The house was silent again.
Outside, the wind rattled the boards he'd nailed over the windows two days ago. It came and went like breath. Edward sat motionless in the dining chair, cradling a lukewarm cup of coffee, watching the steam roll up and disappear.
The hallucination hadn't come back.
Not quite.
But the corners of the room appeared too angular, as though everything was leaning in — as though reality had been tipped slightly askew and no one else had noticed. His shoulder ached beneath the gauze. He hadn't examined it since the last bandage change. He didn't need to.
His phone buzzed.
He startled.
It glowed in the silence. Kyle.
Edward stared at the name for several seconds. Then he pressed "Accept."
"Yeah?"
"Hello. You sound tired."
Edward made no reply. Kyle continued after a pause.
"I just left the Baker Ridge unit. Sam's stable — better than stable, actually. She's awake, talking. They've got her isolated but communicative. She's asking for you."
Edward sat upright, something turning in his gut. "She's… asking for me?"
Yeah. She's been in and out, but your name is the one that keeps coming up. She wants to talk to you. Said you were the last person she remembers clearly before things went black."
He tightened his grip on the phone.
"And she's okay?
She's improving. I mean, not immune — but she's in that one percent. Suppressed carriers. The virus is present, but it's not progressing the same way. And she's no longer symptomatic. No aggression, no disassociation. We're trying to understand why."
Kyle's voice was different, gentler. "We want to know if she stabilizes long-term. But in the meantime… she asked for you by name.
Edward looked out the window. The light had shifted. Yellow-grey again. The sky had the distant wildfire look — but no smoke. Just a sickly, bruised color that didn't belong to the season.
"She didn't say anything about that night at all?" he asked carefully.
"No. Confusion. Disorientation. But nothing… specific." Kyle paused. "Why?"
"No reason," said Edward.
Kyle didn't press.
I ran your test results from the kit I left with you," he said instead. "Blood came back negative. So did the antigen swab. You're clear."
Edward's mouth went dry.
That test had been from the morning before the bite.
Before Sam's eyes had turned white. Before her teeth had broken through his skin.
He exhaled slowly, evenly. "You sure about that?
Kyle chuckled. "We test worse cases every hour. You're about the least concerning profile we've seen. No fever. No neurological drift. No violence. No cognitive decline."
Edward stared into the darkened kitchen. The cabinets had shifted. He was almost sure of it.
You're approved for short-contact visitation if you'd like to visit," Kyle continued. "No pressure. But Sam's awake. And she's… softer now. Sad. Like she remembers just enough to regret it."
Edward was silent for a very long time. Finally:
"Where?"
"I'll send you coordinates. No public access — one of the tough checkpoints, outside the Baker Ridge valley. I can get you through. You've got four hours before the window closes.
Edward stared at the phone after the line went dead.
Cleared.
The word echoed, hollow.
He stood and moved into the bathroom, pulling off the gauze with shaking hands. The wound hadn't closed. Bruising had darkened and spread in pale, unnatural conduits beneath the skin. It throbbed now, as though something living curled beneath it, waiting.
"Clear," he whispered.
He re-wrapped it, slowly, then turned on the sink and splashed his face. The mirror caught his eyes. They were bloodshot. Pale. Not glowing — yet.
He looked away.
In the hallway, his phone buzzed again. A message. Kyle's coordinates, plus: "Let me know if anything changes."
Edward stared at the screen for a long moment before replying:
"I'll come."
The house groaned faintly as he grabbed his jacket.
The sky outside had deepened to a sickly orange. No wind. No birds. The whole neighborhood was still, a diorama left beneath a glass dome that was streaked with dust.
He walked to the car and, moving, looked up to one of the upper windows in the house.
Movement, maybe.
His reflection, maybe.
Smiling.