I woke up with a stuffed up nose. Thankfully, I had a box at my computer that I pulled from to keep from being too snotty as I worked. My assignments did not pause on account of sniffles! I brought up the workload, logging into my work network and getting right into it.

My computer at work's monitor was off, as it usually was. I liked imagining sometimes that it was on, that people wandering past might see the ghost employee working so busily on windows that flickered in and out and numbers and data flowing in with no person there to do it. I was the ghost in the machine!

News was playing, offering some background noise for the whole thing. A naval ship was getting more and more cases of the disease even as they tried to disembark the ship. Why couldn't they just walk the people off, I didn't know. Most of my attention was on the datasets I had to get right.

A sudden cough interrupted me, my face turning to stuff my chubby checks into my elbow, not that there was anyone else in the house to even possibly infect with whatever was bothering me. What was bothering me? I hadn't been sick the day before. The shot? That was ludicrous. Even if it was filled to the brim with the plague, I wouldn't start showing symptoms that fast, right?

Heck, the biggest problem with the current disease was how long it took to go from 'you have it and can spread it' to 'oh, and you notice something's even wrong'. It had to be something I had before the shot. Maybe a normal flu, or just the classic cold, there to bother me and reduce my productivity.

A lone cough and some sniffles wasn't going to stop me. I gathered myself and got back to work. I won't bore you with the data I was busy entering. Besides, there were confidentiality agreements on it and even if I want to share this story with you, breaking the rules of my work don't have to be included, as if you needed to know that part anyway.

You'll have to settle with learning about little me instead. With the morning's workload out of the way, I checked my email for updates. Oh, there was Doctor Miller's letter. Right, I was supposed to update that PDF. I downloaded it and opened it up to have a look. I went ahead and filled out the parts that wouldn't be changing. I had no plans to get my name switched in the coming days, or my address. Those I filled out and saved, then made a copy to do the first day with.

These are the data entry tips you came for, I imagine. Either way, I waffled about how I was feeling. It couldn't be the shot's fault, right? Would putting my sniffle down contaminate the results? With a soft grunt, I pushed ahead. Honesty. Lying on medical reports for a study sure sounded like a bad idea all things considered and I went ahead and wrote exactly how I was feeling.

Temperature? I stood up and made my way into the bathroom where the thermometer was kept and that's when I saw it. One of my eyes was a bright yellow outside and vibrant red on the inside. That was not how I went to sleep the night before, I swear! I squealed in shock and jumped back, just to slowly expose the changed eye to the mirror. Yep, there it was, almost taunting me to try and hope it was fake again.

The strangest part, to me, was that it didn't hurt. I could see through it just fine. Hell, I'd been doing my work with one of my eyes looking like... that, and didn't even notice until I had a good look at it. The other eye was perfectly normal and unchanged, healthy as can be. Did I catch some kind of nasty version of pink eye? Was that what had given me my runny nose and cough? That would... explain part of it.

Still, temperature, right. I grabbed the thermometer and fled that mirror. What lousy timing, I swear. I popped the thermometer under my tongue and sat down at my computer to add my eye condition to the report. While I was doing that, I went ahead and noted my suspicion, that I had caught some other secondary illness that was throwing things off. I wasn't a doctor, they'd get to puzzle through that, but at least I could share my opinion for what it was worth.

I didn't think you could mess up being a clinical study, really. And yet, there I was doing it. A soft beep informed me the thermometer had its result and I pulled it out to have a peek. 99 degrees. That was definitely a fever, but a mild one. That could be a reaction to the vaccine, or whatever crazy variety of pink eye I was experiencing. Either way, I noted it down on the sheet.

It asked a lot of other things that weren't terribly relevant. No, I wasn't experiencing any digestive problems. No, no problems breathing, thank God. Basically a check list of symptoms of the primary disease, which I was thankfully not showing too much of outside of the cough that came and left. A mild cough at best. All dutifully written down. I saved the file and attached it to a reply to the doctor.

Here's the first of the daily updates. Since I'm here, do you know anything about the eye thing? Do I have pink eye? That has light sensitivity, right? I don't think I have that, and I can still see clearly. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have known it was a thing at all. I know you're not, technically, my general practitioner, but you are a doctor, so I figured I'd ask.

Thanks,
Lauren

I hit send. Day 1 of clinical duties, complete! I hummed a little victory song to myself as I went to the next email in the queue needing digging through.

