[ WP ] A new virus evolves to help people instead of harming them .

The Saviour virus was an odd threat to be dealing with from the very beginning. 
 
 For a start, did something that helped people rather than harming them constitute an emergency? The governments and health services might as well have gone'look out, there are people handing out free money on the streets. Keep away from them.' 
 
 Secondly, the virus was almost impossible to contain in any case. The most stringent quarantine measures seemed utterly ineffectual against its slow yet determined advance across the globe. It quickly became less a question of whether you would catch it, and more a question of when. 
 
 That was when the focus switched from prevention to damage control. We were bombarded with advice from medical professionals around the clock which was often conflicting. In the end, many people just ignored the announcements and waited to catch this new virus. 
 
 And this was before you got to the actual effects of the virus itself. You see, the Saviour virus had the peculiar property of having evolved to benefit its host, rather than weaken them. None of the world's scientists could figure out why it did this; the best theories suggested that the virus had decided that a healthy host lasted longer than a sick one. 
 
 The best part was, any previous ailments an Saviour host had were quickly dealt with by the virus. Flu? Gone. Asthma? Not any more. Even something as serious as a broken leg was repaired many times faster than usual. The only thing the virus could n't take care of was cancer, it seemed, possibly because it was originally engineered from cancerous cells in an attempt at a `` cancer vaccine''. You did n't crap on your own doorstep, right? 
 
 Once the beneficial effects of contracting Saviour became apparent, people went from avoiding it to actively seeking out hosts in order to catch it. It was hailed as the next big leap forward in human evolution; a symbiotic relationship between humanity and viruskind. 
 
 I did n't care about all of that philosophical stuff, though. 
 
 I just wanted to walk again. 
 
 *** 
 
 I had been confined to a wheelchair since I was six, when I had fallen from a tree I was climbing and severed some nerves in my back and neck. My legs did n't work and one of my arms was only partially mobile. I was now twenty-three and sick of being disabled. That was why the Saviour was my parole out of the prison my body had become. 
 
 I did n't wait for it to come to me. I did n't have to. There were now groups of people that travelled the length and breadth of the States deliberately giving the virus to people that wanted it. One came to my town and set up shop in the town hall one weekend. I was one of the first in line. 
 
 It was like being baptised again. I was wheeled behind a small curtain by a middle-aged man, where I was pricked with a needle containing some of the guy's blood. I was assured it would n't get infected; the virus would take care of any kind of negative infects from the injection once it developed in my body. I was given a leaflet containing information on how fast I could expect to see it take effect and what it protected me against ( which was pretty much everything ). 
 
 The next day or so seemed to drag on for ever. I passed the time by trying to prioritise in my head what I wanted to do first when I got my body back. I considered a lot of options: swimming, running, perhaps cycling? But the one thing my mind kept coming back to was climbing. 
 
 I wanted to conquer the one thing that had put me in this condition. I wanted to feel tree bark beneath my fingers again. I wanted to see leaves all around me. I wanted to be on top of the world once again. 
 
 I finally woke up one morning feeling a lot more energised than I had felt in years. I experimentally twitched my fingers, as I had been doing for the last two days. I saw them move slightly, and I tried again. This time I was able to form a fist, the peace symbol, even that thing that Spock does with his fingers. 
 
 I took a deep breath. Then I kicked the covers straight off the bed for the first time in seventeen years and stood up on the bed. I jumped up and down on the mattress like a child, laughing as I did so. I finally dismounted ( sticking the landing, ten points! ) and ran into my closet. I pulled on some clothes faster than I ever had, catching sight of myself in the closet mirror as I ran out the door. I was no longer a sad lonely girl in a wheelchair. I was a strong, energetic woman. 
 
 I ran nearly two blocks before stopping to catch my breath. It felt like that scene from *Avatar* where the main guy gets to run around in the alien body. Except this body was *mine*, and it was stronger than ever. I had a new lease on life. 
 
 I ran to the park, kicking up autumn leaves on the pavements. The place was full of trees dressed in orange and yellow, but I had my sights set on one. A large oak near the centre of a large open green. The very same one that had claimed my mobility all those years ago. 
 
 The leaves rustled under my trainers as I took a running start at the trunk, making my way a few feet up it through pure momentum before grabbing hold of a thick branch and swinging myself up. I kept going, climbing higher and higher until I was up amongst the uppermost boughs. I stopped when I could go no further, only half a dozen feet or so from the highest branches. The wind caressed my face like an old lover. I stood up there for what must have been nearly ten minutes, just taking it all in. 
 
 Eventually, I had to make my way back down, landing amongst the fallen leaves below on the balls of my feet and fingers. I was up and running again instantly, heading back to my house to collect my bicycle. Besides the whole climbing thing, I had always wanted to take up cycling again. It was something I had loved as a child. 
 
 So engrossed was I in my reverie of elation and energy, I did n't see the oncoming car as I ran out of the park gate until it was too late. It hit me full on, catapulting me backwards to land on the tarmac heavily. I stared up at the sky, stars dancing in front of my eyes. My view of the heavens was suddenly eclipsed by the far less beautiful visage of the car driver, an overweight man in his late thirties, by the look of it. 
 
'Are you okay?' he said, kneeling down by me. I steeled myself and sat up, expecting to feel pain. Instead, I felt nothing except normal sensation. I looked down at my chest to see a lot of blood pouring from a wound in my chest. I looked up at the car that had hit me. There was a hood ornament on the bonnet. It had stabbed me right through the heart. 
 
 The driver looked at the blood in horror. 
 
'Oh my God,' he said.'Do you want me to call someone?' 
 
'No,' I said. I was n't in any pain. It must be the virus, but I had n't heard of it being able to suppress pain like this. Nor should it be able to keep me alive with a hole through my heart. I stood up gingerly. Blood poured from the hole in my chest, staining the tarmac at my feet scarlet. 
 
 I took off my jacket and wrapped it around my chest as an impromptu bandage. The driver looked at me in amazement as I looked up at him. 
 
'Here's my number for the insurance, but I doubt I'll claim anything,' I said, scribbling on a small scrap of a receipt I had in my pocket. He took it wordlessly and watched as I walked off back up the road towards my house. I paid him no attention, as I was lost in thought. 
 
 I should have been killed by that accident, yet here I was, walking around with a giant hole in my chest. Had the virus turned me into some sort of living zombie? How much damage could I sustain before I died? 
 
 That thought made me stop dead as I grasped the handle of my front door. *Could* I die? 
 
 In what must have been a wave of madness, I ran into my kitchen and found the largest kitchen knife I had. With only a little hesitation, I stabbed it into my chest an inch or so to the left of the first wound. It produced as much blood as I had expected, but I still felt no pain or weakness from blood loss. 
 
 I stabbed myself again, this time making sure to go right through the heart. Yes, it was a brutal experiment on my own life, but I was n't thinking clearly. Panicking slightly, I drove the blade into my collarbone and left it there, the handle jutting from my chest. 
 
 I began to sob, sinking to the floor as I realised what the trade-off was with this Saviour virus. 
 
 In exchange for life, we had given up the ability to die.
