Paige returns to her base camp, wishing she had a minute to dwell in that colony and take a damn shower or steal a loaf of bread. Most of all, to spend time with James, to stay there with him till she's rectified all she's done in the past. Seeing him alive again, it gave her new hope. It tortured her, that she couldn't stay and it showed in the drag of her steps back here through the woods and to camp.

She'd be with him again when Russell Wolfe was dead and gone.

Warning James had been forbidden from Isaac and his plans, but Paige couldn't, no matter how much she supported his cause, let her ex-husband die in the crossfire.

After all, she still loved him, still thought of him every day, and wished she had been a better partner—a partner he deserved.

Isaac, their anxious leader, waits. All of them do, looking to her, looking for news on Dalton and Nick, on their chances of infiltrating the colony and killing that bastard, Russell, and that traitor, Ana Maria.

To Emma and her swollen belly, she glances. Paige's primary concern, that stayed at the forefront of her thoughts. Over James, even, which said a lot. Emma's baby would see new life, a better life. In a couple of months, Emma would give birth and a troubled one, at that, with her petite size and the size of the child inside of her. She'd deliver early.

"Well?" Isaac asks when Paige's agape mouth produces no sound in greeting him.

He knows where she was. He always knows.

"There are a few problems. The girl, Hannah, shot Ana Maria. I barely got out with all the guards on high alert," she replies and there is chatter amongst the group, one that Isaac shushes with the wave of his hand.

"She betrayed us. Ana Maria deserves what she gets. We no longer protect her. She's the enemy as for Hannah, I didn't really like her either," Isaac replies, but a young woman clutches the crucifix around her neck in response.

Normally, CiCi kept quiet, so her voice is foreign over the others that know the spotlight so well.

CiCi argues, "Ana Maria is doing what she has to do to survive. If she was really our enemy she would have told Russell our plans, would have hunted us down. Instead, she leaves us alone and hasn't ratted us out. Do they know we're here?" CiCi directs her last question to Paige as if needing clarification.

Paige shakes her head, still trying to catch her breath from all her running to get here.

Paige replies, "In the little time I spent in there, I can tell she didn't say anything, not even with Nick and Dalton there. It's been months and Russell is still focused on everything going on inside the colony with no plans to attack us or even fear us. No one knows we're here..."

Paige trails off, finding Emma's gaunt stare planted to the ground she's sitting on. Taking rest next to her, Paige's hand finds the poor girl's bony knee to squeeze in reassurance. She bites her tongue, winces, and tells herself she should've grabbed some bread for the poor girl.

"Then we do as we planned," Isaac says, his unkempt beard at all angles across his broad chin, "Sneak into the mansion. Kill Russell."

Paige finishes with fine notes of sarcasm, "Kill whoever supports him. Got it. Can we do this already?!"

They all knew the drill. It had been Isaac's obsession since his exile. Not everyone here knew the inside walls of the colony, but like Isaac, Paige's familiarity wasn't sweet. She'd escaped hearing District 4 was making their visit. In the middle of the night, she snuck out with a few other women that still remained with them out here in the woods.

Some of them even escaped from District 4, finding the colony here at Richmond Hill, then left when learning of Russell's connections to the district and the infamous general with his band of "masters"—soldiers that were rumored to be cruel. In District 4, it's said by those amongst them, that Masters and General Connor rule the world as if it's their own for the taking.

When an unknown voice dominates the conversation, interrupting them entirely, all heads turn to the presence making its way to their center circle. With how he dressed, he can't be from Richmond Hill or much of anywhere. Yet, he sent a threat with his mere presence alone as a stranger and the shadow he cast from his hulking stature. One, that even heightened and widened that of Isaac.

"I do find it's best that when you wish to take a group, take their supplies, take what you want, the element of surprise does work best..." The stranger speaks as if he's humming some creepy lullaby.

Another crucifix, far larger and primitive than that of CiCi's sways from his neck. Paige rises in one leap and moves to stand in front of Emma as the dark cloud descends over the group.

