Could they feel it?

After much pondering, and a lot of sweet-talking, Anderson finally went home. Poor man should brew some tea to calm his nerves. Medication can be a bad idea… I know better.

I entered the hospital; it was full of people going to and fro… Doctors were scuttling with their clipboards, nurses nervously pulling gurneys while being followed by a large crowd of people and a lot of families, all worried and praying…

Almost everyone was incredibly nervous. I cannot help but think there was something the anchor-man wasn’t telling us… I know; fifty is no small number… But why everyone acts like its bubonic plague? People were acting incredibly distressed, like if something big happened. 

“Ye shoud hae seen it… It was quite a rammie!” A man said with a thick Scottish accent. “Tell me loun… Hae ye ever seen a hospital attack fowk?”

I was confused by the man’s unusual greeting, and even more by his question, but then I started noticing… things…  The walls were cracked, some of the lights weren’t working… there was a defibrillator lying broken in the floor, and many destroyed cellphones as well…

“Why everything looks so badly damaged?”

“Weel, laddie… As ah said, the hospital gaed mad. It attacked wi’ fury onybody that cam naur. The machines… they gaed mad. . “

The machines went mad… That’s impossible. A machine can’t attack someone… Can it? But… why would someone break a defibrillator? Why would someone throw a phone and damage it like that?

The ambient was very puzzling until something happened. A badly broken cellphone started ringing, making a woman scream in fright. Everyone steered clear from the phone, and an invisible perimeter was set around it. The phone kept ringing, but no one dared to touch it.

Eventually, I got tired from the nonsense. I got up to a nurse about to board a lift, she looked very worried but I think it was because of other reasons...

“Excuse me, can you tell me where a patient is being held?”

“Is he related to the St. Louis high school outbreak?” She said with a nervous tone.

“St. Louis? What happened there?”

“Bad case…. Every third grade student suddenly became infected with something horrible. We still can’t identify it… But it came from the water supply”

“Is it too bad?”

“We will get there soon. It will be spectacular.”

The completely deadpan tone of the nurse made me think that she was in denial that something like that could happen. I followed her, to see if what she told me was true...