I woke up three hours after Dr. Ryan Krasinsky arrived at Columbia University's New York-Presbyterian Hospital, only thirty blocks away from the hotel I stayed in. I knew it was after three hours because as I turned on the TV in my hotel room, station after station talked nonstop about a handsome boy-next-door American boy that contracted Ebola in Mozambique and was battling for his life in ICU.

Bombarding my Twitter, Facebook, and all my social media were the countless slews of thoughts and prayers for this handsome young doctor. I admit I found him attractive when I saw his picture for the first time, and the time after that (which was pretty much every couple of minutes on the news), with his short-cropped blonde hair and piercing blue eyes...he looked like Ryan Reynolds.

I had the room to myself, which meant the bathroom, too. I could take the showers that I wanted and abuse how much hotel shampoo and soap I get to use, and I even stole a couple to bring home. I called my mother, letting her know I was okay, and then went downstairs to the hotel's cafe, where they served continental breakfast.

Mr. Ramirez and the others were already there eating and quietly whispering to themselves as classical music soothed from the speakers. I took some eggs and bacon from the buffet table and sat down a little farther away from the main group. That was when I sensed something was wrong. They held grim looks, and frankly, Natalie's easily readable expression gave it away.

I turned to them. "Is something wrong?"

Mr. Ramirez frowned. "I'm afraid we won't be able to go to the university, Mr. Watts."

I paled. "Not go? What do you mean?"

"Don't you read the news?" Aria scoffed. She pointed at the TV. It was about the news of that doctor again. I narrowed my eyes at the others, not knowing what they meant. Aria rolled her eyes. "Quarantined, idiot. The university canceled all incoming orientations--which meant us--for public safety."

Ignoring her, I turned to Mr. Ramirez. "What happens to us?"

"Our flight back isn't until tomorrow, so I think we are stuck in the city for the meantime."

"I meant visiting the campus?"

"Oh. Well, the email talked about a thirty percent discount for your next campus visit next month."

"Next month!" I gaped. The cost of one round-trip flight to New York was at least four hundred dollars. It would only take a hundred dollars out of that with the discount and then add another cost for a two-night stay in a decent hotel room in the city, and everything would accumulate. My parents weren't going to like this. It was more money slipping down the drain, they'd say, and I agreed.

I ate my breakfast in silence, pissed that I came to the city for nothing. Mr. Ramirez tried to spin it into something positive, hoping to cheer us up by bringing us to a Broadway show and then let us free roam Times Square. We could even visit the Statue of Liberty. I'd rather see the campus I'll be spending the next four years with than visit tourist traps.

The others already decided to grab some cheap tickets to The Lion King later that afternoon, so I had to tag along. It cheered them up at least, and Natalie and Aria went back to talking about shopping in Times Square, and Logan and Carson discussed baseball, which just started its new season last week.

I shuffled back to the buffet table for more bacon and orange juice. When I tried to grab the tongs for the bacon, another boy decided to go for it as well, and I awkwardly retracted my hand, throwing a heap of apologies for touching the other boy. When you're gay, accidentally touching another man's hand felt like a bolt of electricity went past you, like a gay instinct to take it back.

I looked up to the other boy, and he gave me a friendly smile. He had short dark brown hair, brown eyes, and warm ivory skin. He was taller than me by several inches, standing around six-foot-two, which was an inch shorter than Logan's height, and he certainly matched his built as well, like a bull ready to pounce on anything in front of him. His periwinkle-colored shirt strained against the seams from no doubt his defined muscles underneath, and I snorted when I read what was on his shirt: Teletubbies was my childhood.

I flinched. "Oh my--sorry for laughing, too," I said, clearly blubbering. He was handsome. I admit that. And now I was acting like an idiot for thinking about it.

"No worries. Go ahead," he said, pointing at the tongs. He had this baritone voice that rumbled pleasantly and rich beneath it.

Nodding to him, I held the tongs and grabbed two pieces of bacon. Only two. More than that, he'd think I was a cow.

