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upstairs. I shrieked, and water went everywhere, including down my shirt. I waited, and heard more movement upstairs. The clock on the oven read 2:52, and I furrowed my brow, confused. What on earth was my dad doing up at this time?
    I waited for a few moments at the bottom of the stairs before calling out, “Dad?”
    He came rushing down the stairs, his shirt on inside out. He looked frazzled and stressed out; he hadn’t even bothered to comb his hair. “Zoey? Why aren’t you in bed?”
    “I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you in bed?”
    “There’s been a homicide down at the morgue,” he said, rushing past me to grab his coat and scarf from the closet.
    “At the morgue?” I asked, confused. “But isn’t everyone there already…” I didn’t finish the thought.
    “Dead? Mostly. They brought in a bunch of doctors from the CDC to examine the bodies of those dying from the virus. They’re dying too fast to be tested while alive.”
    “Okay…” I said, unsure of why he was telling me this or how this could possibly be important.
    He looked at me.  “The three doctors at the morgue are dead.”
    “Oh my god,” I said, horrified. “Why? Why would that even happen? Aren’t they there to fix the problem?”
    He sighed. “Well, we’re going to try and find out.” He opened the front door, but paused before leaving. “Don’t wait up for me. And Zoey? Stay home from school today, okay?”
    “Dad,” I started to protest.
    He had a pained expression on his face. “Please, for me.”
    I swallowed hard, and nodded. “Okay.”
    “See if you can convince Madison to stay home as well. I’ll be home later.” Then he was gone.
    I cleaned up the water in the kitchen before heading back upstairs. I typed out a quick message to Madison, urging her to stay home from school at the request of my dad. I hesitated for a moment, before sending another to Ash. I tossed my phone to the side before I could regret my momentary lapse of judgment and crawled back into bed, no longer feeling warm.
    I woke later, feeling even more exhausted than I had felt earlier. I yawned widely and reached for the remote sitting on top of a crumbled bag of Doritos on my nightstand. Hoping to see something about the murders at the morgue, I flipped on the TV and found a channel showing the local news.
    Instead I found what seemed to be the beginning of a press conference. The headline at the bottom of the screen read “Head of CDC to Address Concerns about Virus,” and an empty podium, presumably waiting for the head of the CDC, was the focus of attention. I turned up the volume, eager to find out more about the virus that was sweeping through our country like a tornado.
    The woman representing the CDC came on the screen and immediately there was a hushed tone, as she approached the podium. She shuffled a few papers and smiled at the crowd of reporters in front of her. Her name flashed quickly across the bottom of the screen: Razi Cylon.
    “Good morning everyone,” she began, her clipped British accent obvious right off the bat. There was also a little something else there, perhaps Indian. “My name is Razi Cylon and I’m a representative of the CDC. I have been very close to the work and study that we have been doing on this virus. As of right now, we know very little. The symptoms seem to be similar of what we know of the routine stomach flu: fever, chills, vomiting. However, the symptoms, as we have found out, tend to worsen and lead to the loss of blood, through vomiting or urination and the red sores that break out across the body. We are working hard to determine how the virus is transmitted. It is becoming more likely, as days pass, that it is not airborne. However, only with more time and more study will we begin to understand the nature of this.
    We are working diligently to learn more about the virus in order to figure out a method of fighting it off or even curing it. We urge everyone to go