"Though, if it's God's will, anything is possible..." The broad man with his band of thieves sways their weapons in hand, waiting for this man's command to follow through on all the threats piercing in their gazes.

The phone rings in the daze of her fog. A body under the covers starts to turn over in a complaining groan. In a lazy reach, the ringing ceases when she swipes to answer her mobile phone.

"P-Paige?" A female voice shakes.

"Yeah, what is it, Jazmine?" Paige wipes at her curls planted there from tossing and turning in sweat.

"We need you here. It's bad. Really bad. I'm so sorry, I know you've been working doubles all week..."

Paige sits up then replies, "No, no! It's okay, really. I'll be right there."

Her hair is in a messy, crooked bun when she makes it back to the hospital. The circles under her eyes dark, there was no time to put on makeup or muster up a shred of energy to care about her appearance. This virus left everyone a little less vain, in the up and ups it's taken in the last eighteen months. They just couldn't get ahold of it and now, it was back again, mutated, worse than any influx of the flu or the Carrion virus over her entire career.

Before she enters the building, Paige senses the tension in the air outside of the packed building. The parking lot is at capacity, the ambulances are all dispatched. They wail on all sides of the town and one wails as it makes its way in. It narrowly misses her and almost tips over from the sharp corner it cut. She shakes her head, grits her teeth, and grumbles about the stupidity fo the EMTs.

The halls are filled. More so, than they were six hours ago when Paige ended her last shift.

Each patient is coughing, sneezing, wheezing, and vomiting. The mask on her face burns against the marks that still haven't healed from the straps she last removed hours ago. The medical staff, as always, run through the chaos to try and do their jobs, facing the complaints, the pleading, the things that are out of their control. This new mutation was spreading faster than the last peak of the curve after they all received the first approved vaccine. Now, they'd have to wait a year for the next one to cover this version of the Carrion virus, and as it were, so many already were without the first trial.

These numbers alone around her made her question if they'd finally reach epidemic status and Paige was just too damn tired to fight another battle, but she would since there was no other call she felt the need to answer.

Paige's voice is muffled through the mask when she finds Jazmine.

Paige asks reassuringly, "Where do you need me to start?"

The fellow nurse is frazzled, avoiding eye contact, and wiping at the sweat at her brow, Jazmine chokes out, "The man in 104 just died. Can you start with that paperwork and get a doctor to declare it? I haven't even started. Took one look in that room and turned right back out. I can't even deal with that right now...this paperwork from the state...how the hell are we supposed to do our jobs and all this paperwork so they can just play politics!"

She's stressed, understandably, and for whatever reason, terrified from the beast they knew well. Paige nods and narrows her eyes at her, trying to convey that they will get through this one way or another.

"Hey," Paige starts, "I got it, OK? Just take a deep breath, get some water, and see if Vicky left cookies in the break room again. You'll be home to catch The Bachelorette before you know it."

Jazmine gives only an acknowledging sound like a laugh, that could be a cough before she runs off to get to the next patient before Paige can think much of it.

Paige heads for 104 after thoroughly washing her hands and successfully avoiding slipping on a stream of fresh puke in the hallway. Removing her contaminated N95 for a fresh one, she can only be grateful that they have a full stock of masks...for the moment.

The smell in the room alone is enough to cause Paige to dry heave if the sight of Mr. 104 wasn't enough. Through the mask, she's assaulted with the stench at the first crack of the door. He smelled as if he'd been dead for days and not the mere minutes to half-hour he could have been in here.

He's a disturbing sight of deathly green, swollen, and his veins are a deep red and dark blue underneath the pucker of his flesh.

Some mixture of bile and phlegm covers his chin and nostrils, dripping down onto his chest in a slow stream of what his body has left to expel. His eyes are open, yellow in color. Odd enough, it brings her closer to get a good look. Those strange eyes have pin-points for pupils, and veined crimson bleeds through the ocher tint lifelessly in one moment, then in the next, they lock on her as she turns away, seeing her from beyond the grave.

