“When you mention lime, I think of quarantine,” Teresa said. “For centuries, bodies of those who died from infectious diseases were buried in graves lined with lime. The idea was to prevent the microbe from spreading into the soil and infecting others.”

“We thought the same,” Donald replied. “That perhaps a contagion, an unwanted microorganism, had been imprisoned inside.”

“And since you’ve quarantined the scientists, the egg must have been breached in some way,” Teresa continued. “The second possibility that comes to mind is based on religious narratives.”

She recited a verse first:

“And when the decree of punishment comes upon them, We shall bring forth for them a creature from the earth that will speak to them, for indeed, mankind had no certainty in Our signs.” (27:82)

“We don’t truly know what the creature of the earth — dabbetü’l-arz — is. But the belief is this: when humanity strays, and treachery, injustice, and corruption reach their golden age, God sends a calamity to shake people awake, so they may reckon with themselves.

Floods, earthquakes, hurricanes — natural disasters — could be understood as divine warnings. We can speak of water, fault lines, and winds as the mechanisms. Yet if we accept that nearly every divine act is carried out through an intermediary, then these elements become instruments of destruction, rather than causes in themselves.

Science cannot explain why waters suddenly turn to devastating floods, why tectonic plates move at that precise moment. The absence of answers suggests that these forces move at the instant God wills them to.”

“Returning to the subject,” Teresa continued, “the presence of two eggs brings to mind another apocalyptic warning: the story of Gog and Magog. Who knows—perhaps one egg holds Gog, the other Magog. According to the sacred text, beings or tribes named Gog and Magog once lived in ancient times, sowing terror and rendering their lands uninhabitable. People pleaded for help from a prophet of God named Dhul-Qarnayn.”

“As the revelation tells it, Dhul-Qarnayn erected a barrier between the oppressors and the oppressed, saying: ‘This barrier will endure for many generations, but when humanity forgets the values embedded in its creation—justice, honesty, love—and turns into ravenous beasts, then the barrier will fall. And when it falls, those oppressors—now mingled among humanity—will make the earth writhe with agony.’”

Teresa paused, taking a deep, steady breath to arrange her thoughts, noting how intently Richard and Donald were listening.

“Prophets, at times, are scholars; at times, warriors; at times, inventors or visionaries who lay the foundations of civilizations through their insight and counsel. I could give countless examples, but let me return to the point. According to the sacred narrative, the collapse of that barrier—and the ensuing cries that echo across continents—marks the end time. And if we examine the signs, it is hard not to feel that we are standing squarely in the heart of it.

There are wars; mass deaths in terror attacks that border on genocide; and multitudes condemned to agonizing lives by cancer, cardiovascular disease, and epidemics. There is injustice; the collapse of family structures; rising conflict over debts; thuggery; corruption; violence; escalating psychological disorders and suicides. I could list far more. From East to West, poor to rich, educated to illiterate—every segment of society, in one form or another, is experiencing the acute spiritual distress of the end of days.”

“So you’re saying that modern humanity is suffering destruction—through death, disease, and psychological collapse—because it has abandoned universal and divine values. And because those values have been overturned, because there is unrest everywhere, you describe this period as the end-times. Fine, let’s accept that. Let’s even assume that the two eggs hold Gog and Magog. Then what is this ‘barrier’ you mentioned, and how was it destroyed?”

“As far as I can understand,” Teresa replied, “God leaves certain matters deliberately ambiguous so they can be debated, so that people remember the warnings. Every era should worry: Are we Gog and Magog? Or will they appear at any moment? That anxiety, ideally, keeps people from embracing injustice and tyranny. I’m only speculating. In truth, only God knows who Gog and Magog are, and where the barrier stands.”

She paused, then added, “In my view: earlier, Professor Richard said filth is contained by surrounding it with lime. These eggs may contain filth—whether you call it Gog-Magog, or the creature of the earth mentioned in scripture. The lime encasing them might be the barrier described in revelation. Perhaps, through a natural process like melting ice caused by global warming, that barrier is collapsing.”

