She clung nervously to the straps of her purse when she saw the nurse finally get up from her station and walk into the staff's lounge.
This was her chance.
As quickly as her feet could take she scurried down the long hall stopping at the last door on the left. Next to it was a rectangular tablet where she could read in bold black lettering – room 119. That was it!
Turning the handle, she opened the door and stepped inside the dim lit room. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she was able to see through the shadows the bed near the window, a man laying on it, motionless, a myriad of tubes and lines irradiating from him and hooking him up to a stack of machines that monitored his deteriorating health.
She tried to be as sneaky as possible as she made her way to the bed. She really didn't know why, the man was in a coma after all what was she going to do? Wake him up?
Still she couldn't help but go into stealth mode when she reached for his chart at the end of the bed. Sticking her hand into her purse she quickly fished out a flashlight, flipped it on and proceeded with inspecting the contents of the medical file.
She couldn't believe she was doing this. If she got caught she could end up in jail, but her innate instinct for spotting wall of weird stories coupled with her insatiable report curiosity had brought her here to room 119 of Metropolis Hospital, snooping through a patient's file.
This was the biggest story to hit the papers in the last year. Since January there had been reports of a strange ailment that seemed to target its victims at random. They had nothing in common other than the rapidly progressive sequence of symptoms. The first complain would be of headaches but within hours they would present striking neurological symptoms, the most persistent of all being is loss of short and long term memory to the point that the patients didn't even know their own name. Other symptoms inclueded dizziness, loss of balance, seizures, numbness or paralysis. In all cases the outcome had been the same, within 24 hours the patient would fall into a coma and eventually die.
The most astonishing thing about the entire situation were the CT scans and the MRI's. In all cases they would show abrupt neuronal loss or atrophy, mainly in the temporoparietal cortex, but also in the frontal cortex – alterations consistent with advanced stages of demetia namely Alzheimer's disease.
It had the Medical Community in an uproar, especially because there was no evidence as to what was causing this. Various theories had come up in different medical journals as to what could be causing the still nameless ailment, most of them focussed on an infectious aetiology. Problem was that none of the blood work or other analysis showed any sign of infection.
So far nine cases had been reported. The first two had been in the state of New York and it seemed to be moving west until it reached Metropolis.
There was nothing particularly odd about Miles Green, the man currently lying in the hospital bed in front of her. He was a 33 year old buss driver and according to his medical record so far was the picture of health, that is until two days ago when he was found wandering through the streets of Metropolis completely unaware of his real identity. Having been brought to the hospital for testing, Mile Green had fallen into a coma just twelve hours ago. Even though the Medical staff at the hospital had tried to keep this under wraps it wasn't long before news broke out and Metropolis fell into a media frenzy over the mysterious and fatal disease. People were panicking as theories started springing up everywhere. The most popular and most explored by the avid media of course being that the unidentified disease was a result of a terrorist attack.
Chloe didn't buy into that. The victims were common people, not important military or political targets. And as for the disease being caused by a mysterious genetically engineered virus used as a biological weapon… well, none of the victims had any contact with one another; they came from different parts of the country, none of them having been in the same place within the last days of their lives. The only way for it to be a virus was if there was some sort of carrier or unaffected host that was spreading it.
Chloe froze at the unexpected thought; the bits of information popping up in her brain as she tried to piece together the hypothesis that was rapidly forming in her mind. Dropping the thick medical file she reached for her purse and shuffled through it until she found what she'd been looking for – a crumpled up piece of paper.
Spreading it out in front of her, she used the flashlight.
'Oh, my God! That's it!' She gasped, her eyes wide, in shock, as she read the names of the places where there had been reports of the strange ailment.
She frowned when in the middle of her bafflement her brain picked up on one strange fact - the blipping… the recurring and annoying blipping sound coming from the heart monitor had suddenly stopped. Her eyes grew larger when her gaze fell on the small monitor to the right of the bed. Instead of the usual confusing spikes, all she could see was a monotonous flat line.
She didn't need a medical degree to know what that meant, she'd seen enough cheesy medical shows to know – this was bad.
Suddenly a ear-splitting alarm sounded through the entire room. Within five seconds a multitude of people in blue scrubs burst through the door.
'What are you two doing here?' A man, who Chloe assumed was a doctor, shouted immediately heading for the bed.
'I was… I didn't…' Chloe stumbled over the words.
'Get them out of here!' He yelled and soon Chloe found herself being dragged out of the room by her arm.
'Who are you? What are you doing here? Where's your friend?'
The voice belonged to the nurse that had been sitting all evening at the nurse's station opposite the door to room 119.
'My friend? What?' Chloe had trouble understanding what was going on as chaos broke out all round her.
'The woman who was with you in the room.'
'Woman? I-I was there alone. There was no one else.' She tried to explain but her attention was directed back to the room when she heard one of the doctors working on the patient:
'Nurse Jones?! Nurse Jones, where are you going? Come back here! The patient needs- Nurse Jones!'
Chloe watched as a woman dressed in a white coat, probably Nurse Jones, placidly walked out into the corridor, completely ignoring the warnings being bellowed at her by the panicking doctor.
'Ali! Ali, what are you doing? It's a code blue, Ali!' The nurse who had been questioning Chloe yelled at the retreating figure that was half way down the hall.
Realising it was hopeless and that the doctor needed help, she had no choice but to leave Chloe and run into the room.
She was still a bit thrown by what was happening. It was all too fast and frenzied. That's when her report's instinct kicked up.
Realising that everyone was busy working on Mr. Green, Chloe quickly trailed after the mysterious Nurse Jones.
'Hey, hmm… Mrs. Jones!' Chloe shouted as she tried to catch up to her but she'd already sneaked into the staircase.
Racing now, Chloe burst through the heavy door.
She was going down the stairs.
'Nurse Jones!' Chloe called once more and this time the woman stopped.
She was breathless when she caught up to her. A chill ran down her spine when she met the woman's cold stare.
'What just-? Why did you-?'
'I don't have time to explain myself to something as inconsequential as you.'
Chloe's heart pounded furiously in her chest when the woman leaned in and gnashed out:
Swallowing hard and raising her chin Chloe stood her ground even though her knees were getting a little unsteady. There was something in this woman's eyes. Something... deadly, cold... something... inhuman.
'No. You're going to answer my questions-'
Her hand came out of nowhere to clasp around Chloe's neck and push her back causing her to arch over railing. Chloe's fingers instantly gripped the metallic bar to prevent her from tipping over when she lost her footing.
Through the sudden panic that ripped its way into her stomach, Chloe was still able to catch the change in the nurse's expression - anger swiftly replaced by astonishment.
Chloe's breath hitched in her clenching throat at the words that escaped her assailant's mouth:
'You know Kal-el!'