Trying to find his file at the end of the bed and coming up empty, she figures Jazmine must've walked off with it absent-mindedly and hoped she'd be back with the file she saw in her hand before when they were talking.

Never, in Paige's life and career in the ER, had she seen anything like this. She sighed gruffly at the sight of the chart she found misplaced on the counter, where everything confirmed what she already suspected, but added to further intrigue and terror.

Carrion 33. A mutation finally confirmed by the CDC. She didn't need to see 104 up close to suspect this. The world was already scrambling for vaccines for everyone, for even a cure to the debilitating symptoms some carried after contracting the virus. Seeing the dramatic end to this strand, however, was unlike anything she'd ever seen.

According to his records, this man received the vaccine the FDA cleared, that she too, had injected only a few weeks ago. Which, as she could clearly see, didn't help at all with Carrion 33.

The airborne virus crawled in these hallways and Paige feared, that everyone else would soon follow in 104's demise, whether they were vaccinated or not. The cities with the grander scale of the population had reported deaths from this suspected new strand, but nothing like this in regard to symptoms. Now, this rural town had one hell of a problem if the virus did to everyone what it did to 104.

The virus found its name after the acceleration of necrosis in the lungs and surface tissue. The Carrion virus had evolved to a new level, beyond anything known to modern science. The eyes especially were a notable new symptom.

Stricken with grief for the suffering of this man and those that would surely follow, Paige notes his vitals that no longer hold a reading. Protocol, to make the doctor's job easier to declare and nothing more. Clearly, he was dead, but paperwork plagued the lives of the medical staff more than any virus ever could. Or, so Paige presumed in her bitterness of the system.

Order, rules, conformity, weren't exactly among Paige's favorite things. Especially, when it came to people's lives, their health, and helping them.

Moving to the side of the corpse, Paige readies the pulse oximeter, as those dead eyes unknowingly followed her. It's when she feels a cold, clammy sensation that her awareness kicks in. Not a temperature in the room, but in a chilled, slimy grip around her arm. An inhuman shriek brings Paige to reel back and she knocks over the medical equipment behind her. It falls in a loud crash, as the corpse in alarming reanimation lunges for her, teeth first.

She falls over the trashed equipment that sparks and smokes, hits the floor, and crawls backward. The green tone to Mr. 104 fades to the hue of dead grey flesh, but those eyes are bloodshot and yellow as before, glowing, unnaturally, as with everything else she's bearing witness too. His jaw chomps the air between them, locks then bites again as it falls on her.

Grabbing at the tray stand, she pulls it over in the short space separating her from losing a piece of her arm to its mouth. It does nothing to hurt him, but the stand gets in his way when he tries to follow her. The door proves difficult to handle in Paige's panic, but she manages to finally find that handle in all her staring of the reanimated Mr. 104, opens it, then slams it before he can escape with her.

Backing away without a thought on anything else, Paige bangs into the chest of a white lab coat.

She shakes under her failing pace of breath and shouts, "Dr. Paveglia, we have an emergency in 104 I think we need security!"

"I know, " he cuts her off and says low, "That's not the only one."

The horror on his face sets in. He's seen it too. Which means, 104's case isn't unique. Dread runs through her, an inescapable chain of thoughts on what all this means paints a devastating picture in her mind.

She asks, "What do we do? Were they all vaccinated like 104?"

"I think...I think it is the vaccine..." his emotion catches in his throat and she imagines her eyes are just as wide as his as he peeks around the corner. Behind her, 104 slams against the door, and the glass window he can see them through.

"We need to get the staff out of here and anyone not carrying the virus," he trembles and Paige notices his white sleeve, the ripped fabric, and the trickle of blood through a messy bandage. He's sweating, more than he should be, but Paige can only credit that to his terror, and not what her instincts and horror movie are screaming at her to accept.

This couldn't be real, it had to be a nightmare. Any second she would wake up. The dead did not come back to life. No virus could do that. Nothing could do that. It defied science and basic logic.