"So you are going to become a Lion, too?"

I eyed him questioningly.

"Sorry,"--he held his hands up with his plate--"I overheard you guys talking about the quarantine in the university, And I'm also planning to attend there--shit, where are my manners? I'm Luke. Luke Matheson. Fort Wayne, Indiana."

He extended his free hand out, and I shook it. I'm not trying to be creepy, but his hands were surprisingly soft. "Bren Watts. Portland," I said.

"Maine?"

"No. Oregon."

"Ah. You're farther west than I guessed."

"I didn't think I'd find another incoming freshman for the school in this hotel." I pointed at the others on the table. "I thought it was just us."

"Ah, not as a freshman. I'm a transfer student from Indiana State as an incoming sophomore. Applied for a scholarship here, and I got in with my boy there." He cocked his head to the far table in the room where a tall, lanky boy with framed glasses sat eating a massive pile of pancakes. "Well, he already studies in Columbia as a freshman, but we grew up together, and he's showing me around the city..."

"Oh, cool," I managed to say. The awkwardness persisted. It was time to get out of the conversation, not that I mind talking to him. It was the awkwardness that finally snapped me out, and I stared wildly around the room for a reason to get out. I glanced at my eggs and bacon on my plate. "Oh, I--uh, better eat this then." I raised my plate and grinned like an idiot.

"Oh. Yes. Definitely." He grabbed the tongs from my hand.

I started toward the table again when I suddenly realized that Luke, too, was stuck in the city as I am. With my body having a mind of its own, I turned to face him again and uttered the words I never imagined I would say to an attractive guy like him. "Since we're stuck here, would you like to hang out?"

I cringed mentally. I imagined beating myself with a hammer once I was out of sight from everyone. For seventeen-year-old me, I still considered myself a wallflower. It was out of my comfort zone.

Surprisingly, Luke gave me a warm smile, and his eyes sparkled. "Yes. I'd very much like that."

Was he flirting with me? I am not a veteran in how people tease and flirt, and my only experience was limited to one boy, and he's thousands of miles away.

Luke looked past me and dropped his smile. "Um, can Yousef join us?"

It took me a second to realize he meant his friend. "Oh! Yeah. Sure," I said right away, cursing myself again for thinking a guy like Luke would hit on me. "My group is planning on watching The Lion King later this afternoon. Would you guys like to come to that?"

Luke nodded. "Yeah. We can go. Never seen it."

We exchange phone numbers after that, and though it was exciting to have a guy's phone number, a stranger, no less, in my contact list, I returned to the table where the others held the same grim expression on their faces again.

At first, I thought they would say something nasty to me again because, let's face it, I was trying to flirt with the other guy. But their eyes were trained at the TV.

"Aw, he was so cute, though," Natalie whined.

Dr. Krasinsky was pronounced dead by the news anchor; their breaking news banner read that the two other Americans quarantined were reported to have fallen ill as well.

A sudden stillness gripped the room as everyone stared at the TV, but it only lasted for a few seconds. As the news subsided, everyone returned to looking at their phones and computers, chattering to themselves, sometimes about the sad news or another frivolous topic. I was guilty of the former, sticking my nose on my phone, watching YouTube videos instead while eating my breakfast.

I told Mr. Ramirez about the other two boys, and he eagerly welcomed Luke and his friend to join us. I didn't mind the news after that as I was slightly preoccupied with Luke. Maybe in the future, I could date him!

But, I should know better.

——

When Dr. Krasinsky took his last breath, a concealed stalk, made out of the fungi's hypha-like mycelia and filled with fruiting spores, which had been growing inside Dr. Krasinsky's ear canal for hours, finally ruptured, releasing thousands of microscopic spores into the well-insulated room.

