June
2008

"It's too late, it's already out of control. The time to be calm was a month ago when the incidents were isolated. They aren't anymore. They're popping up all over the globe, it's happening fast and we need to be prepared-"

"What's going on?" Beyoncé questioned entering the office that resides within the research lab. Her parents hadn't heard her enter amidst their argument.

Dione cut her eyes to Roy with a raised brow before she continued speaking.

"We need to tell her Roy."

"No, we don't need to scare her right now-"

"I'm not a child dad give me more credit than that. I want to know what's going on. I heard what mom said, and it sounds serious. What are we dealing with, a pandemic or something?"

Dione gazed at Roy with intensity and folded arms as he sighed heavily running his hand over his scruffy beard.

He still didn't seem convinced.

"Dad you promised me you two wouldn't hide anything from me anymore. When I found out I was adopted I didn't fall apart like you thought I would. When I found out this boarding school was a masquerade for a research facility I didn't fall apart then either. When I found out our research could literally get us killed I still wanted to be a part of it did I not?"

"Yes G and then Will found out because of you."

Beyoncé rolled her eyes at the comment.

"Don't act like you wouldn't have preferred Will to find out rather than your 'little princess' anyways. And so what? He keeps his mouth shut just like I do, he's just as smart as me too. Nobody else knows about anything. Stop treating me like some fragile little baby who can't handle anything and tell me what the hell is going on. I'll be fine with this just like I have been everything else."

He sighed heavily.

"Roy I'm going to tell her regardless of how you feel about it."

"Alright! Alright... fine."

She didn't realize it, but Beyoncé released a breath of relief.

She was getting a step closer to something that seemed indefinitely far.

All she ever wanted was for her father to respect her for the young woman she was becoming. Sure, sixteen was still young but Beyoncé had proven time and time again that she was far more advanced in maturity when compared to her peers.

Roy didn't dismiss her all together, but it seemed once long ago he encouraged her fast growing mind and her curiosity. Beyoncé craved his approval and he gave it to her nearly nurturing her into a child genius.

But once she wasn't so much a child anymore, it was like something changed. Roy no longer wanted to see his daughter become a woman, in fact he feared it. He knew what this cruel world was capable of and couldn't stand the thought of his baby facing it on her own one day. The more that became a reality the more he tried to prevent it.

He told her it was okay to stay in the nest, maybe take on a teaching role here at the boarding school. He began to discourage her curiosity when she stuck her nose places it didn't belong. Questions she asked that he'd normally answer became 'we should discuss this at another time'. Talking about her promising future didn't garner as much enthusiasm from him as it use to.

What Roy's paranoia didn't allow him to see was that Beyoncé clearly saw these changes and felt them emotionally, nothing about it being a good thing to her. She didn't understand why her father was becoming this way, she couldn't make sense of it. Her biggest supporter was turning into her heaviest weight.

And this shift in tone resulted in times like now, her arguing her father down about being ready to take on whatever it was he was holding her back from.

She pulled up a chair sitting down ready to hear what it was the science community had been working on now.

From what she gathered it sounded of a pandemic, possibly a new strain of influenza they'd be tasked with partaking in creating a vaccine for. The thought of creating something that could save the lives of millions excited her.

"As you know we've been tracking climate change, studying it, working on effective means to combat it. Our main focus recently has been the Guliya ice cap in Tibet, a study that begun two decades ago. Our fear has been that rising temperatures could cause the reemergence of pathogens we've never seen before. They've been dormant in glaciers and permafrost for millennia. The community thought we were prepared to handle this, we believed there was more time on our side, but our timeline was incorrect."

Beyoncé could hear the uneasiness in her father's voice as it became more unsure the longer he spoke.

He cleared his throat.

"Recently we finally devised a way to extract pure core samples from the ice cap without our means tainting the bacterium and disrupting the genome finding it to hold virus genera we've never seen. Only four of them we knew... twenty-eight we've never seen." He shook his head repeating that last part almost to himself.

"Between the past couple thousand years to now the planet has warmed nine degrees. We believed it would take another three degrees before the caps melted enough allowing these pathogens to re-emerge and become a threat. A three degree jump would take hundreds, to possibly a few thousand more years. But we were terribly mistaken. In the last ten years alone we've already experienced five tenths of a degree jump."

"Shit. That's ridiculous, how is that even possible? But I mean we still have two and half more degrees right? The cap is melting faster than what was anticipated but there's time to study these pathogens and figure out how they behave." Beyoncé attempted to rationalize.

"No there isn't honey." Dione chimed in.

"The last expedition in January to the Guliya ice cap showed that we were grossly inaccurate with our estimations. In some sort of sick irony it only took three tenths of a degree. Not the three degrees we originally believed."

Beyoncé's stomach sank into her feet realizing what this meant.

"Once new samples and surveys of the surrounding areas were brought back to labs and studied is when we realized the expedition team had been exposed to these pathogens." Dione sighed heavily running a hand over her face.

"If we had the accurate data we would've known to have them in the proper gear to protect them from it but we didn't, and they weren't. They'd already been in contact with possibly several hundred people by the time they were called back to be placed under quarantine."

This was bad, really bad. The kind of bad that made you feel dirty and heavy inside with the begrudging fear of something horribly devastating on the horizon.

"What happened to them?" Beyoncé asked quietly.

Dione looked to Roy before he reluctantly handed her a folder.

Dione opened it carefully staring at it intently before placing it down on the desk pushing it over to her daughter.

