# Day 4 - 7:54
The morning after the attack, the Blue Oasis ran like a prison ship. Every stairwell had a posted guard. Linh and her navigation crew patrolled the upper decks with tasers and—by the end of breakfast—actual sidearms. No one was allowed near the railings alone, and all weather hatches were locked with steel bands painted in hazard yellow. Rumor had it there was a new protocol for everything: toilet breaks, meal lines, even sleep rotation. Zhao Xun heard the clicks and murmurs of the new order as he followed his escort down the main corridor toward the medical bay.
His stomach rolled. Not with hunger; that had disappeared two days ago, replaced by a nervous tick that made his hands sweat and his neck twitch. His vision was still off-center, a hangover from the concussion or the sleeplessness or the stress, pick your poison. Every time he passed a reflective surface, his face startled him—drawn, hollow, the bruise on his jaw now blooming the color of raw liver.
He slowed as they neared the medical suite. A printout was taped to the wall outside, rows of names and time slots in Saanvi Rao’s precise, looping script. Most slots were blank, but a handful had names filled in with blue ink, underlined twice. Nadia Kovács was first, at 08:00, with “Zhao Xun” written alongside hers in red.
His name was everywhere now. On the rotation chart, in the whispered conversations at lunch, in the glances that followed him like a shadow. Every time he saw it, he felt smaller, less real—a software glitch that no one bothered to patch.
He hovered at the threshold. Inside, the room had been scrubbed of any warmth it might once have had. All the soft edges had been replaced by hard lines: exam tables wrapped in paper, walls hung with gleaming metal instruments, and the sharp chemical tang of sanitizer riding above the air conditioning. Dr. Iqbal stood at the head of the table, her coat crisp, her hair tied back so tight it looked like it hurt.
Saanvi was beside her, arranging plastic trays and prepping disposable gloves. Her smile flickered when she saw Zhao, the muscles in her jaw twitching with the effort. “Right on time,” she said, but it didn’t sound like a compliment.
Nadia was already seated, perched at the edge of the exam table with both hands gripping her knees. She wore cargo pants and a faded T-shirt, her hair pulled up in a loose, lopsided bun. Even sitting, she vibrated with nervous energy, foot bouncing, fingers drumming a staccato against her thigh. She tried to smile at Zhao, but her lips stuck halfway and she gave up.
“Welcome to the world’s most awkward casting call,” Nadia said, the joke brittle. She jerked a thumb at the Dawn Meter—a white plastic box on the counter, its screen scrolling numbers in real time. “Didn’t know I’d be performance-reviewed by a fucking breathalyzer.”
No one laughed.
Zhao cleared his throat. The room felt colder than it should. “So, uh… how does this work?” His voice was thin, paper-dry.
Dr. Iqbal answered without looking up from her clipboard. “We have a protocol. Saanvi will monitor vitals and the meter. Nadia, you and Zhao will sit together—if you prefer privacy, we can close the curtain.” She gestured at the thin blue drape looped on a ceiling rail. “We collect blood and saliva samples every ten minutes. Post-exposure, you’ll remain under observation for one hour.”
Nadia’s eyes widened. “Post-exposure. What, like a radioactive isotope?”
Saanvi cut in gently. “It’s just a term. We’re tracking the suppression window. How long the viral load drops after—contact.”
Zhao’s mouth filled with the taste of old batteries.
He sat beside Nadia, his thighs tensed to spring. She laughed again, softer this time. “First time for everything, right?”
He looked at his shoes. “I guess.”
She leaned closer, her breath quickening, and muttered, “Don’t overthink it. Let’s just… get it done.”
The curtain closed with a whoosh, and for a moment it was just the two of them, cocooned in a world of sterile blue.
“Should we, uh, kiss?” he said, already regretting it.
Nadia shook her head, a blur of movement. “No need for romance. Just—” She put her hand on his, then snatched it back as if burned. “Sorry. My brain’s running every protocol at once.”
He tried to touch her cheek, but his fingers trembled. “I’m just—I don’t know if I can—” He couldn’t finish the sentence. He wanted to. It would have helped if she were a stranger. Instead, she was all nerves and sharp edges, and his own body recoiled from the task.
They sat in silence. From beyond the curtain, the soft whine of the Dawn Meter spiked, then settled.
Nadia broke the silence. “This isn’t you. It’s the pressure.” She reached for his hand again, this time holding on. “If it makes you feel better, I can show you something. Not like that—just, I have a trick.”
He managed a nod.
