There was no real way for me to tell how long had passed but at some point the big guy dropped by with a tray of food and a stack of magazines. I took them gratefully, and set the magazines on the cot before turning my full attention to the food.

It wasn’t great, not by a long shot, but right then I could have sworn I had never eaten anything better.

Chicken breast with white rice and a side of steamed broccoli. I’d eaten enough of it in my gym going days to have long since lost the taste for the stuff, but I was starving and practically inhaled it.

A bottle of water along with a small pack of digestive biscuits and an apple had also been provided and I forced myself to set those aside for later. There was no telling when my next meal would come and I was pretty sure I’d be hungry again soon.

I sipped at the water as I looked over the magazines, grimacing at the poor selection. If I’d had any interest in fishing, home décor, or celebrity gossip, then I would have been over the moon. As it was, I left those for later and pulled out the Reader’s Digest.

The next few hours I read, then ate the apple. I told myself that I’d save the biscuits as a treat for the morning.

Five minutes later, I was brushing crumbs off of my shirt as I read the final page of the magazine. Once finished, I exhaled a soft sigh and pushed myself up from the cot.

There wasn’t a great deal of room to move about, not that I was very mobile anyway. Still, my knee was sore and stiff, and I forced myself to walk back and forth from the door to the sink and back again.

I counted each step. Around five hundred, sweat beaded on my brow and each new step brought a small jolt of pain.

At seven hundred, I began to limp.

By nine hundred, I had to wipe the sweat from my brow before it slipped into my eyes, while forcing my jaw to unclench.

When I reached a thousand, I sank down to the cot with a gasp and massaged my knee until the pain began to fade. My chest was rising and falling with each heavy breath and I leant back, stretching my leg out as best I could in the small space.

A short time later, I rose from the bed and repeated the exercise, then followed that with some basic bodyweight exercises that I could do in the limited area. There was just enough room to do some press-ups, which were followed by sit ups and then squats.

By the time I had done those, my head was hurting again and my knee was positively pulsing with pain, so I stretched out on the cot and was soon asleep.

Which is how time passed for me. Exercise, sleep and reading in between. When Abbie next arrived I was lying on the cot, humming tunelessly as I read a magazine.

“You look engrossed in that,” she said, stopping beside the bed. “Anything interesting?”

I glanced up and grinned over the home décor magazine. “I can tell you that I made some apparently poor choices when decorating my flat, but other than that, not really.”

Her smile was warm but soon faded. Those dark smudges beneath her eyes had grown and her hand trembled as she reached for the thermometer. Still, she went through the motions with a professional detachment that I could appreciate, and I looked away once again when she jabbed me with the needle.

“How long have I been here?”

“Coming up to forty-eight hours.”

My stomach rumbled and I chuckled. “Explains why I’m so hungry.”

“Sorry.” She shook her head. “Everything’s a bit disordered. I’ll see if they can send through more food for you.”

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Surely you can tell me something.”

Abbie chewed her lower lip and glanced back at the door. The big guy wasn’t paying attention as he looked out along the corridor to whatever had taken his interest further down.

“Look, there’s a new bug going around. You were in contact with someone who had it, so we need to quarantine you and run tests to find out what’s going on. That’s pretty much all I can say.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“What kind of bug? Why am I quarantined for so long?”

She exhaled a soft sigh and lowered her voice as she spoke rapidly eyes flicking towards the door. “The longest we’ve seen it incubate is sixty hours. You’re green tagged, which means you’re unlikely to have it but we need to be sure.”

I lifted my arm as though to confirm the green band was still wrapped around it. “So, what happens after sixty hours?”

“We’ll keep you seventy-two, just to be sure. If you haven’t shown signs of it by then, you can go.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes.”

I wasn’t quite sure I believed her.

“Abbie.” The big guy growled and she looked around, eyes going wide. “I need to help, Jer. You good here?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

The big guy gave a curt nod before leaving, the door closing behind him. He hurried away and I was left all alone with Abbie. She smiled, a little nervously, I thought.

“Take a seat.” I inclined my head towards the cot. “You look like you need a rest.”

She hesitated but sank down beside me, sighing gratefully. Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment before she forced them open, shaking her head to keep herself awake.