Noticing Donald walking away toward another section of the facility, Teresa lowered her voice.

“Or maybe,” she whispered, “a tyrant—the embodiment of modern cruelty and indifference—has shattered the barrier with his own hands. If so, the ice mountains, and the lime shells of these eggs, can both be interpreted as the barrier.”

“I don’t truly believe in any of this,” Richard admitted, “but I can’t say you’re wrong. There are countless phenomena science has not explained, and what you’re describing fits within that space. You linked the subject to Gog and Magog, but you never explained the creature in the verse—the ‘beast of the earth.’”

“‘Dabbetü’l-arz’ simply means a creature that moves upon the earth,” Teresa said. “Let’s think together. Give me the name of a living being that exists everywhere on the planet—everywhere, on every square meter.”

“There’s no such animal,” the professor said.

“Then you tell me,” she replied softly, “what existed before microscopes, before humanity even knew single-celled organisms existed?”

The professor smiled faintly. “Yes,” he said. “I understand what you’re referring to.”

“Ages before the invention of the microscope, people already spoke of single-celled organisms. As you said, they called them tiny worms, invisible to the eye. Ancient medical texts even describe them as causes of disease. So yes, the ‘creature of the earth’ could be interpreted as a one-celled being—bacteria, viruses, something of that kind. Considering that throughout history these organisms have killed millions, even billions; that cities were reduced to rubble by plagues; that entire civilizations vanished; that people abandoned their homes and wandered homeless across the earth, crying to God in desperation—yes, microbes can certainly resemble the creature described.”

“If divine revelation had said ‘single-celled organisms,’ who would have understood it? So scripture uses a word the common person could grasp—or at least guess at correctly.”

“What troubles me is this,” the professor said. “Despite everything, most of the world still believes in God. Most national leaders are religious people who attend churches, mosques, synagogues. So shouldn’t that mean we are not living in the end-times?”

“You’re missing something crucial,” Teresa said, brushing her hand through the air as if sweeping dust aside.
“I’ve seen people who claim, ‘I am Christian, I am Jewish, I am Muslim, I believe in God,’ and yet slaughter innocent civilians, or worse, turn a blind eye to atrocities. I’ve seen religious leaders who care nothing about injustice, corruption, or exploitation. It doesn’t take genius to see that those who once crucified Jesus now crucify universal values in new disguises. A person who truly believes in God cannot do such things.

And these injustices are not brief lapses, not moments of weakness. They are systematic, organized, sustained. And I’ve never heard the perpetrators say, ‘People, I was wrong; if I had the chance, I’d undo the harm I caused.’ That is why the scripture says humans do not truly believe—they do not believe with conviction. Of course, not everyone is equally oppressive, but by failing to fulfill their moral duty, people become accomplices to injustice, whether greatly or slightly.”

She looked at him pointedly.
“There is another sacred text that refers to microbes as horses. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard that, either.”

Teresa thought to herself,
“The professor, like most people, didn’t realize that what I explained about Gog–Magog and the creature of the earth is mentioned in the Muslims’ holy book, the Qur’an. It’s a good thing; I won’t have to deal with unnecessary prejudice. He also didn’t notice that when I said ‘another divine revelation,’ I meant the Holy Bible. Best to keep it vague and just say ‘divine revelation’.”

“I don’t know,” the professor said, “words like priest or pastor to me are just cultural relics of my ancestors. I’ve never read the Holy Book or the Muslims’ book.”

“You should read both,” Teresa replied, then continued.
“In Revelation, chapter six, there is the image of the Four Horsemen. The first, the white horse, symbolizes life. The second, the blood-red horse, symbolizes war. The third, the black horse, symbolizes famine, poverty, and injustice. And the fourth, which concerns us, is the pale, deathly horse—symbolizing plague and pestilence. When humankind forgets the message preached by Christ and other prophets—‘People, be brothers and sisters, be just, treat your differences as a chance to know one another, not a reason to fight’—then tyrants intoxicated with power drive the world into chaos. And the fourth horseman rides across continents, forcing humanity to face the cost of its indifference. Of course, there is no literal horse. Perhaps an angel, or some unseen being, carries the microbes across the earth.”

