Even now, I look back and can still see the dense little knot of her hair, gathered into a bun at the nape of her neck, vibrating as the seizure gripped her. I see her slight shoulders, smashed against the ground, and her tiny belted waist and the rough navy nylon of her uniform pants, her hands splayed at her sides, fingers curled. Who was she, this young woman, drowning in her own blood a few feet away from me? Someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, someone’s friend, someone’s mother? A girl who loved reading, a young woman who danced every weekend with her friends, a conscientious daughter sending part of her salary to her aging parents? I’ve tried to envision her life and of course I cannot, not really. I tried, later, to find some record of her—anything, her name, even—and I failed. In the clarity of hindsight, I’m able to freeze that instant and dissect it, turning it this way and that to examine all the facets and implications and potential consequences of my subsequent actions, but in the moment, I experienced no such reflection. A few feet away from me a young woman lay alone in a pool of blood, seconds away from death unless someone tried to help her.

I didn’t think; I sprang forward.

“Everybody stand back,” I called, raising my arms for emphasis. This was perhaps the most pointless order ever issued, as everyone within my line of sight was already in the process of stampeding to the far corners of the room. As they retreated, I redirected my attention to the woman.

There was nothing I could do to stop the seizure. She’d have almost certainly have inhaled into her lungs some of the copious fluid spewing from her mouth. She was likely doomed, but I had to try something. I moved to her side and knelt, my shoes squelching in a sticky pool of blood. I reached a hand toward her as someone grabbed my arm and snatched it back.

“Don’t touch her.”

I looked up: Compton. A flush colored her cheeks; she looked as though she’d been running. Like the woman on the floor, Compton’s skin sucked in above her clavicles, but in her case it was from a combination of exertion and her brittle thinness. She jerked a thumb backward, over her shoulder.

“Move, Kira,” she said. “Get out of here.”

“No, I—”

Compton cut me off. “If this is the same virus, I’ve likely been exposed. You might not be. Get back and check on your kids.”