They day the world caught a cold started like any other day.

Mattaleya, or Matt for short woke up at 8 am like she always did. She showered in seven minutes ( or less) like she always did, got dressed, braided her hair and grabbed her lunch from the fridge then run out the door and kept her fingers crossed that she'd catch the 8:30 bus to work.

She got to the bus stop at exactly 8:30,the bus just rolling up to a red light luckily for her.

Work, when she got there was the same as usual. She was a preschool teacher. She taught three, four and five year olds. Well, mostly made sure they didn't eat anything dangerous, didn't pee on themselves, learned how to use their words instead of screaming their lungs out when they were upset and when she had to, changed them out of peed on and pooped on underwear. 

It wasn't all bad though. She did actually get to teach the cute little buggers. Read to them, teach them fun stuff like the alphabet, ( there had been nights when she had dreamt of the alphabet song just from singing it almost a thousand times in one day) and sometimes even teach them fun stuff like how to write their own name.

Once work was done, she would lock up with the other two teachers then grab her stuff and run for the train so she could hopefully make it to class before her professors walked in.

She somehow always made it.

Matt run up the stairs, opting to ignore the elevator because it took forever to come down then plopped her stuff in her usual seat in the back corner of the room.

" Hey," the girl that sat next to her greeted, " you made it."

" Hey," Matt greeted back, " yeah, I made it. Hey are you ok? You look... sick?"

" I got the flu-shot yesterday," her friend said, " I might just be having a bad reaction. I've heard that that happens sometimes."

" That ," Matt replied, " I hope you feel better soon."

" Yeah, me too, but thanks."

Her friend slept through three quarters of the three hour long class,and would have probably slept there all night if not for Matt waking her up as the classroom emptied.

" I really don't think you should drive home tonight," Matt said sounding worried, " you look like ."

"I feel like ," her classmate sneezed, " but I gotta drive home, I can't leave my car here and I don't know who I can call this late at night to come drive my car home."

" Do you want me to drive you home?" Matt asked.

" Really?"

" Yeah, Come on. Just tell me where I'm going and I'll drive your car home. You should probabl go see a doctor tomorrow though,"

" Yeah, I will. Thanks, I really appreciate it. "

Matt grinned and putt her classmates address into her phone,letting the GPS guide her there. Her classmate slept the whole way there, breathing hard, coughing and wheezing. Matt had to help her into her apartment, with the help of her friends roommate who opened the door to Matt's knocking.

" Dude, you really need to go see a doctor," Matt said with a frown.

" I will. Tomorrow. I'm just really tired right now.I just want to sleep." 

So Matt left her in the care of her roommate and made her own way home. She caught the last bus going her direction.

" I really hope I didn't catch whatever she had," Matt grumbled to herself as she showered real quick before bed. 

Meanwhile, about 200 miles away a navy vessel was engaged in what was on paper a state sanctioned testing of their new vessels communications and underwater ballistic missile systems. Which it was, but it was also a scientific research study,as a scientist attempted to identify an organism that had already caused the deaths of several thousand two continents over. An organism she was paranoid enough to fear would kill thousands more if they didn't figure out how to kill it. But to effectively kill it, she had to identify it. 

The ship had left the country about 4 months ago, travelling to the coast of the Ayanon rainforest, whereupon the scientist along with a seal team from the ship had endeavoured into the rainforest by boat.

She now believed she had what she needed, and it wasn't good. It wasn't good at all.

" ," she hissed as she placed the slide under the microscope for a tenth time.

" Is everything ok ma'am?" one of the seals, Jaebum asked.

" No,"she whispered . She looked up from her microscope, " I need to get back on the ship. Right now."

" Yes ma'am," Jaebum replied, " I'll have two of the men help you pack up if you'll just tell us how you want everything, and I'll get our boat ready to take us back to the ship."

" Thank you," the scientist Jez said turning to the other scientist with her to find her already carefully packaging bio-samples.

They both knew it was bad. Really, really bad.

Back on land, yet another day had started for Matt. With her, as usual rushing through her morning to rush to work. Making it with just one minute to spare, she was surprised that her coworker hadn't already gotten there and opened up to start getting the facility ready for the kids.

Matt checked her phone for any messages from her coworker and found nothing. So she shrugged and got busy turning the lights on, getting the morning snack ready, making sure the bathrooms were stocked and so on.

The first kids arrived about ten minutes after she got there.

Matt smiled and greeted the parents as she took the crying toddler from their arms.

" Hi, oh hey sweetheart what's wrong?" Matt asked the 3 yr old girl. Because Lizzie wasn't usually that grumpy at drop-off.

" Her mum and I were both up all night, with this flu, so she might be coming down with it as well," her dad said.

" Oh no," Matt replied sympathetically, as she made a sad face at the little girl in her arms, " ok well, I'll keep an eye on her. She doesn't have a fever right now, but I'll call you if she gets one."

'"Thank you," her dad said, " I know I should probably leave her at home, but she doesn't seem sick beyond being grumpy and I just figured it would be better to have her away from her mum who is most definitely sick for a little bit at least."

" No, no, that's fine," Matt said with a smile, " don't worry about it"

" Thank you," her dad said with a smile," the irony though, my wife and I both just got our flu-shots a week ago, and now here we are, both coming down with the flu."

Matt just chuckled sympathetically and waved him off.

By midmorning Matt knew something wasn't right. Her coworker who had the morning shift with her hadn't shown up, hadn't even called. Her supervisor hadn't shown and hadn't even called and one third of the children were no shows. 

All with the flu.

That evening after she closed up Matt called her coworker to check on her.

" I can't believe I caught the damn flu anyway," her friend grumbled over the phone," even  after I got the damn flu shot,"

Matt smiled sympathetically," I'm sorry. Do you want me to bring you anything tonight. Soup? Meds? "

" Would you? Maybe just a can of soup. I haven't been able to eat anything all day and I feel too sore to get up and get it from the store myself."

" Yeah, sure, I'll come over after work. Get some rest ok.?"

" Yeah," 

When Matt walked into her coworkers home, what she found, was not a sleeping woman. She found a dead one.

a/n: as per usual I am making up location names as my stories always take place in alternate universes. Makes for easier writing sometimes. I do still research and try and base my locations off actual locations just to give it a sense of reality, but no, there is no such place as the Ayanon rainforest ( I don't think). 

Hope you enjoyed ch.1