A different kind of music began to play. Someone was calling me on the computer. I hit answer reflectively and the smiling face of a friend appeared, but that smile faded almost instantly. "What happened to you?!" came the alarmed cry of my lady friend.

"I'm fine!" I pulled out a little mirror to make sure I hadn't grown a second head from the way she had reacted.

"Your eye! That looks... bad. Girl, have you gotten that looked at?" She was leaning in close to her screen, making her closer to the camera. "Look at me."

"Cindy, you're overreacting." I did look at her though, or more specifically I faced my webcam and leaned in towards it, giving her a good look at my yellow and red eye. "Doesn't hurt. I can see just fine."

"That's not normal," firmly insisted Cindy. "Tell me you're already talking to a doctor about that."

"I am, actually, but that's not what you called for, right?" I sat back in my seat and brushed the thermometer to the side with the tissues. "What's up?"

"Just checking in on a friend," she assured with a little smile returning. "I was hoping seeing your happy face would remind me not everything in the world is falling apart." Well, that had been ruined. "It doesn't hurt at all? It looks..."

I reached up and tapped the side of my head, basically tapping the eye where only the eyelid was keeping my finger from touching the orb itself. "Not a bit of pain, I promise. Here." I closed my unchanged eye. "Alright, test me."

She held up two fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Two. See, working just fine. No tears, no pain, just sniffles." I reached for a little bag of nuts I kept. Battle supplies, just the thing for a hard day's work.

"If you're sure," she allowed with little confidence in her voice. "Do you have a dry cough? Can you breathe alright?"

"Eye color changes are not on the Covid symptom list," I firmly noted with a bit of a smirk. "I do have a little cough, but just a little. Hey, you know they're testing a vaccine for that right now?"

"Right now?" She seemed surprised. "So fast! Amazing how much science gets done when the entire world decides it's worth spending money on. Call me back when it's actually out there. So... you sure you're alright? Want me to bring over some soup?"

I smiled at that. Cindy really made some fine soup. "I would be delighted to have a big bowl of your soup any day, sniffles or not. So how are you doing? Keeping inside?"

"It's driving me crazy, but yes." She reached to prod the camera, her finger dominating the view a moment. "If it wasn't for the Internet, I would have gone loopy already. The inside life is not my life. How do you handle it?! Don't you want to talk to people?"

"I love talking to people." In limited doses. "We're talking right now." I smiled at her, hopefully in a comforting way. "We'll get through this, my lovely extrovert. When this is over, you can drag me out to something loud and busy, since you've given my lifestyle such an earnest try."

"I will hold you to that," she warned, wagging a finger at me. "But, today, you're getting soup, and I have an excuse to step outside this house. I'd give you a hug, but..."

Well, really, there were many good reasons for us not to hug that day. I obviously had something, and there was the disease making the rounds. Social distancing and all that. "No hugs today. Soup, on the other hand. I'll gladly accept that."

"And soup you will have." She stood up, giving me a fine view of her shirt-covered belly and little else before she turned and left the frame entirely. "I'll get right on that. A little of momma's special recipe will chase away the creepy crawlies and put a smile right on those pinchable cheeks of yours."

Those pinchable cheeks warmed with a blush. "Hey..." So I was a little chubby. I worked from home much of the time even before it became cool. I wasn't an athletic or trim person. That didn't mean my friends had to make fun of it.

"You know I love them, and the rest of you. Now you sit back and wait for me to stop by. Oh, shoot. I forgot to hang up and I'm already in the next room. Could you do it?" I could hear the sounds of her preparing things. Pots, metal striking metal. A fridge opened and closed. She was in her cooking element.

"See you when you get here," I said even as I pressed the hang up button, terminating the call. At least lunch would be thoroughly handled! It was good to have friends, even if I didn't feel the urge to party loudly with them.

The rest of the email was fairly normal. Donate to this, click this. Buy that! Alarming news! Speaking of that, the news was still playing in the background. Oh, there was Trump giving an overview of what the federal government was doing. Then there were governors saying the federal government wasn't doing enough. Clearly, nobody involved was terribly happy. They'd stopped talking about this all breezing over by Easter, so there was that.

At least I didn't live in New York, poor people. Maybe the vaccine I was testing would work great and then everyone would get it and we could put it all behind us with only a major recession to worry about! That'd be a step up, right? Still, at least I knew I was doing my part. I was staying inside, keeping calm, and even allowing doctors to poke me with strange chemicals that could maybe help.

