Sam hadn't realized how focused she had been in her reverie until Professor James came to a stop and she nearly ran into the back of his tweed coat. Glancing around at her surroundings, she took note of the familiar entrance to their research team's laboratory.

"Go ahead and get changed, Sam. I have to grab some things from my office, but gather the others quickly— I have some good news to share." James said, and with a nod of acknowledgement from her, he turned the corner and went into his office.

Running a hand through her hair, Sam started in the opposite direction, towards the changing facilities where her locker was waiting for her. The room was quiet when she entered, the smell of chemicals from the laboratory next door wafting in through the air vents. It smelled comforting in a way, as Sam felt most at ease in the laboratory when she had a vial in one hand and a syringe in the other. Her hands deftly slid numbers into the silver lock on her locker, and soon the device came loose in her hand.

The red locker made a loud creak as it opened, revealing two piles of folded, light blue scrubs on the top shelf, an off-white lab coat dangling from a hanger, and small black boots on the bottom. Quickly stripping and throwing on her lab uniform, Sam was soon in her attire. She checked her appearance in a small compact mirror she had hung on her locker door, taking note of the brightness of her eyes and stray wisps of hair caught at the edges of her lips. On the chest of her lab coat, a small nameplate was pinned crookedly with the words Samantha Allegrano and "Undergraduate Research Assistant" engraved on it. She frowned and quickly straightened the pin.

With one last look at the mirror, she tied her hair up in a messy bun and shut the locker door, before making way to the laboratory. Her sanctuary.

"Someone's late," a familiar voice called out in a sing-song voice. Sam cracked a grin and raised her hands in mock defeat. At the entrance to the lab, she quickly sanitized her hands before reaching towards the row of latex gloves, face masks, and safety goggles on the wall beside her.

"Missed me that much, Professor Moore?" Sam replied in a similar tone, strapping a mask to her face after applying a pair of gloves. Her voice, now muffled through the mask, added, "You can blame James for that. That asshole kept our class after for nearly a half hour."

Christina Moore, a petite older woman with a mop of dirty blonde girl tied up precariously in a bun, leaned against one of the many granite tables in the room. She was the Assistant Professor of the Study. Dressed in the same attire as Sam, her pregnant belly bulged against the fabric of her scrubs. Her eyes, a mesmerizing emerald green, watched Sam with a twinkling expression. "Hush," she chided, rubbing a thoughtful hand on her belly. "Don't curse in front of the baby."

"The baby can't hear yet, darling." Miles skirted around the pregnant woman, the saunter of his hips filled with grace and sass. His dark caramel skin was tinted a light blue in the fluorescent lighting, but his dark brown eyes that always shone bright hardly needed the lighting's assistance. He was a rather tall and lean man, who had been working as a graduate student under Professor James and Professor Moore for two years.

As Miles passed Sam, he slapped her ass lightly as he disappeared into the specimens room. Sam grinned and shook her head, searching for the other graduate student that made up their team. She finally spotted Suzuki by the equipment section, her dark black hair pulled into a high ponytail, accenting the perfect circle of her face. Her glasses bulged behind her goggles and she was biting the end of the pencil as she took stock of the team's materials.

Sam drifted to her usual work area, one of the dozen granite tables towards the center of the room. Her lab documents were stacked precariously on one side of the table, while the rest was littered with pens, empty syringes, and post-it notes holding the careful scrawl of her research entries.

The laboratory space itself was a large rectangular area split into two divisions. In the main room, equipment covered the walls of the space while different vials, petri dishes, and microscopes adorned several of the granite tables. The area was mainly used for their primary study— to examine different specimens under several variations of the Corrupted strain. The second room, smaller and kept warmer than the main room, was separated by a room-length fiberglass window. That area was used to house and examine their main test specimens: small white, purebred mice. Each mouse was kept in separate cages side by side, only told apart from one another by the number labeled on the surface of their cage.

Although she had only been working as a student researcher for about five months, she had found a small family within her research department. While her team could never reach that level of emotional intimacy she had with her friend group, the others shared her passion for the unknown and understood the desperate need for a cure to the Corruption.

"Oh," Sam clapped her hands together, her gloves muting the impact. "Professor James said he had some good news to share. Anyone have any idea what it could be?"

"Maybe he's got a hot date?" Miles inquired, reappearing from the specimen room. In his hands, a small mouse wriggled in his grasp. Sam turned away; although she had mostly been desensitized to testing on the mice, she had always been an advocate in the fight against animal abuse and testing. Though her perspective changed slightly after The Incident, she still found it hard sometimes to watch a poor animal suffer under the effects of the Corrupted.

"At his age? Are you calling him a sugar daddy?" Professor Moore exclaimed. Her hands reached out and grabbed the mouse from Miles. "What number is it?"

"Forty-three," Miles replied before throwing himself against one of the rolling chairs beside Sam. The impact sent him reeling a few inches backwards and he gleefully swirled around as he added, "And I never said anything about James being a sugar daddy."

Suzuki joined the conversation, leaning against the table that Professor Moore had placed Subject 43 onto. The mouse squeaked, its cries shrill against the low rumbles of the laboratory engines running in the room. "Realistically speaking, what he has to say might have to do with the fact that we're finally researching the fifth strain."

"Suzuki, you're always so observant," Miles yawned.

"Thanks," Suzuki said, ignoring his obvious sarcasm.

