Chapter 121: Surrounded, Treatment

"Mia, Mia, ah... my daughter." The girl’s mother couldn’t accept reality, weeping as she held her daughter. The moment Evelyn Ford appeared, she rushed over and slapped her across the face.

"Why did you abandon her? Why didn’t you save her?"

Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to be angry at a mother who had just lost her child. She looked at the girl’s body and said in a heavy voice, "Her body is dangerous. You can’t be near her."

Evelyn tried to wipe the blood that had smeared onto the woman’s face, but she was pushed away.

"Mia, Mia, wake up! Don’t leave Mommy, don’t sleep."

Mia’s father had already seen the worms in the blood. He tearfully tried to pull his wife away, but it was too late. The woman also began vomiting mouthfuls of blood. Evelyn quickly kicked the man out of the room. After tying the woman down, she forced a few albendazole tablets into her mouth, but it was completely useless. The woman shrieked and screamed, then started slamming her head against the wall...

Evelyn wanted to save her. She took out a lot of medicine, but in the end, she couldn’t save the woman. In her final moments, she seemed to regain her senses. She struggled to reach out and caress her daughter, but her arm fell heavily to her side.

Evelyn opened the door to the room. Dr. Miller ran over to ask if she was okay. Evelyn shook her head. The man rushed in, saw that his wife was also gone, and screamed, clutching his head. He then pulled a rusty dagger from his bag.

Evelyn thought he was going to take revenge on her, but the man plunged the dagger into his own chest.

The medical department had become a sea of corpses. The dead were all placed in one room. With no body bags, they could only be piled together.

"Has the medical department reported this to the base? What did they say?"

Dr. Miller shook his head. "Everyone in the medical department is only allowed in, not out. We’re quarantined here. They didn’t give me a straight answer, just told me to do my best to save people. But there’s no medicine here! How am I supposed to save anyone? Evelyn, it doesn’t matter if I die here, but you’re still young. There’s a small path out back. You should use it to leave. Everyone else here... I don’t think they’re going to make it."

Evelyn understood the subtext in Dr. Miller’s words. The base was giving up on treating these people. To prevent the outbreak from spreading, they might just "eliminate" everyone here.

"But the nematodes only cause an outbreak once they’re inside the body. It’s not a virus; it isn’t contagious."

Dr. Miller gave a bitter smile. "The people outside want to be safe, so they’ll snuff out any potential threat. They don’t care if there are still healthy people in here. Haven’t you noticed? The ones dying the most these past few days are all from the collective housing."

He gave Evelyn a meaningful look. "I’ve seen too much life and death in the hospital. When it comes down to it, a lot of people turn into monsters. Besides, the world isn’t normal anymore."

The medical department was cordoned off, with armed guards standing watch outside. All the sick were sent to the medical department, and after they died, their bodies were dragged away. As for where they were taken, Evelyn didn’t know.

Meals were still delivered here, twice a day. It was only steamed buns and canned food.

Evelyn couldn’t stand the fishy smell of the canned food and couldn’t bring herself to eat. She hid in a utility closet to replenish her nutrients.

’I wonder how Quincy and the others are doing?’

’Ronan Kendrick went out hunting. He probably won’t be back for a few more days.’

’Good thing I left a bowl of food and a bowl of fresh water for Mina and Lola before I left.’

"Evelyn, Dr. Miller is looking for you." Serena Lynch found Evelyn, panting with her hands on her hips.

"It seems they’ve brought in a VIP. We have orders from above. He has to be saved, no matter what."

Evelyn stood up and nodded. Before she left, she handed a chocolate bar to Serena Lynch.

"Evelyn, thank you."

"You’re welcome."

Returning to the emergency floor, Evelyn saw the legendary VIP.

He was a young man in his twenties. Dr. Miller quietly told her that this was the third son of the Holloway family, Kevin Holloway. The Holloways had made it clear that nothing could happen to him.

Afterward, Kevin Holloway was sent to a room on the top floor. Even though there wasn’t a single clean spot left in the place, a VIP room had to be set up for him immediately.

Evelyn didn’t want to get involved and tried to slip away unnoticed, but she was blocked by one of the Holloway family’s bodyguards.

Evelyn sized up Kevin Holloway. He bore a passing resemblance to the other Mr. Holloway. He wasn’t handsome, but his eyes were sharp and held a hint of malevolence.

He looked pale and unwell but showed no signs of vomiting blood. Kevin Holloway’s private doctor told everyone that Kevin believed there were worms in his body and his head.

’So, he’s just imagining it?’

’They live in a villa, drinking purified water,’ Evelyn thought. ’How could he possibly be infected with nematodes?’

"Get the best machines in this medical department and check me from head to toe. Then give me some medicine to kill these worms. I can’t take it anymore! They’re crawling around in my head!"

Dr. Miller and Evelyn exchanged a look. Neither of them wanted to stick their neck out.

"Mr. Holloway, then let’s start with a full-body examination. That includes blood tests, urine and stool samples, an ultrasound, X-rays, a CT scan, an MRI, and an endoscopy."

"What? All that? Are you trying to torture me to death? I’m miserable right now, in agony, don’t you get it?" Kevin Holloway had a foul temper and grabbed the nearest object to throw.

Four-fifths of the medical department’s doctors had been "invited" here. Downstairs, people were dying every minute, yet all the doctors were held here at gunpoint by the bodyguards at the door, forbidden to leave.

"Believe it or not, I’ll have you thrown out of the base!"

The medical department’s administrator was so scared he dropped to his knees and immediately apologized.

Evelyn shrank into a corner, silently watching everything unfold.

"Isn’t there a miracle drug? Aren’t there people from Corinth Seascape Pharmaceuticals here? Before the apocalypse, didn’t their company develop a wonder drug? Where is it?"

Evelyn’s brow twitched, and she lowered her head slightly.

"Mr. Holloway, the male employees from Seascape Corp are dead."

"How did they die?"

"They were buried in the lab during the earthquake."

Kevin Holloway threw something else. No one dared to dodge. A blanket hit a doctor directly on the head, and blood instantly started to flow.

"I want the miracle drug! Develop it for me now! Get all the lab personnel over here and have them make the damn drug!"

One doctor suggested he first drink a couple of doses of traditional Chinese medicine, but Kevin Holloway slapped him across the face for it.

"I only want the miracle drug! My brain is full of worms right now, and only the miracle drug can kill them! Do you understand? Now all of you, get out!"

Evelyn got out of there fast. With a tyrant like that having moved in, everyone’s lives had just gotten a lot harder.

Downstairs, there were several more corpses. Someone tried to leave with their dead family member but was stopped by security. The person charged forward to grapple with the guard and was shot in the head.

Screams rose and fell one after another. Evelyn watched the people scattering in all directions and the bodies being trampled on the ground, and her stomach churned violently.