Sick by Design

De: Darlene Zagata

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

The woman in Bed 7 stopped screaming at 3:49 AM.

Dr. Mia Waterman had been monitoring her vitals for sixteen hours straight, watching the Curative Strain work its way through a nervous system that had been destroying itself for three years. Multiple sclerosis, advanced stage. The kind that turns a body into a prison and leaves the mind to watch helplessly as the walls close in.

Now, silence.

Mia's hand trembled as she reached for the biometric scanner. The readings couldn't be right. Neural activity normal. Inflammation markers—gone. Myelin sheaths regenerating at a rate that defied every principle of cellular biology she'd spent twenty years studying.

"Dr. Waterman?" The night nurse stood in the doorway, backlit by the harsh fluorescents of the hallway. "Is she...?"

"She's healing," Mia whispered. The words felt dangerous in her mouth, like a promise she had no right to make.

Through the observation window, the patient opened her eyes. They were clear, focused—empty of the agony that had defined them for so long. She smiled, and it was the most peaceful expression Mia had ever seen.

It was also the most terrifying.

Because in that smile, Mia saw something missing. Some essential spark that had nothing to do with disease and everything to do with being human.

But Madison was dying. Her daughter had maybe six months, the specialists said. Six months of watching a vibrant sixteen-year-old dissolve into exhaustion and pain. Six months of helplessly measuring the distance between love and science.

Dr. Adrian Korr had promised her a miracle.

As Mia watched the woman in Bed 7 sit up for the first time in a year, moving with mechanical grace, she made a choice that would echo through the fate of the species.

"Prepare the next dose," she said quietly. "For my daughter."

The nurse nodded and disappeared into the corridor.

Mia pressed her palm against the cold glass and wondered, just for a moment, if some diseases were meant to be carried. If the weight of being human required its share of cracks and imperfections.

Then she thought of Madison's labored breathing, and the thought dissolved like morning fog.

The Curative Strain would save her daughter.

It would save them all.