She pulled a compact from her pocket, flipped it open, and angled the mirror. “If you look at your own reflection while you try, sometimes the anxiety loop breaks. You focus on the image, not the feeling.”
He stared at his own tired, battered face. It did not help. The reflection made it worse—a witness to his failure.
Nadia watched him, then let the mirror snap shut. She pressed her forehead to his, and for a second he felt the warmth of her skin, the sweat beading at her hairline.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She smiled, and this time it almost reached her eyes. “It’s not the end of the world.”
They tried again. And again. Each time, his body refused. By the end, his heart was pounding and his hands shook so badly he thought he might faint.
Outside the curtain, Saanvi cleared her throat. “We can stop for now,” she said. Her voice was soft, but there was no hiding the disappointment.
Nadia stood, pulled her shirt down, and laughed—short, sharp, broken. “Science will find another way,” she said, but her lips quivered.
She turned to Zhao, reached out, then let her hand drop. “Not your fault,” she said, and slipped out through the curtain.
He sat there, staring at the floor. The sound of the Dawn Meter, now shrieking at a higher pitch, drilled into his skull.
A minute later, he heard voices outside—Nadia’s, cracking with emotion, then muffled by Saanvi’s attempts to soothe. He heard footsteps, and then the low, urgent tones of Dr. Iqbal and Captain Verne conferring outside the suite.
He didn’t move until the curtain was yanked aside, and Dr. Iqbal loomed over him, arms crossed.
“Don’t dwell,” she said. “We’ll try a different approach.”
Zhao stood, legs wobbly. “What if it never works?”
Iqbal stared at him for a long moment. “There’s no precedent for your situation, Mr. Zhao. If it was easy, we’d be done already.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I get it.”
She put a hand on his shoulder, the gesture as close to comfort as she seemed capable of. “Take a break. Next appointment is in two hours. Get some food, water. You need to be at your best.”
He left the suite in a daze, weaving past clusters of women who pretended not to watch him. Their eyes followed like spotlights, then darted away when he looked back. A bitter laugh caught in his throat—here he was, surrounded by beautiful women who needed him, the teenage fantasy come to life. Except instead of pleasure, there was only clinical failure and the weight of their dying hopes. The harem of his adolescent dreams had become a nightmare of clipboards and disappointed faces. He could feel the news of his failure spreading in the way conversations died when he approached, leaving only the echo of his own inadequacy.
Down the hall, Nadia crouched by the stairwell, head in her hands. Her cargo pants rode up slightly, revealing a thin silver anklet against ivory skin. Without the harsh fluorescents of the exam room, her hair caught the corridor's amber light, softening her features. Saanvi hovered nearby, speaking in low, steady tones. Zhao watched from a distance, his body still humming with the Dawn Meter's electronic whine, a strange heat rising in his chest that contradicted the clinical failure minutes before. The realization struck him with uncomfortable timing: outside that sterile room, she was beautiful. Read the latest chapters at g.com.
He turned and walked away, shoes squeaking on the polished floor.
At the next intersection, he ducked into a supply closet and shut the door behind him. The darkness was total, the air thick with the scent of detergent and plastic wrap. He let his back slide down the wall and sat, knees hugged to his chest.
He tried to breathe, but every inhale tasted of bleach and failure.
He waited for the Dawn Meter’s shriek to fade from his ears.
He waited for the world to start making sense again.
He knew it wouldn’t.
# Day 4 - 11:30
Elena Márquez waited in the corridor, hands folded so tightly her nails blanched white. She had watched Nadia exit the medical suite—face streaked with tears, shoes scuffing the floor as she ran—and something in Elena’s chest unzipped. She was supposed to be the strong one, the first-aid kit for every social injury aboard. But now her heart pulsed with an unfamiliar dread.
Dr. Iqbal called her name, gentle but insistent. “We’re ready, Elena. If you are.”
She pasted on the softest version of her hospitality smile and entered. The room was unchanged—clinical, quiet, a faint haze of disinfectant riding the recycled air. Zhao sat at the far end of the exam table, his arms drawn around his knees. His eyes were unfocused, lost in a personal storm.
“Hey,” she said, her voice a hush. “I hear the food in here’s terrible, but the service is unforgettable.”
He tried to laugh but the sound caught in his throat. He looked at her, a flicker of something—hope, maybe—there and gone.
Dr. Iqbal gave a nod. “You can pull the curtain, if you want privacy.”
Elena did. She turned back and drew the blue drape with a practiced sweep, then pulled a rolling stool close to Zhao’s side. “You mind if I sit?”