The three doctors and two nurses inside the room wore the Centers for Disease Control's standard Ebola precaution attire: A surgical mask, an impermeable gown that reached from the neck to their mid-thigh, two layers of gloves, fluid-resistant leg and shoe coverings, and hooded covers for their face and neck. This attire was proven to be ineffective against Comoros, especially when their masks had poor air filters.

The spores hitchhiked on the surface of their clothing, which brought it out to another adjacent room for disinfection. The doctors and the nurses were sprayed with a disinfectant solution from head to toe, took off their garments, washed their hands thoroughly, and threw used clothes into an open container at the far side for incineration later.

The spores that survived the disinfection--and they were many--were inhaled by the three doctors and the nurses when they took it off, entering their nasal passages to the brain in a matter of seconds. Now wearing their regular scrubs, a few of the spores that survived the disinfection hitchhiked again on their scrubs out to the halls where one of the doctors came into contact with the senator and his grieving wife. At the same time, the freshly dead body of Dr. Ryan Krasinsky continually pumped out fresh spores from the rupturing fruiting bodies coming out of his nose, ears, and mouth.

And then, these spores would escape through a tiny air vent at the far side of the room.

This tiny air vent connected to a much larger ventilation system network encompassed the entire West Wing of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, a wing occupied by over three hundred people.

Adding salt to the wound, the Comoros spores could survive outside their fruiting bodies for up to twenty minutes before losing their infectivity.

A calculated potential of infected patients totaled around six hundred people by the end of the first hour.

The next doubled that amount, filtering into the other wings of the hospital building and parts of the Columbia University campus.

For the general population with no antibodies to the rabies virus, it meant Comoros had no antibodies to work with once inside a rabies-free host, making it harder to kill them and continue the life cycle like it did in Dr. Krasinsky's body.

Which meant forcing it into another mutation. And much, much deadlier and communicable this time.

The ability of the lyssavirus to transmit through bodily fluids allowed the parasite to take advantage of that resource, and among those transmissions, through bites and saliva. It would prolong the contagious state of an individual for months, unlike Dr. Krasinsky's case, which lasted for less than two days.

And instead of the rabies virus killing the host (like the bat and Dr. Krasinsky), the mutated strain of the fungal parasite would keep the host alive, suppressing the rabies virus inside itself to its baseline level by administering its version of immune globulin. Then the parasite would control the host's function and motor control and drive its survival until the host's death.

It was a deadly quid-pro-quo created by Mother Nature.

When Senator Krasinsky took his wife back to their hotel and left her to rest and grieve, the woman, who got infected after making contact with the doctor who gave her the bad news, turned three hours later on their bed.

A few minutes passed, and when Senator Krasinsky returned, his wife welcomed him by taking a chunk out of his neck. At the same time, the head doctor who had given the senator's wife that news came home to his wife and three children, only to collapse in front of them. Minutes later, that same doctor would attack his wife and kids, prompting his neighbors to storm his apartment and shoot him.

The head doctor's body would fall out from his seven-story window down to the streets where his blood would splatter on the dozens of passing pedestrians.

Fortunately, rabies couldn't get transmitted via blood, only through saliva, brain tissue, and fluid. Unfortunately for the pedestrians, the doctor's fall split his skull, splattered his brain matter to dozens of people. The infected bodies of the doctor's family would attack their neighbors.

A medical scribe working in the New York-Presbyterian Hospital would come back to her dorm room after a ten-hour shift, feeling sick and irritated on the Columbia University's campus. And she, too, would attack two of her drunk roommates in that same room, and in turn, would infect the entire dormitory.

All of this happened while I was surrounded by the grandeur of Broadway magic with the music of the Lion King, singing along to the songs I knew, and never let my smile dropped from my lips.

As the final song of the show ended at a high note, I walked out of the theatre, feeling great that I got to spend time with a rather good-looking guy who shockingly made some good company, not minding at all the shooting daggers and sly, insulting remarks the others had given me behind my back.

And when I walked out of the theatre doors, I didn't expect the entirety of New York City to be quarantined and filled with emergency lights and sirens.