the bird's nest you call your head."

"Okay, firstly— we do not 'canoodle,'" Peter argued, wrapping a muscled arm around Sam's shoulders. She frowned and tried to shrug him off, but her best friend was built like a mammoth and it was impossible to shake his weight off once he latched on. "And second, my hair is not that bad."

Sam gave him a look. Deciding to change the subject, she asked, "You have organic chemistry next, right?"

"Yep," Peter said, popping the 'p' sound. "And you have anatomy and physiology."

Sam glanced at him, startled. "You remembered?"

"Duh," he said, wondering why she seemed so surprised. Their footsteps faltered as they reached a foreboding building, marked by a statue of Abraham Lincoln at the entrance. "Anyways, this is my stop. I'll catch you later, Sam." He finally released her from his grip, and with one final ruffle of her hair, Peter was lost among the throng of students filing into Lincoln Hall.

Sam watched until he disappeared before letting out a small breath. She adjusted the weight of her knapsack on her shoulder before continuing on to her final class of the day.

---

Once in the all-too familiar building of Rosenthal, Sam felt her body go into autopilot. She climbed two flights of stairs and made a left, before entering through the third door. Once inside, she took a seat in the front row and readied herself for class.

The sound of the door being opened alerted her and her classmates of their professor entering, the familiar sound of his combat boot and prosthetic leg hitting the floor never allowing him the element of surprise.

Professor James hobbled into the center of the room, his arms filled with books and papers. He dropped them haphazardly on the desk and leaned against it heavily, taking in the stares of the students in the class. His eyes caught Sam's.

"Today we're going to cover the basics of CNS pharmacology," Professor James drawled, shifting his gaze to the back of the room. He turned to the whiteboard behind him, beginning to draw the familiar shape of a neurotransmitter. He neatly labeled each part before capping the marker and turning back to face the class. "CNS, meaning the central nervous system."

Sam diligently copied the diagram into her notebook; while she could care less about the history of how the Corruption began, she was more intent on learning how the virus spread through the human body instead.

As a dual pharmacology and neuroscience major, Sam was enthused by the brain and how easily it can be affected by external and internal factors. If she was going to find a cure for the Corrupted, if she could somehow reverse the effects of the Corruption on a human individual, then maybe, just maybe— her pain would be worth it.

"What we know about the Corruption's effects on the body is little," Professor James said. "We know that it begins in the brain, where the virus attaches itself to the synapses in neurotransmitters. We know that the virus then spreads, but how?"

Though the question was rhetorical, a hand flew up. It was a short, Indian student sitting in the back of the room. A freshman? He looked far too young to be in this class, which served primarily upperclassmen.

"Yes, Mr. Singh," Professor James gestured to him.

"Does it travel through the cholinergic pathways?" The student asked, genuine curiosity in his eyes. Sam thought about it. The cholinergic pathways mostly regulated excessive inflammatory responses in order to protect organs during infections. It wouldn't—

"It wouldn't be able to," Professor James nodded, finishing Sam's thought for her. "The pathways are for inflammation in the parasympathetic nervous system. There would be no correlation to the brain. But that's a good guess."

Sam scrawled quickly, words like parasympathetic and cholinergic and neurotransmitter appearing onto her paper. She underlined them heavily, two deep scratches underneath the words, darkening the sheet and emphasizing the importance of each word.

Professor James turned back to the whiteboard. "The virus attacks the brain, effectively killing it. The brain of a Corrupted is essentially in a vegetative state, serving no greater purpose than the stuffed animal sitting on the corner of your bed. But," his eyes scanned the classroom as he spoke, "if the brain is dead, then shouldn't the rest of the body be?"

Sam thought back to her previous classes. The Corrupted were an enigma; brain-dead creatures with no heartbeat, but when killed they spill blood. They were brain-dead but able to logically think. They were terrifying. Sam felt chills up her arms just thinking about them.

"In this class," Professor James' eyes darkened. "We will discuss the physiology of these creatures, and explore hypotheses on how they are able to exist. You might be surprised," Sam stared at her professor intently as he continued in a low voice. "you might discover something new yourselves."

——— ——— ———

Author's Note: Hello! Here's another update! We're now in present time for our characters (though very far in the future for us, haha). I'm super excited for this story and I hope you guys like it too!

- Isabelle