He shook his head, still not meeting her eyes.
She placed her hand on his shoulder, warm and steady. “I know it’s weird,” she said. “Hell, I once had to host a cooking demo while my ex watched from the front row. If you can survive that, you can survive anything.”
He smiled, weakly. “I don’t think I ever expected to be here.”
“No one did.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “But it’s just us, okay? Pretend the rest of the world is a million miles away.”
Zhao exhaled, a shudder rippling through him. She felt the tremor in his palm and the stiffness in his spine. He was on the verge of total shutdown.
She made a show of adjusting the lights, dimming them with a wall switch, then returned to sit directly across from him. “I learned a breathing technique at a mindfulness retreat once. We can try it, if you’re up for it.”
He nodded.
She guided him, her voice a soft metronome. “In through the nose, hold for three, out for five.” She did it with him, timing each breath. She let her hand rest on his thigh, light but present, and waited for his tension to drain away. It didn’t.
“Still nothing,” he said, a tremor in his voice. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
She resisted the urge to tell him he was brave, or strong, or any of the things people always said when someone was breaking. She had been broken herself, once, and knew how little those words could help.
Instead, she said, “You survived a bomb, a viral apocalypse, and a ship full of strangers who want a piece of you. If you weren’t shaking, I’d think you were the psycho.”
That almost got a laugh. Almost.
She shifted closer, letting her loose linen blouse slide down one arm to reveal the thin strap of her silk slip dress. Her fingertips traced small circles on his wrist. "Let's not force anything," she whispered, her breath warm against his neck. "We have time."
He turned his head, and their eyes met. The tension between them shifted as she slowly unbuttoned her blouse, revealing a silk slip that caught the dim light. His gaze followed the curve of her collarbone down to where the fabric dipped between her breasts.
"You don't have to apologize," she said, taking his hand and guiding it to her waist. "Just breathe with me."
They sat like that for minutes, his palm warming against the silk of her slip, her breath deliberately slow and deep. When she finally leaned forward, her lips brushed his ear rather than his mouth. "We can just talk, if you want," she whispered. "Or not talk at all."
His fingers twitched against her side. She felt the hesitation in them, the war between desire and fear. She didn't push. Instead, she hummed softly—an old lullaby her grandmother used to sing—and rested her forehead against his shoulder.
When the hour was up, she dressed unhurriedly, watching him watch her. His eyes still couldn't quite meet hers, but they lingered on her movements as she slid each button through its hole, smoothed her skirt over her hips, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
She touched his cheek, her smile gentle but knowing. "Next time will be different," she promised.
He nodded, swallowing hard.
She drew the curtain back, blinking into the bright lights of the medical bay. Saanvi and Dr. Iqbal waited, faces impassive.
Elena’s own eyes prickled, but she refused to let them see it. She hugged Zhao for longer than was necessary, then stepped aside as Dr. Iqbal took his arm to draw another blood sample.
She made it all the way to the hallway before her composure broke. She pressed her forehead to the wall, eyes closed, and let the tears come, silent and steady.
Behind her, she heard the low rumble of the Dawn Meter.
Inside the med bay, Dr. Iqbal and Saanvi compared the numbers. The readings were grim.
“His viral load isn’t the problem,” Saanvi said, voice tight. “It’s theirs. It’s going up, not down.”
Dr. Iqbal checked the data herself, shoulders slumping as the numbers flashed on screen. Nadia's reading had climbed from 42 to 50 percent—their first failure. Elena's results were even more devastating: 31 to 40 in just an hour. The hospitality director had been their contingency plan, their sure thing, chosen specifically because of her warmth and professional ease with strangers. If Elena couldn't make the treatment work, who could? Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping.com.
She closed her notebook with a snap. “It’s the stress. Emotional trauma is accelerating the progression.”
Saanvi frowned. “What do we do?”
Iqbal’s eyes, usually so clear, looked cloudy now. “If we don’t find a way to make this work, everyone on board will hit phase three before next week.”
A cold silence settled over them.
Outside the med bay, Captain Verne appeared, arms folded and face stone.
“Well?” she demanded.
“Failure,” Iqbal said, without preamble. “Both subjects deteriorated. We need a new approach.”
Verne scanned the corridor, took in the hunched figures, the air heavy with despair. She dropped her voice to a murmur. “Then stop the experiments. For now. Last thing we need is panic.”
