I could feel the heavy rise and fall of my chest as I stared into the eyes of Nicole Sheldon. However, it wasn't like I expected.

I thought she would be incredibly menacing and invariably furious, but she had stilled at the sight of me.

Instead, she was solemn, like I just brought back an unpleasant memory.

"Yuri Tanaka." Her voice cut through the quiet.

My jaw dropped open. It can't be. "You know Yuri? And Kylie?"

She nodded slowly, moving forward. "The twin children of Clint and Darcy Tanaka. I remember them."

I instinctively tucked the thumb drive into my back pocket, even though I knew there was no use. She had already seen it.

I prodded. "So... were they your patients?"

She sighed and took a seat on the table next to me, folding her arms. "Yes. It's a... long story."

"I'm ready to hear it. They're my friends."

"I heard. Your middle school and high school classmates, and now Yuri's your university lab mate. I knew our secret wouldn't last long when I heard that Nick was going to be working with him too."

"Does Nick know?" I gulped, afraid of the answer.

Right on cue, someone had joined us at the doorway.

"Do I know what?" The melodic voice I was all too familiar with sounded, sending shivers down my spine.

Nick looked between the two of us, the lopsided smile on his face slowly fading.

"Is something wrong? All I wanted to do was to make sure Emma hadn't lost her way..."

Then, his eyes went to the computer. He saw the flashing red signal, and the heading on top of it.
Breach: TNK303.

It was a pang to my gut when I saw the look in his eyes. He understood.

He knew.

"Not everything." Nicole said quickly. "The experiments happened when you two were extremely young."

The experiments. So that much was true, then.

"Did you ever read that novel about the Scarlet Plague? Well, a pandemic of that size could have happened if not for the experimental trials. The most interesting thing was, the vector originated from birth. The children of some parents who had a superbug started showing symptoms of the disease. We called them The Red."

"We recognized the new illness from children born in our maternity ward. Soon after, we made it a point to retrieve everyone who showed the symptoms. That required making a lot of connections, which is why we are still well-connected with many other parties today. Anyway, the children would bear painful red webbed marks spreading underneath their skin, slowly consuming them. It spread to all the other children in the nursery, and then to the nurses who came to take the newborns."

"The illness spread to everyone they came into contact with, and it killed them. A painful death, even. We knew we had to contain it. There were only a few children born in your year that had survived their illness — including Yuri, Kylie, Nicholas, and you."

I turned to Nicholas. After exchanging our look, his hands went down to his shirt. He pulled at the edge of his shirt, easing it up gently.

I gasped yet again. The red webs were all the more prominent, clawing at his abdomen. It was just like the red webbed scarson my collarbone.

I didn't realize we shared a medical condition.

"The parents were desperate to save their children. Some of them volunteered for our many clinical trials to develop a cure. A cure did come out of that, thankfully."

I interrupted her. "So why doesn't anyone know about this? From my knowledge, the Red and the Scarlet Plague wasn't reported at all."

Nicole gripped the edge of the table. She was downcast, her lower lip trembling a little. "It brought me so much heartbreak to see the parents breaking down as their newborn children were gone. But... the shareholders wouldn't hear it. Along with affiliates of the government, they — we kept it under close containment. We thought it was easier to quell it quickly, lest it poses other problems. You see, if the disease starts from young, it has even more potential to wipe out our population. We cannot even allow our human race to continue if it plagues the newborns."

I was beginning to shake, and wanted to reach out to grasp onto something. I wished I could grab onto Nick, but now I didn't know what to think.

My voice was full of spite. "So, you just covered it up?"

"The whole battle lasted only a few days, so it was possible."

"So that's why you have many enemies, then." I plugged the thumb drive in again. When it was in, I rolled out the chair and let her do the work. This time, Nicole punched in the words, Scarlet Plague. With that, a file opened up. These were all the medical records during the day that I was in the nursery. I assumed, with Kylie and Yuri and Nicholas.

She sat back and allowed me to use the mouse. With that, I scrolled through the files. Hundreds of them, with the gut-wrenching deceased written all over it. My cursor scrolled to C, where I found my last name. I used Trinket, my mother's maiden name. But my dad's one was Culliver.

There it was. Emma Culliver.

"You were the first one to test positive for the cure." She said.

"But if you tested it out on a child, wouldn't my mother have protested?" I said. Then, I stopped in my tracks. "Unless... she was already gone."

"Sara Trinket gave up her life for the cure. So did Darcy Tanaka. Your mother was a doctor, you know that?"

I stammered at the thought of my mother. "So that was what he meant when he said she died giving birth to me? The reason why he hated me?"

Nicole looked like she was about to reach a hand out, then thought twice. She was right, I didn't want to be touched by someone like her right now.

"So, people hated Hestia because it refused to reveal the reason why there were the deaths? That was why there have been attacks over the years, including the one that caused Nick's prosopagnosia?"

I saw Nick wince at the thought of how he had gotten his prosopagnosia. Nicole opened her mouth, but he spoke for her instead. His voice was disgruntled but distant. It was the hard truth.

"Yes, there were speculations that we were to cause for that. Some people thought the children weren't sick, and that they perished because we conducted experiments on them. But those who know the entire story have a greater reason to hate. It was an accident, but —"

Nicole spoke up now. "We were the ones who caused the Scarlet Plague."

I stood up and backtracked. The wind was knocked out of my chest.

They started it?

My mother died because of them. Hundreds died. And I knew what they meant by "accident".

The company had always been competing to create the strongest antibiotic in order to make a profit. In their greed, they must have done it until it gave rise to a superbug.

"And where's... where's my father?" My voice was small, like a child's. He may have sinned, but he deserved to know too —

"I thought you said you wanted him gone." Nicole tilted her head. "He's in psychiatric care now."

This just verified the harsh truth that Yuri had told me.

I was speechless. I really didn't know what to think. All I knew was that I needed time alone to think this through.

"I'm sorry I can't stay for dinner."

I made a hasty exit, but Nick stopped me in time. "Wait. You can take my car home. I know how you don't like your place after that incident. If you want, you can stay at mine and I'll just stay here —"

"Don't touch me!" I flinched and pushed his hand away. After letting my breaths calm me a little more, I spoke with a trembling voice.

"I don't think I can take any more of this."

"I—" He started, but I was already gone.