"I can't believe we're finally getting to test the Sentio strain," Sam shoved her hands into the pockets of her scrubs. "It's a little nerve-wracking."

"You hear that, little guy?" asked Professor Moore, stroking the fur of the mouse gently. "You're going to be the inaugural vessel." Sam made a face at the comment but didn't say anything.

When Sam had first joined the team, the others had already experimented and documented the effects of two of the five known Corrupted strains: the Nidore and the Manduco. While Sam had learned about what the Corrupted were in intermediate and high school, it wasn't until she got to college where she learned that there were different strains of the Corruption, and how that resulted in there being different types of Corrupted. Professor James had explained that the five strains seem to target one of the five primary senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.

While all Corrupted shared the same physical characteristics— dark gray skin mottled with rotting flesh, rancid breath, and low growls that sounded like a mix between a large dog and a bear— there were stark differences between the different types depending on which strain they had been infected with.

The Tactio, a Corrupted based on touch, were the least worrisome of the Corrupted. So long as one could avoid being grabbed by one, they could avoid this predator entirely. They reminded Sam of a venus fly-trap, ever waiting for an unsuspecting victim to fall into its jaws. The mark of scaled hands set them apart from the others.

Then, there was the Manduco. These Corrupted, like the Tactio, were essentially harmless. They were based on taste, and weren't as prone to attacking humans unless they've gotten a taste of their flesh. The least deadly of the zombie strain, they ate mostly carcasses of the dead. Their tongues were as long as their body span, and could roll up to a few feet away.

Based on smell, there was the Nidore. They were identifiable by a lack of teeth, and lack of eyes— only dents remained in place of where their eye sockets should have been. They were only truly dangerous if they've picked up the scent of their prey, which they can then track from miles away. If angered, they will follow the scent until their prey has been killed.

The last two were the most vicious and the most terrifying to Sam. The Vultus, based on sight, could spot prey from up to five hundred yards away. They were adept at hunting during the day, but not at night. Though they could see in the dark, they were color-blind and could only depict the living by their movements. In order to avoid them, one must stay completely still. To aid in their sight, Vultus grow an extra two eyes on their foreheads, along with sharpened canine teeth.

Finally, there was the Sentio, based on hearing. Their teeth were razor sharp, and all Sentios had three full rows of them. Sam felt the blood rush to her head as unwanted memories threatened to surface from the depths of her mind. She shook her head to clear it. Sentios had the most perceptive sense of hearing and navigated through their surroundings by using chirps as a sort of echolocation in order to "visualize" where they were. So long as a person was quiet, they could not be "seen." But so long as a person had a heartbeat, they could still be heard.

And it was this particular strain that the team would be injecting into Subject 43.

The laboratory doors opened and four heads whipped up to watch Professor James walk into the room, now holding a wooden cane in his hand to steady his pace. The four of them immediately stood and straightened as a sign of respect.

"Ah, good," Professor James hummed, the deep baritone of his voice echoing throughout the room. "Everyone's present."

"So what's the good news, Prof?" Miles asked, sitting back down as James motioned for everyone to relax.

"Our proposal on our theory of genealogy was approved," James grinned, showing a full set of yellowing teeth. "The board has provided us with another grant so that we can purchase some blood samples from families who have had a member be infected by the original Plague strain."

There were whoops and hollers as the team rejoiced. Sam felt ecstatic. For the past two months, the team had hypothesized that a possible antidote could be made by tampering with the original Plague strain that began in 2020. There were a few candidates in their Sector with grandparents that had survived the Plague; if the team could just take a few samples of their blood to begin researching, they might just be on the right path to a cure.

"That's amazing, Matthew!" Professor Moore hurled herself towards her colleague for a hug. Suzuki darted forward to grab the mouse before it could escape off the table. The sound of clattering made Professor James jump.

"That's right! I can't believe almost forgot!" Professor James exclaimed as Professor Moore released him from her grip. He clapped his hands together. "Today, we're testing the Sentio. Suzuki, if you will."

With a nod, the other girl held the mouse in one hand as she reached for a syringe holding an isolated sample of the Sentio strain. The mouse squirmed in her grip and Suzuki spoke in hushed tones in an attempt to soothe it.

Sam felt her stomach lurch and she immediately looked away just as Suzuki brought the tip of the needle to the mouse's abdomen. In her head, Sam counted to ten before opening one eye to glance at the mouse.

There didn't seem to be an immediate difference. The white mouse continued its barrage of squeaks as Suzuki set it down gently on the table before leaving to dispose of the used needle. When she arrived, the five of them examined the rodent closely.

It stood on its hind paws, sniffing the air around it. Then, it began to yawn, and Sam widened her eyes as its mouth opened to reveal three small sets of razor sharp teeth.

——

Author's Note: I'm so sorry, I try really hard not to make chapters incredibly long but I'm having so much fun with this story and the world-building around it. There's still so much exposition to go before all shit hits the fan, so please bare with me lol

I personally like long chapters, but if you don't, I apologize in advance because it seems like that's the direction this story is heading. What do you all think of the five strains? What are your thoughts on Sam? I'm curious to see how you're all enjoying this story so far!

This chapter is dedicated to my new friend, pinkiriss. Please check out her story, Feminine Secrets! It's absolutely fantastic and main protagonist is a badass female. 

As always, comment, vote, and promote. xo

-Isabelle