She turned to Elena, who was still wiping her face on her sleeve. “Get some rest. And keep this to yourself. I’ll brief the crew when we have a solution.”
Elena nodded, voice lost.
Zhao lingered in the shadows, watching the scene unfold. He felt less like a savior than ever—more like a defective spare part.
He turned and walked away, careful not to touch the walls or brush against the uniforms that lined every corridor.
The next time he passed the posted rotation, his name was still there, in red. But now every slot was underlined in black.
He understood, for the first time, what it meant to be truly alone.
# Day 4 - 12:34
Aida watched the second attempt fail from the stairwell across the treatment room, her chin resting on the crook of her wrist as if it were just another afternoon at the Blue Oasis. She could see the entire scene: Elena entering the med bay, moving with the calm authority of a mother greeting the new babysitter. The hour dragged. Aida sipped tepid green tea and waited for a miracle that never came.
When Elena emerged, her steps had lost their rhythm. She clung to the rail outside the medical suite, shoulders shaking. Aida knew that posture—she’d seen it backstage at worse venues, after worse scenes. She’d held women with mascara down to their navels, who’d still had to finish the night smiling for the cameras.
She catalogued the problem as she watched: Zhao wasn’t broken. He was terrified. The situation had been set up to fail.
Aida set her mug down, perfectly centered on the rail, and stood. The wind pulled at her hair, throwing strands across her face, but she ignored it. She drifted back to her cabin, passing clusters of survivors clustered at the windows, all staring at nothing. They looked as if they’d been arranged by a particularly nihilistic florist.
Her room was a museum of enforced normalcy: a silk robe hung on a hook, a box of high-end chocolates unopened, the corners squared on her bed as if hotel staff would appear any second to inspect them. Aida paced the perimeter twice, then sat cross-legged on the mattress. She closed her eyes and let the day replay.
She remembered the first time she’d been paid for intimacy. Not the clumsy, fumbling part, but the performance—the work of making someone else comfortable, of building a world so convincing that they could forget, for a moment, that it was all staged. It had always been about the client. She never believed her own lines, but she’d made them real for others. That skill was worth more than sex itself.
She stood, stretching until her shoulders cracked, then changed into something less “guest” and more “consultant.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and left her room, sliding a pair of ballet flats over her bare feet.
She found Captain Verne on the bridge, hands locked on the wheel even though the autopilot ran the show. The captain’s jacket was perfectly fitted, her profile as sharp as a compass point. Her eyes never left the horizon, but Aida knew she’d been heard.
“I need to talk to you,” Aida said. She waited for the flick of an eyebrow.
Verne didn’t look up. “If this is about the schedule, I already know it’s not working.”
“It’s not about the schedule,” Aida replied. “It’s about the approach. You’re running this like a vaccination line, but it’s not medicine. It’s psychology.”
That got a glance. “You’re a sex worker. Not a therapist.”
Aida shrugged. “You tell me the difference.”
She let the silence sit, heavy as ballast. Verne broke it first. “We don’t have time for games.”
“Neither does Zhao. Or the rest of us.” Aida moved closer, her voice steady. “You have women going in there thinking they’re taking a bullet for the team, and he’s supposed to become a hero by brute will? He’s traumatized, and you’re making him relive it on command.”
Verne’s fingers whitened on the wheel. “If you’re volunteering, say so.”
“I’m volunteering to coach.” Aida waited for the snort, the dismissive wave. Instead, Verne’s jaw tensed. “We can’t afford an experiment.”
Aida smiled, just a little. “You’re already running one. You just don’t like the results.”
Verne leaned back from the wheel, folding her arms. “So what, you make him dinner and a playlist?”
“I make it easier,” Aida said. “I do what I was hired to do. I take the pressure off, so he can function. I run interference. I teach the rest how to help, not hinder.”
Verne’s eyes narrowed. “You think you can turn this around.”
Aida's fingers traced a small circle on the polished railing. "I know I can," she said, voice soft but unwavering. "But I need twenty-four hours with him. A full day—no schedules, no observers, no clipboards."
Verne snorted. “Fine. Do it your way. If you fail, we go back to protocol. And you answer to the whole ship.”
Aida gave a tiny bow. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
She turned and left without another word. She heard Dr. Iqbal’s voice on the comm as she walked past the glass:
“Nadia’s number is up. Elena’s spiking, too. We may not have more than two days before phase three.”
Aida’s pace never faltered, but inside, she felt the timeline winding tighter. She’d always known the job would kill her someday. She just hadn’t thought she’d be the one keeping everyone else alive.