Chapter 22 – The Untouched Ones
Ark had always been good at staying invisible.
Even before the plague, he'd mastered the art of not being noticed—sitting in the back row, eyes down, voice low. His notebooks were filled with things he'd never say, stories he'd never tell, and one name written again and again like a secret spell:
Lily.
She was just two seats away now.
Two meters of distance.
Two decades of silence.
Their school had become a mausoleum. Once filled with the noise of footsteps, lunch tables, and casual laughter—now it was sterile, monitored, and dead. White panels lined the walls. Air filtration hissed through silver ducts. The desks were separated by disinfected glass partitions. Physical textbooks were replaced by holographic screens.
There was no contact.
Not a brush of shoulders.
Not a shared pencil.
Not even a whisper passed between them.
And yet—she still looked at him.
Sometimes.
Just briefly.
Her eyes would flicker toward his corner, hesitate for less than a second, then look away like she'd broken a rule. But to Ark, that second felt like oxygen. Like warmth in a world made of ice.
He hadn't spoken to her since the lockdowns. Not a word. Not even a wave.
They used to talk. Once.
She had lent him a notebook when he forgot his. Once smiled at a dumb joke he muttered under his breath. She had been kind, warm, effortless. He didn't know her well—but he knew enough to fall in love with the way she said his name.
And now, in this world, love was a death sentence.
---
Infection spread through touch. That's what they said.
But after Decay Zero mutated… touch became unnecessary.
The disease had evolved.
Now it spread through emotion. Longing. Memory. Unresolved desire.
"Echo Contact," they called it.
You could die from a hug you never got.
You could rot from a kiss you only imagined.
People started reporting symptoms after watching videos of their loved ones. Some even fell ill reading old messages.
So they made a rule.
No reminiscing. No attachments. No emotion.
You want to live?
Forget who you love.
---
But Ark couldn't forget Lily.
Her presence haunted him like music you never finish hearing. He didn't look at her directly anymore, but he always knew exactly where she sat. How her fingers fidgeted when she was bored. How her breath fogged the inside of her mask when she sighed.
The space between them was a vacuum.
Not just physical—but emotional.
Close enough to feel each other's gravity, yet forever out of reach.
He sometimes imagined reaching out his hand.
Just once.
Just to press his palm against her glass partition.
But he didn't.
Because what if she reached back?
What if she didn't?
Either answer would destroy him.
---
He watched her today.
Just for a moment.
Her head was tilted down, brown hair falling over her face. Her eyes were glazed, lost in whatever half-thoughts people survived on these days. She looked tired. Worn down by rules. By grief.
Does she think about me too?
The thought was poison.
It made his chest ache.
He opened his holo-notebook and tried to write something. Just one sentence he'd never send:
> "I miss when we were allowed to be human."
He stared at the words. Then deleted them.
The screen went blank again—just like every day.
---
After class, the students were funneled out one at a time.
Hands sterilized. Suits zipped. Faces scanned.
Ark lingered behind.
Pretending to adjust his respirator. Pretending not to watch her pack her things.
Lily moved slowly. Deliberately. Like she didn't want to go back out into the world either.
She paused at the exit.
And for just one second—she looked over her shoulder.
Their eyes met.
Everything stopped.
No air.
No noise.
Just the weight of everything unsaid suspended in that gaze.
Ark wanted to run toward her.
He wanted to scream her name.
He wanted to remember what her voice sounded like.
But he didn't move.
Neither did she.
The moment passed.
And then she turned and disappeared into the corridor.
---
Ark sat back down at his desk.
He didn't cry. He never did.
But he felt it—deep and cold and sharp. That unspoken grief of loving someone who was alive… and yet already gone.
They were the untouched ones.
Not infected. Not immune.
Just floating in between—haunted by the people they could never hold.
And it wasn't the disease that scared him the most.
It was the emptiness between them.
Ark didn't go home straight away.
He walked the long path around the school—through the disinfectant-sprayed corridor that reeked of alcohol and lemon scent. Outside, everything looked normal at a glance. Trees still stood. Clouds still drifted. The wind still moved through empty playgrounds.
But it was too quiet.
No laughter.
No footsteps.
No human chaos.
Just a hollow, artificial world trying to pretend it hadn't already collapsed.
Ark walked with his hands buried in his pockets—not from habit, but because he was scared of brushing against anything. Metal. Fabric. Skin. Air.
He passed three drones. Surveillance units floating silently above, scanning for unauthorized contact. Each blinked a red light at him, confirming compliance. He hated that.
He hated being seen by machines more than people.
He hated that the only thing left watching him… wasn't her.
---
He used to believe distance was safer.
He told himself: if you don't speak, you can't be hurt. If you don't get close, you don't get abandoned.
But Lily had destroyed that lie.
She had never touched him. Never kissed him. Never made a promise.
And yet, she had still carved her place inside his soul like a name written in wet cement.
Now that distance wasn't a choice anymore—it was agony.
Two meters felt like a coffin.
He remembered her laugh.
Not loud. Not wild. Just soft—like sunlight under closed curtains.
He hadn't heard it in months.
He feared he never would again.
He feared that one day, even the memory of it would decay.
Just like everyone else.
---
He reached home—if you could call it that.
An apartment, sealed by a triple-door entry, UV scrubber, and daily reports to the Clean Authority. His parents were long gone. His older brother had dissolved three months ago, after touching a tear-stained photo of their mother.
Ark didn't cry after that.
He didn't feel safe enough to cry.
He sat at his desk. The room was quiet. Cold. Empty. Except for one thing:
Lily's face.
Frozen on a paused surveillance feed.
He shouldn't have hacked it. It was illegal.
But it was the only way to see her—outside of class. Raw. Unfiltered. Real.
She looked tired again. She always looked tired now.
Not physically. But soul-deep.
He watched her sit on her bed, legs pulled in, reading something off her screen.
He wished he could know what it was.
He wished he could ask.
But screens didn't hold warmth. Cameras didn't offer touch. Nothing about this world gave him the permission to feel.
And that's what killed people now.
Not the rot. Not the disease.
The loneliness.
The unbearable, expanding silence of a world where love had to be repressed like a crime.
He didn't want to die.
But he didn't want to live like this either.