A sudden knocking woke me from my thoughts. I got up quickly and did a little dash to the door. Peeking through the window in it, I could see Cindy outside, but she was not at the door. She had already backed up a small distance on the sidewalk leading away from my door. I opened it with a bright smile. "Cindy!"

"Laura!" We exchanged a hug. In the air. We remained quite separated. "Now you go eat that up and don't leave a drop behind." She pointed towards my feet where a big plastic container rested, probably with the soup. Could you even call it a soup? The soup she made was jam packed with stuff. More of a stew? It wasn't time to argue over the terminology.

I plucked it up and held it close. "You are an absolute darling. Thank you."

"You can thank me by getting better." She blew a kiss and headed back towards the curb where her car was still running. "I'll check in on you tomorrow!"

I waved at her until she had pulled away and was speeding down the road at a little over the speed limit. She was a good friend. I hip-bumped the door shut and made my way towards the living room to set down the soup, then went and got a big bowl and poured out much of the soup into it. It was time to enjoy some soup made with love.

And you really could taste her love. Mmm, love was mildly spicy, definitely savory, and just so, so good. It's like magic, that soup she can make. I just forgot about my sniffles and my cough stayed away until I had savored every little bit of it. I felt so much better, warmer on the inside, and just...

It was really nice having a friend that'd rush to do that for you. Seriously, most people wouldn't, right? Would I rush to do that? Probably not... My cooking was tepid at best. I could remote-order them a pizza! Yes, next friend who seemed upset was getting a surprise pizza.

I put what little remained of the life-giving brew into the fridge, feeling like a new woman. I was cured! My reflection was quite visible in the shiny chrome side of my fridge, that yellow and red eye losing the lines of a happy smile quickly. Well, I wasn't entirely cured, clearly...

Why only one eye? Was that normal? Well, any change of colors wasn't normal, but what affected one eye and not the other? Was this how old people ended up with one cloudy eye? I wanted both eyes, thank you. I returned to my computer but couldn't quite plant myself there. I paced and set my hands on the chair and roamed about it, but didn't sit in it. I was a bit worked up. Can you blame me?

Eventually, I got my butt back in the chair and finished out the day without anything more annoying than the occasional cough. My sniffles did return. It was still great soup.

The next morning, the first thing I did was rush to the bathroom. My left eye was still yellow and red. My right eye, unchanged and as it always had been. I could still see just fine. I even did a little impromptu sight test, covering each and reading small text. The coloration didn't seem to be coming with any pain or lack of vision.

It just looked weird.

I took my temperature, 99.1. That was barely a difference, but I did data entry. You entered it as you saw it. I pulled up a copy of the daily trial PDF and got to filling it out, a little bowl of the remainder of the soup sitting there, being sipped on as I worked.

A typo. Now, I never claimed to be perfect, who is? But it wasn't the first. My typing was just... off. And it seemed to be specific keys. Was my keyboard going? I jammed the w key a few times, no, it responded each time. e e e e, no, that worked too, but when I was typing something that used both, like 'when', I would smash w or e twice instead of when they were called for.

Was I slipping? I was getting worked up over the cough, which I still had, and the eye thing. "Calm down, Laura," I chastised myself, taking a slow breath. "You'll get through this." None of this was lethal. None of this was close to lethal. I couldn't let it get me down and degrade my typing. I needed my typing!

I had completed the daily checkup and went to find the email to reply to. Oh, he had replied. I opened it right up.

Good Day, Lauren,

I got your report, thank you for being prompt with it. I'm sorry you've caught a cold, but can confidently say that you're probably alright on that front. Your fever isn't nearly high enough to launch into immediate concern, but let's keep an eye on that.

Speaking of that, the condition of your left eye is concerning. This isn't an entirely new side effect.

It wasn't? They hadn't told me that! Or had it been in the sense bits of legalese I'd skimmed over while doing my paperwork? They could have saved me a lot of headache and worry by making little things like that clear from the get go. A little hysterical laugh escaped me as I continued reading.

While not harmful, can imply a specific reaction to the vaccine we were hoping we'd gotten rid of.

Oh, lovely. I was the second stage, and the first stage's glitches were still in there. Oh, the scowl I was wearing, but I had to know more.

For your safety, perhaps you should come by sooner than we expected, so we can monitor you more closely and keep you safe. Your health is our number one priority, and I'm not just typing that. If you're reading this, you may have already done the second day's report. Please do send that with any changes. How are you feeling?