"What?! And leave all these people here to die?" She retorts.

"Most of the staff already left after seeing this, there's nothing we can do for them. Some...were attacked and are seeking treatment down the hall. Others are sick...too...the ones who got the vaccine..."

Behind the door of 104, the re-animated patient slams and punches against the glass, coupled with the violent shrieks Paige would never forget.

"Paige, I don't know what else to do. This is happening so fast that they haven't even declared a state of emergency yet. The virus has been dormant in the mass population and it's suddenly escalating...I can't begin to explain what's happening with the reanimation. I don't know anyone who can...this is too dangerous. It's over, Paige. This isn't Carrion, not anymore!"

Paige's thoughts wander onto James. Her ex, the man she loved and lost, who could be falling victim to the same virus. She had to call him...he had to answer this time...

"Paige!" Doctor Paveglia brings her back, then says, "If I were you I'd get everyone you cared about the hell out of this town and away from the cities!"

Which, left Paige to instantly think...then where else is there to go? If not here, in the suburbs, then where? James would know. He always knew the next thing to do.

The doctor is walking on, clutching onto his injured arm. Without a thought of her own anymore and fear shaking at her usually strong knees, Paige is mindlessly following, hoping to catch Jazmine in the break room on her way out.

They pass staff along the way. Some leaving, some, running around helping with the knowledge of what's going on and selflessness in their hearts. Or, as Paige came to notice, accepted their own fates as they sneeze and stare at Paige knowingly with bloodshot eyes inking in a yellow line.

Patients look up at her in torment in the hallways, asking for help, asking for anything that Paige can't begin to focus on with her muddling thoughts. Children, some even infants, are held by mothers with those amber eyes and greenish skin, their veins, throbbing underneath. All of these people were going to die. By the looks of things, they were going to die soon, and they'd turn into the creature in 104. Help wasn't coming. Not for any of them. Only death.

Near the computers where Paige had spoken with Jazmine earlier, the nurse panicked over the stack of clipboards in her hands. Jazmine drops them, after letting out one violent sneeze into a hand that barely catches everything that shoots out of her nose. Snot, in a dark yellow and green drips under and over her mask

.

Stopping mid-crouch in helping Jazmine pick up the files, Paige backs up along with the bleeding doctor in shock, till he retreats out the way Paige came in, not waiting for either of them.

"Jazmine..." Paige utters her name apologetically, not sure what to say to her.

The young girl's face is nothing but terrified as if the acceptance of her illness hit her with the damning evidence she could no longer deny in the face of her concerned co-worker. Paige offers her not only one tissue but about twelve as she pulls out whatever she can from the tissue box. Breaking down, the girl starts to cry through flecks of unnatural gold.

"This isn't good is it?" Jazmine asks rhetorically, "I'm sorry I called you in. I put you at risk. It's just so many people...I didn't know what to do...this is all happening so quickly...things were supposed to get better I thought...I thought this would all be over soon..."

"Hey, it's OK," Paige coos, "You should go home. Get rest. Everyone is leaving..."

"You should go too. I'm sure they'll quarantine the city soon at this rate..." Jazmine says through overwhelming sniffling. Jazmine blows her nose and there aren't enough tissues in her hand to capture everything coming out.

"And what about you?" You're going too, right?" Paige asks, through the scared and concerned tears that have yet to fall over her cheeks.

"Don't worry about me. Miguel died right before I called you. I don't really have anything else now..." Jazmine says and with this information, Paige's heart sinks further for the bright young nurse. Her fiancé, Miguel, was all the hopeless romantic ever talked about. Their wedding, so close, that would never happen now.

"Go, Paige. Go..." Jazmine pleads as a familiar inhuman shriek sounds from the far end of the hall.

They both spin as paralyzing screams fill the ER. Not taking another moment to dwell, Paige misses her opportunity to say goodbye to her co-worker as she runs toward the unseen madness. The patients who are well enough to run, move to the exit. Paige shoots out ahead of them and to her car as she fumbles with her keys.