Chapter 1

Death and Birth

Author's Note: I'm writing this for no better reason than there is not enough love for this character. Also, because I'm avoiding homework. Tell me what you think.

Rating is for language, violence, and disturbing elements later on in the story.

Disclaimer: Want it. Don't have it. Can't get it. ::unhappyface::

/ooOOOoo\

A dimmed hospital light illuminated a small room and an even smaller figure swathed in tubes, blankets, and assorted medical equipment. The child was barely visible, and her emaciated form seemed even tinier connected to the array of machines keeping her alive. Once vibrant – now dulled and matted – red hair was swept from her forehead and glazed gray eyes attempted to focus on her mother sitting beside the hospital bed.

"How are you feeling honey?" her mother, barely middle-aged but looking far older, questioned tentatively.

For a moment the girl looked as if she might answer, she even opened her mouth and a small sound emerged, but when her only parent leaned forward in anticipation, the girl's mouth closed once more and she fell again into slumber. The mother sighed in disappointment and not a little despair.

A doctor walked in and shut the door behind him as quietly as possible. Fingering a clipboard awkwardly in his hands for a moment, he cleared his throat. The mother turned in brief surprise.

"Oh! Hello, Doctor Stephens." She deliberately didn't ask anything about the condition her daughter was in. She knew; all there was left to do now was delay the inevitable.

"Miss Adams… the test results came in," he paused to gather his composure "I'm afraid that the procedure - the bone marrow transplant – has not improved your daughter's condition." As the mother's head lowered and she slumped, tears gathering in her eyes, the doctor reluctantly continued. "Her illness is advancing into the final stages before…" he stopped and walked forward to rest his hand on her shoulder, offering what meager comfort he could to a mother facing the loss of a child.

He allowed her to adjust to this new information before he resumed once again, surprising her tears to a momentary halt. "However, there is one last thing we might try…" He directed a stern glance toward her sudden ludicrously hopeful expression, aiming to quell any false notions she might be dreaming up. He removed his hand, turned and walked a few steps away from her, back turned. "With all the time you've spent here, Miss Adams, I'm sure you know of the medical research wing we have in this very hospital?" Stephens didn't wait for an answer. "It's still within the testing phase, but we've been busy developing a possible cure for severe leukemia patients, like your daughter. With your permission, I think I could pull some strings-"

"Yes!" the mother interrupted vehemently. "If there is anything that might save my daughter, anything at all," Miss Adams rose from her seat. "I'll agree to it. She's… all that's left…"

"Before you make any final decisions, I must warn you that this treatment is volatile at best and has never been administered to a human before." He looked at her for a last confirmation.

She gave it in an instant. "I don't care anymore."

/ooo\

"The catalyst has been implemented? Good."

An irate-looking female doctor was standing next to Stephens, who was overlooking the procedure. "This could compromise everything we've accomplished so far. You know that." She expressed her exasperation with a few flicking gestures. "At last, after countless attempts we finally have a living specimen, and it's as if you want to see if we can't kill it with your hero complex…"

Stephens didn't turn his eyes from the furiously working medical scientists, and there was a long silence. So long that the other doctor had assumed she was being ignored before he answered. "… Three floors below us, down the hall and on the left, is room 378. Inside rests a nine-year-old girl named Linda, who has lived here for most of her life, never playing, barely breathing, rarely seeing the sun." He looked at the other doctor with weary eyes. "Do you want to be the one to open that door, and tell the girl's mother her baby is going to die?"

The woman lowered her eyes in shame, and quietly left the lab.

/ooo\

Lucid sleep.

It is a pleasant and surreal sensation that, if removed suddenly, can result in intense disorientation and anxiety, among other unwelcome effects. In a nutshell, that is much how thermal reaction akroxeraviridae VIII054, ThR:AX., felt as the newborn virus was prematurely forced into completion.

It started with a tingling, as the virus' body compressed and his membrane slowly started to harden into a capsid. The tingling developed into an increasingly uncomfortable burning sensation. With a start, ThR:AX jolted to an unexpected consciousness. Newly formed eyes darted to and fro, confused and in pain as his membranous shell completely solidified him into a more identifiable form; a stifling change from the floating oblivion.

The microscopically tiny newborn curled upon itself in burning pain and fear as its limbs stretched and developed at an accelerated rate. The growth eventually stopped, but the burning continued unabated.

"It's done."

The world seemed to tilt on its axis when ThR:AX was caught in an intense suction as he was drawn into a syringe from his previous home, the petri dish. Disoriented even more, he curled tighter and stayed that way when the lights went out. The darkness might have been comforting for the few moments it lasted, if it wasn't for the festering heat growing within the young virus. The burning, endless burning strove to drive away any notion of comfort ever again.

The light returned as suddenly as it had left, glaring easily through his closed eyelids, and ThR:AX felt the world lurching again.

/ooo\

"That's it? Just a shot?"

"That's it, Miss Adams."

This is one of the few times when little Linda seemed aware, and she looked at the syringe with a placidity that no child should have. The girl uncovered her arm, where numerous scars already marred the skin, and simply looked out the window.

Unleashing a sigh filled with sadness, Doctor Stephens knelt down next to Linda Adams. Her mother watched anxiously over his shoulder as he disinfected the injection site on the young girl's left arm, then carefully pierced the skin with the point of the small needle.

With a push of the plunger, the experimental virus akroxeraviridae was injected into Linda's failing body.