1.

My hand is shaking. I'm bitten. The bitch...the little bitch infected me. My life flashed before my eyes. I never been so scared. I need to write down my last words before I finish this.

I wasted eleven years of my young life working those unethical Fireflies. I believed in the lie that they would find the cure for the fungus epidemic, I was so hopeful and loyal to them. I worked as a researcher, I studied and examined the deceased Infecteds we hunt down.

I studied cells after cells, every inch of the fungus sample, in hopes I would find a miracle. But soon I woke up and faced reality. This world is a fungal infested shithole and it will always be.

So finally I left with a few of my closest companions and decided to form my own revolutionary militia group, the FEG. (Fungal Experiments Generation). We set up our base in an abandoned hospital that the Fireflies once used.

Our goal was to find the cure ourselves or at the very least learn something new. For ten years, I worked myself into a dead end. I was close to throwing in the towel and accepting that there will never be a cure. Life became bleak, members of my teams abandoned hope and left. I was all alone. But then I made Faye.

Making Faye was simple, within the hospital there was a room that stored frozen embryos. The Fireflies, I believed had a similar idea to mine, but they deserted it. I then took a pre stage 4 level embryo and combined it with a piece of the Cordycep fungus. I took extra steps and did this to six embryos. I put them all in a controlled, tranquil environment inside tubes and patiently waited for forty weeks.

All but one of the embryos survived the process. The fungus either drained them or dissolved them. I thought the fungus somehow formed a symbiotic relationship with the now baby, but as I did my studies, I discovered that the child's DNA is mutated with the fungus. The child was a female I ended up naming Faye. I observed her from head to toe to see what effects her mutation would cause. Faye looked normal as she developed. She was pint sized like any other little girl. She had a cute oval face, wavy chestnut hair that touched her shoulders, dimples, light hazel eyes, and pale skin with a wave of light freckles on her cheeks and nose. She was quite adorable. I would take a blood sample from Faye, her blood was full of the Cordycep fungus, the Cordycep was mixed with her blood cells. She wasn't just infected, she is the infection. I was so proud of myself for making such a extraordinary experiment.

As Faye developed, I researched her ability to infect with the roaming rats I found around the hospital. Her infection methods were similar to the Infected; a simple bite to the flesh. I watched the rat jerked and thrashed violently as the infection took over it's body. Then after five minutes, the rat become motionless and unresponsive, a another minute passed and it just dropped dead. Animals are affected differently from the fungus, I supposed. I also learned Faye could infect animals with her nails, if she scratches the object hard enough to draw blood. I wasn't sure how she felt about her infecting others, she didn't appear to be fazed. I began to inject Faye with more of the fungus for research and waited for various reactions from her. Sometimes she showed hints of defiance when I do my injections, she would complain and pout like a small petulant child. But she would never physically retaliate or resist. The extra fungus seemed to cause her ailments, sometimes she would develop a quick fever or a pang of nausea. But she would be fine within an hour or so after the injection. Faye began to ask me to let her go outside. She seems to yearn for socialization. Her behavior in general is mellow and reserved. She tries to interact with me as if I was a friend of hers, but I would always refuse every time. Soon, I discovered Faye had a healing factor or at the very least seemed to have the ability of regeneration. There were times when she would hurt herself accidentally, but would heal within hours. I would observe her hurting herself awhile she tumbles and stumbles. Once she had a broken leg, her marrow and tissues healed within a day, her cuts would even turn into scars within minutes. I considered cutting off her arms to see if she would grow them back, but I feared she would attack me. Faye was a miracle, my perfect experiment.

I wanted to share my project to the Fireflies in hopes that they would help me. I was positive that my abandonment of the group would be forgiven if I gave them a miracle. But then it happened, I still can't understand what happened. Faye became unstable and violent, I had no idea how to control her. I decided I had to kill her when she became a threat to me, but before I could do anything, she dug her teeth into my arm. I took one look at my bite, it was deep and violently burning. I screamed like a little girl and locked myself in the nearest bathroom. Here I write my last words. I hear Faye calling for me. The infection is still processing through my system. My arm is rotting, I can smell my raw flesh. The infection is slow, but it's destroying me from the inside. I can feel it. My mind is slipping. I think I'm hallucinating, I keep hearing things I can't see and I'm starting to see things I know is not there. Death is coming I know it. I deserve this. I should have never played with life.

The infection is making it hard for me to write. My limbs feels weak and restless. I'm trembling, I have a high fever now. I messed up so bad, hopefully a cure will emerge one day.

-Dan