“Hey,” I said, voice soft and low. Calming. “Take a power nap. I’ll watch out for you.”

“I can’t,” she said but it was half-hearted and her eyes were already closing. She was asleep before I could make another argument.

Considering that she was locked in a room with a quarantine patient, the fact that she could fall asleep at all was likely testament to how exhausted she was. I wondered how long it had been since she’d slept.

Then I realised what that meant.

I sucked in a deep breath of air and looked towards the door. I had the sudden feeling that the walls were closing in on me and that I would never get out.

Just what I needed, a bloody panic attack.

I pressed a hand against my chest, just beneath my throat and closed my eyes as I breathed deeply, counting each breath. In, then out. Feeling the movement of my chest with my hand. I focused on my breathing and shutting out the ever-present noise from the other quarantine rooms. Working to cut off the panic before it became too overwhelming.

Which is how the big guy found us. Both sitting on the cot, Abbie asleep and me in the midst of a panic attack.

“Abbie!” his voice was deep, a natural baritone, loud, it filled the small room and she jerked awake. “The hell do you think you’re doing?”

Her hand went to her mouth, eyes wide as she looked around, still half asleep. “What, oh god!”

“Get out here, now!”

She scurried away, not even looking back as she brushed past him and out into the corridor beyond. My room door slammed shut and I was, once again, alone.

As promised, food was delivered by an even more surly big guy and I ate sparingly, thoughts still churning in my mind. I found that I’d lost my appetite and as appealing as the microwave meal sausage and mashed potato might be, I found that I couldn’t quite stomach it.

While I did sleep later on, I tossed and turned, and awoke in a foul mood and even more tired than I had been before I’d settled in to sleep.

I was on a second read of the magazines when the door opened and big guy held it open while a nurse bustled in. Mousy brown hair, and large plastic rimmed glasses dominated a face that seemed suited to the sour look she bore.

“Where’s Abbie?”

I was ignored. The nurse ran through the tests in a perfunctory manner and ignored my attempts to speak with her. Once she was finished, she gathered up her equipment and scurried out as brusquely as she had come in.

“Hey,” I called as the big guy turned to follow her. “What the hell happened to, Abbie?”

He paused, and without looking back, just said, “She’s in quarantine.”

The door shut behind him with a finality that almost sent me spinning off into another panic attack.

Abbie had been quarantined because she’d fallen asleep in my room? Was that because she was alone with me, or because while asleep I could have done something to infect her?

What that was, I couldn’t say, but it seemed the most likely reasoning.

Once again, I was left wondering what the hell was going on. I had a great many questions and zero answers, with even less chance of someone giving them to me. At least anytime soon.

A shout rang out from somewhere outside and several white uniformed men ran past my door. I pressed myself up against the window to watch. The woman in the room opposite stood staring at me, eyes dull and uninterested.

It made my skin crawl.

More shouting from further along the corridor, then a cry of surprise and pain. Soon enough the men appeared, two of them carrying a half-naked, bound and hooded captive, while another two walked behind.

One of those walked with head bowed, one hand clutching the other as blood ran over his fingers. His skin was pale and he shook as his companion spoke quietly to him.

I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it didn’t have much of a soothing effect on the first man. Though, perhaps that was more to do with the way the other man stayed close, baton extended and in one hand, while the other was gripping the first man’s arm firmly.

None of them looked my way as they passed and I stared at the empty corridor for some time, my thoughts dark.

I looked up, before turning away and stopped, the woman opposite catching my attention. She stood still, in the same place she had been earlier. Her eyes were dark, hooded and dull, but a wide smile slowly stretched across her face.

Without warning, she pulled back her head and slammed it forward against the glass panel. Once, then twice, then again. Blood stained the glass as she began to scream. Throwing herself against the door that shook with her rage.

I stepped back, and raised a trembling hand to run through my short-cropped hair. Whatever the hell was going on, I was pretty sure I had just seen the reason why we were in quarantine.

I sank down to the cot and buried my head in my hands as the sound of running feet echoed along the corridor. The screams grew louder and I covered my ears, trying desperately to not hear what was happening.

To not imagine that it might soon happen to me.