Beyoncé released a gasp throwing a hand over her mouth. She sat wide eyed in horror before she reluctantly looked through the rest of the photos.
****
Beyoncé stood at the top of the stair case that led down to the boarding school's main entrance watching as peers left with their families.

Two weeks had passed since her parents revealed to her the horrors of prehistoric virus and bacteria wreaking havoc on the human body. That fast, the outbreak had spread its reach throughout the world causing the World Health Organization to declare a global state of emergency.

The large television that regularly informed with the latest news was on now listing the symptoms to look for in the order they appeared: Twitching hands, achy joints, sunken eyes, fever, foul odored discharge from the navel, skin sores and lacerations, bleeding from the eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.

"You think any of them are going to make it?" Will appeared next to Beyoncé questioning as he looked on as well.

"If they stayed, sure. They won't make it out there." Beyoncé answered shrugging.

Dione and Roy took measures two weeks ago sending out letters to all families notifying them of the "possible" pandemic. They advised each family leave their student here at the boarding school as they are self-sustained, no one came or went ensuring the students would be safest there.

"What do you think is going to happen?" He questioned further.

"Nukes. There's no vaccine right now and this thing is spreading exponentially. It'd be one thing if even a few people were recovering, but the mortality rate is one hundred percent. They're gonna nuke major cities and let rural populations die off."

Beyoncé felt bad for the students leaving knowing she'd likely never see them again. Their families felt they could protect them better than this boarding school could. And maybe some of them could for a while, but majority of them may as well have been signing death certificates.

Foot steps approached behind the pair. Beyoncé glanced over her shoulder being met with the eyes of her friend Natalie. She turned fully to her offering a smile. Only when the smile wasn't returned did she notice the luggage she had in toe.

Sure Beyoncé had been upset about other students leaving, but this caused a sharp and sudden pain in her heart that she couldn't understand.

"You're leaving." She more so stated than asked.

Will took the moment to excuse himself.

Natalie looked down to her feet chewing on her bottom lip.

"There's nothing I can do about it. My parents want me home with them. I don't want to go but-"

"So stay." Beyoncé rushed out not allowing her room to finish he statement.

"Stay Natalie you can't leave, it's not safe."

"Giselle I don't wanna leave, but it's not my choice." She looked back up into her eyes, tears welting in her own.

Beyoncé felt her cheeks growing warm as heat flushed her body. She struggled to keep her breathing even balling her fists by her sides. Tears now obstructing her vision.

Natalie glanced down the steps seeing her parents enter being greeted by Roy and Dione.

She grabbed Beyoncé's hand quickly pulling her back from the top of the steps and into a hall. Natalie wrapped her arms tightly around Beyoncé's neck pulling her into a hug.

Beyoncé badly wanted to tell her she couldn't leave her. They could run off and go hide somewhere, this place had plenty of good hiding spots. They could convince her parents she somehow managed to runaway and she could stay with her.

But instead of saying anything she remained silent hugging her waist as she released silent tears.

Natalie pulled back looking into her eyes.

"Maybe when this is all over, I can come back." She offered a faint smile that hadn't reached her eyes.

Nobody really knew the severity of the situation, there would be no coming back.

Beyoncé still offered no words. She stood silently as Natalie kissed her cheek before departing from her.

She watched her descend down the steps meeting her parents.

They locked eyes one last time as she left the boarding school.

The following week, major cities were bombed with nuclear missiles.
*****
Present day
2019

Onika sat not sure of what to say. She was expecting to hear she was really a mad woman, and this place was some sort of cult she'd joined years ago and had no means to leave. Not that the world had ended.

"So... there's nobody left? Everybody's gone."

"There are people left. But the majority have become crazy savages only concerned with taking whatever resources they can find. They don't care for anyone or anything, only themselves. But we don't either."

Beyoncé stood from where she leaned on the dresser walking towards Onika.

"Down in the lab, is where samples of the virus are kept. We are still working on a vaccine in hopes to rebuild a society one day."

She continued walking forward, Onika's back was already against the door leaving her nowhere to go. Beyoncé stopped nearly chest to chest looking down at the small woman.

"You going into the lab unsupervised placed everyone here at risk. There's a reason you are told not to do things and not to stick your nose places it doesn't belong. You will continue to be left under supervision until I deem appropriate otherwise. Let this be the last time we have this conversation, Nika."

Nika

The nickname resonated in her mind, swimming through her memories caressing the depths of her soul. It woke something in her. The feeling was fleeting but strong nonetheless.

She was remembering something.

"Do you understand me?" The taller woman raised a brow grabbing her attention once again.

Onika nodded fast side stepping to break eye contact.

"I understand." She repeated while opening the door.

"There won't be anymore problems."

Beyoncé gave a lingering stare before leaving her room.

Onika closed the door behind her finally taking a breath.

What the hell was she trying to remember?

Why the hell was she the one to keep triggering her memories?
_________________________________
Hello there all, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. We finally got a brief Introduction with Will, we'll get to meet him present time in the next chapter. Talk to me.

What are y'all's thoughts on the revelation, did you already know? Or did you suspect something else?

Her parents obviously use to be around, but we don't hear about them present day. What do you think happened to them?

How did you feel about Bey's interaction with Natalie👀? Do you think she'll come back?

Onika had another memory triggered (kind of) what's this "feeling" she's feeling 🤔 what do you think her next trigger will be?

We don't have a complete back story yet, but Onika didn't seem to be present in Bey's. How do you think their paths eventually crossed 👀?

Until next time my loves 💜💜💜