How was I feeling? Not so great, if I was being honest, and most of that was focused on what I was just reading.

If you can come back, let me know in the email.

See You Soon,
Dr. Miller

Great, just... great. I got to typing in a reply, my fingers slamming against keys to vent my annoyance, even if the typos kept coming more often than I would have wanted.

Morning,

I did my r~~w~~eport. ~~E~~Why d~~u~~d~~m~~n't you--

I'll spare you from seeing the rest of the typos, but trust me, all over the place. I could see them. I could feel them. I was doing my best to fix them as quickly as they came up.

tell me about the possible side-effects? The eye thing really freaked me out. It scared a friend of mine too (Video call). My typing's down the toilet, but that could be stress. Just adding that here in case? When's a good time to swing by? You have something to put my eye back the way it should be?

Watching For Replies With Both Eyes,
Lauren

I jammed the send button and got back to work. I didn't call in sick. For one, I was already home. For two, whatever was happening with my eyes wasn't enough to not do my part. In fact, I was rapidly growing more annoyed at my typing than my eyes. I even tried meditating, just taking a break to do some calm breathing, listening to beach noises, lighting that stick of incense I had gotten three Christmases ago and never bothered to use. Whatever I tried, it wasn't helping, but it did reveal something.

My middle and ring fingers refused to play nice. They wanted to be closer together. When I really focused on it, I could force them to do what I wanted them to do, but when I was just casually typing, one or the other would slip in the way and the typos would come out in force. Holding up my hands, I could see how the other fingers could spread out wide, but those two, on both hands, were just more comfortable together.

This deserved an update. I pulled up my email and, oh, he had replied again.

Good day,

You should definitely come in. I'll be here all today, if that works? If you don't feel confident, I can have someone by to pick you up instead. If I don't get a reply from you in three hours, I'll try calling the number you left with me. Please reply as soon as you see this and we'll get that taken care of.

Oh, so they did have an answer? Well, thank goodness. With a relieved smile, I hit reply. The timestamps said he had sent it about an hour before that, well before the three hours when he'd assume something awful had happened to me.

Hey, Doctor. I'll come by today then. Sorry if this messes with the trial, but I need my fingers to work! They don't come apart like they're supposed to and it's really messing with my typing speed and accuracy. That's basically my entire job, so I need that fixed.

See You Soon,
Laura

Music suddenly began to play. It was Cindy. I slapped answer and her face appeared. "Hey! Oh, still all freaky eyed. Feeling any better today?"

I smiled. Cindy brought that out of me. "After your soup? How can I not feel better?" I lied, perhaps a little. "Still got the eye thing, but the cough's not that bad, temperature's about the same."

"You drank it all?" she asked, leaning in and getting that 'mom is judging you' look on her face.

I held up the bowl that had held the last of it and ceremoniously slurped up the last little bit of it. "All gone. Thank you, Cindy. Seriously, best part of the day. You are one of the best friends I have."

"I try to be everyone's best friend," she retorted with a smile. "At least the people worth it, which you are. Now you tell your work you're checking out for a day or two and go back to bed."

"Look, relax." I held up a hand, even if two of the fingers were closer than I had planned them being. "I'm going to see a doctor, today even. He'll figure out what's up."

"He better." She crossed her arms. "Don't let them go poking you with experimental drugs or nothin'. I want my Laura back in one piece."

Oops, that bit of advice was at least a few days late. "I'll be careful." Oh, the lies we weave. "Want me to call you when I get back?"

"Yes! Please. As soon as you can, let me know what they say. Before you go getting worried, fretting over you is better than worrying about the big wide world out there. It can take care of itself. I'm here for you, Lauren." I responded to both variations of that name. Laura, Lauren, or even, rarely, Lore. "I'd offer to drive you there myself if it wasn't for this stupid distance thing."

"No need to end up with you getting whatever I have." I grabbed a tissue to deposit some phlegm in. "Aside from what feels like a good cold, I'm still fine. I can breathe, I can type--" Mostly, I kept to myself. "--, and I'm doing my work. Speaking of that, I'll finish that and head over to the doctor."

"Just take care of yourself. Give me a call the instant you get back." She waved at me, fingers wriggling, and she vanished, the call ended.

And get some sleep.

The message appeared in the chat program from her. At least I had friends.

Author's Note

Did I mention 4k updates? Because we're doing 4k updates, oh the horror! 2 days down!

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