Absolute Contamination

14/ Walking Disaster

I should’ve told Christophe right away, and seeing as I knew I wasn’t able to do that, I still could’ve left a note before taking off on my own. No. Instead of doing the right thing, I had decided to make everything even worse. By doing that, I now risked contaminating everyone – including Emily and Christophe, two people who certainly didn’t deserve to die. Not telling him from the start about the results of my test had only made it even more impossible for me to come clean about it. It wasn’t like I could simply bring the subject up, completely out of the blue and say in a rather blunt way: ‘Christophe, just so you know, I’m contaminated…’

No matter how impossible it seemed though, in the end I would have to tell him somehow and I didn’t particularly look forward to that conversation. I could already imagine the disgust that would show on his face, hatred towards me and most likely a very prominent expression of disappointment as well. Christophe was going to hate me, and I wouldn’t be able to blame him because he would have every right to be angry at me. By lying, I had betrayed his trust and he shouldn’t overlook that.

I shook my head disapprovingly at myself, for I wasn’t even supposed to let myself as much as consider Christophe was going to overlook my contamination – he would be infuriated the moment he found out.

“Don’t look!” Christophe warned me all of a sudden, causing me to stop dead in my tracks.

Telling someone not to look was something that never worked, and neither did it this time. Scanning our surroundings to detect what I shouldn’t look at, I noticed how Christophe covered Emily’s ears with his hands. Not just that, he was practically using his body to prevent her from seeing anything at all.

Instead of doing as I was told, I followed Christophe’s gaze and witnessed two soldiers dragging an older man offside the road. The balding man was swinging his arms in the air, shouting all sorts of profanities at the soldiers and begged the people on the road to help him – but no one moved. Not a single person showed any indication of wanting to help the man, in fact, most people were backing away.

Not sure what was happening, I slowly walked closer to where Christophe and Emily stood, but never did my eyes stray from the soldiers and their captive. It was as though my eyes were glued to the scene, like I was supposed to see what would happen and no matter what I tried, I wouldn’t be able to miss a mere second of the scene in front of me.

“Look away,” Christophe told me again, only more urgently this time - but to no avail, it was too late already.

The sound of a gunshot could easily be heard over all the talking of the people who had stopped to stare or who were hurrying past. Right before my eyes, and in front of an audience of about twenty people - if no more - the lifeless body of a man hit the ground with a dull thud. His mouth and eyes were slightly opened while blood trickled down the side of his head – an image that was now burned into my mind.

“Just keep walking!” bellowed one of the soldiers while the other one dragged the body of the man away, pulling it by the feet. “He was contaminated. Now, if you could all just continue to keep moving, there’s nothing here to see.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Christophe letting go of Emily’s ears, taking a firm hold of her hand as they complied the soldier’s demand - I didn’t move. My eyes were focused on the motionless body of the man that lay only a couple of meters away from me. This was what happened to contaminated people - what eventually would happen to me. That man could’ve been me. It should’ve been me.

Having witnessed that man getting killed, I couldn’t think of the reason anymore of what I was doing there, walking amongst healthy people, risking all of their lives just because I was too much of a scaredy-cat to actually do something about it.