"Ah, you're finally awake," Jason's voice rang. "You missed Jasmine's complete transformation, but I think you'll find the results interesting."
I widened my eyes and looked toward where Jasmine's chair was positioned, and my heart broke entirely at what I saw.
She was still bound to the chair, but she was no longer Jasmine.
Her eyes had become the dull, lifeless white of infected creatures, and she was groaning with the mindless hunger that drove all virus victims. Her beautiful face was now a mask of viral corruption, and when she looked in my direction, there was no recognition, no memory.
"Ha..." I let out a meaningless sound as I opened my lips, staring at the creature that had once been Jasmine. The sound wasn't quite a word, wasn't quite a cry of anguish—it was simply the noise that escaped when the human soul encountered something too devastating to process through normal emotional responses.
