Touch » d.d

four

The simple snores of Daryl's presence was what woke me the next morning. I turned around on the bed and groaned before standing up, I kicked Daryl 'accidentally' as I walked back and he soon woke up.

'Blondie, I was sleepin' there.' Daryl snapped.

'Yah? I was trying to sleep last night when you were rambling on drunkenly,' I said sarcastically back. Daryl stared daggers at me before lifting himself up off of the floor and heading out of the room. I followed him slowly but the smell of eggs soon took over and I found myself running into the room where we dined last night.

'T-Dog they smell so good!' I smelled the air before sitting down in a chair around the table. I looked on as T-Dog smiled back as he fried the eggs. He dished me a plate out quickly before I glanced over at Glenn.

'What's wrong, Glenny?' I said taking his cap and putting it on my own head. Daryl stared me down as I did so and I moved my gaze away from his and looked back at Glenn.

'Remind me never to drink. Again.' Glenn groaned into the table as he laid his head there, not even looking at the freshly cooked eggs T-Dog just gave him.

I looked on as Rick and his family devoured the eggs straight away and Rick started to stare at Shane.

'Where'd you get the scratches from?' I asked Shane. He had three long scratch marks clawed along his neck and my breath hitched for a minute incase they were off a walker.

'Must have done it in my sleep.' He said, avoiding contact with all of us. He continued to eat his eggs and I raised an eyebrow before looking down at my now empty plate.

'Never seen you do that before.' Rick interrupted, looking Shane up and down before Shane made eye contact with Lori. Lori sat nervously, avoiding contact with Shane.

'No. Not like me at all.' He said, staring at Lori. Lori just gulped her food down before smiling a bit at Carl.

Jenner burst through the door and made his way over to the fridge and brought out some milk. I sighed and watched as Dale swung round in his chair to face the scientist.

'Look, Dr. I don't mean to bombard you with questions first thing-'

'But you will anyway.' Jenner interrupted Dales sentence. I smiled slowly and waited for Dale to say something.

'We didn't come here for the eggs.' I said, covering for Dale as he couldn't find the words.

'Follow me.' Jenner sighed before walking out the door and into a well lit up lab. I stood near the door and watched as everyone walked in.

'Vay, show me Test Subject 19.' He said slowly, a computerised voice spoke through the speakers and brought up the examination of a human brain. 'Advance to eternal viewing.'

The brain went into more detail, lights shone about everywhere in the brain and I stood there a little confused.

'What are all the lights?' Shane asked, looking just as confused as the rest of us.

'That's the life of an individual, the experiences they lived and the memories. The organic tangle of cables, these lights that wave, that's you. This is what makes you unique; and human.' Jenner said sadly, I looked closer at the brain and watched as the lights moved around slowly and I sighed. This patient is probably dead now.

'Speak English please?' Daryl snapped at Jenner. He looked at me and I glared at him and all he did was scoff and look away.

'They are synapses, electrical impulses in the brain that route messages. They determine each of our thoughts, our words. Each of our actions, since our birth until the day we die.' Jenner explained clearly, looking at Daryl as Daryl nodded his head.

'So we are looking at a patient kept under surveillance?' Rick asked Jenner.

'Yeah, or a former patient under surveillance as I would say.' Jenner nodded in agreement at Rick and Rick nodded back.

'Is this person dead? Who was it?' Andrea asked, she looked at Jenner sadly.

'TS-19. Someone who was bitten and infected and volunteered for the study of the evaluation of the disease. Vay, advance to the first phase.' Jenner explained sadly, the subject was obviously someone close to his heart. You could see in his eyes the darkness forming of grief and there was no hiding it.

'What's going on now?' Glenn asked before signing. On the screen was the brain whole.

'It attacks the brain like meningitis, the brain stops all activity. Then it turns off all principle of organs.' Jenner started to explain. The brain started to flash before it went dark. 'Then your dead. Everything you were, or what you might have been... Just disappears.'

'Is that what happened to Jim, Mommy?' Sophia asked, looking up at her Mom. Carol nodded her head before looking back at the screen. I looked over at Andrea and saw her visually crying. I walked over and pulled her into a hug, Jenner noticed and raised an eyebrow.

'We were attacked at our camp a couple of days ago. She lost her sister.' I explained as Andrea cried.

'I lost someone, too. I know how painful it is.' Jenner said to Andrea after she pulled away from the hug. 'Forward to the second phase.'

'Visualisation of the second phase.' A computerised voice spoke.

'The time of resurrection may vary. There are reports of the duration only three minutes long, the longest record is eight hours. In the case of this patient, it took two hours and one second.' Jenner said, showing us as the brain started to light back up again.

'The whole brain reboots?' Lori asked curiously, Jenner looked at her and shook his head.

'No only the brain stem. This allows them to get up and walk basically.' Jenner sighed.

'That's different to what we saw.' Rick said, referring to Jim and Amy.

'The frontal lobe, the neo-cortex, these parts will not awaken. It was those parts that made you who you are.' Jenner explained before suddenly a bullet went flying through the patients head.

'What happened there?' Carol exclaimed suddenly. I rolled my eyes.

'He shot his patient in the head, didn't you?' I said looking at Jenner. He nodded his head slowly. 'There must be someone else that knows what's going on, someone out there.'

Jenner just shook his head. 'When the world went down, we lost all communication. We were cut off from the rest. I survived over a month in the dark.'

'So it's not just here that this is happening, it's happening everywhere. Is that what your saying?' I snapped. Jenner nodded his head. 'What's that timer up there?' I looked up at the timer and saw it was counting down from thirty minutes.

'Full decontamination will occur.' Jenner explained.

Well shit.