She fell silent. After a moment of silence, Professor Richard asked,
“What happened? Did something come to mind?”

“I was trying to remember the name of the researcher you mentioned in the lecture,” Teresa said, rubbing her thumb against her index and middle fingers. “Got it,” she continued.
“You talked about a researcher named Sonea, and his thesis.”

“Yes,” Richard nodded.
“It takes millions of years for a bacterium, through random mutation, to produce antibiotic-resistant descendants. Yet we see bacteria and viruses becoming drug-resistant in just a few years. That’s why Sonea’s thesis—that microbes communicate with each other—can be taken seriously.”

“The communication may have taken place through electromagnetic waves. When we say ‘angel,’ we shouldn’t imagine only a large, human-like being with a head, arms, and wings. An energy wave can also be defined as an angel. And to help people understand, divine revelation may describe such an entity with the metaphor of a horse. In order for ordinary people to grasp the message, divine texts often use symbolic stories and analogies.”

“You’re different from the religious people I know. A Christian, even though he claims to believe in the same God, wouldn’t want to sit in the same room with a Muslim. And if a Muslim quoted the Bible the way you just did, other Muslims would accuse him of being a Vatican agent and would tear him apart.”

“Don’t call me religious. I have idealist, activist friends who think just like me, even if they’re communists. The prejudice and intolerance you’re talking about have existed in every era, stirred up by agitators. Centuries ago, an idealist cry declared:

‘O Muslims, I do not know myself. I am neither Christian nor Jew nor Muslim. I am neither of the East nor of the West, neither of the lowly nor of the mere elements. I am not of the turning heavens, not of India nor of the jinn. I am not from the land of Iraq, nor from the soil of Khorasan. My mark is no mark, my dwelling is no place.

We are not from here or there. We came from above, and to above we will return. We came from the sea, and to the sea we will return. We came from a place without place, and to a place without place we will go.’”

“Whose words are these—this beautiful homage to universality?” the professor asked, but the question was left unanswered as Donald walked back toward them.

He switched the monitor to the live feed, showing the conditions of the scientists inside the quarantine, and asked:

“Which outbreak do these symptoms belong to?”

The professor understood they had finally arrived at the core of the matter. Teresa sensed something unusual in Donald’s tone. It wasn’t a neutral, diagnostic question—it sounded like a challenge, almost as if he were saying: explain this madness to me.

Inside the quarantine, the scientists were frequently removing parts of their clothing, stepping closer to the camera to show their symptoms—faces, necks, even the inside of their mouths. One man in particular was trying to show the underside of his tongue, and the edges of his gums.

“This one must be from a Scandinavian country,” Teresa muttered, grimacing. “What is wrong with his mouth? It looks terrible.”

The professor tilted his head, scrutinizing the screen.

“He displays almost all the defining signs. And judging by the swelling on his shoulder, along the neck, and behind the ear, his condition is not good at all.”

“Can you diagnose the disease precisely?” Donald asked, eyes wide with an impatient, almost childlike curiosity.

“The red-blue discoloration in the oral mucosa suggests Kaposi’s sarcoma. The whitish patches on the inner cheeks are what laypeople call thrush—clinically, we refer to it as oral candidiasis. The next significant finding is the hair-like appearance on the dorsum of the tongue. For these symptoms—especially candidiasis and a hairy tongue—to manifest, there must be a severe dysfunction in the immune system. The swelling in the brain and behind the ear indicates a disease affecting the lymphatic system.”

“I’m asking you one thing,” Donald said, eyebrows tightening.
“Does this disease have a name?”

The professor shrugged.
“I can’t palpate or examine the lesions myself, but every single indicator we see is consistent with HIV—specifically, AIDS. That much is clear.”

Donald fast-forwarded the footage and revealed another scientist. The man was trembling, constantly wiping his nose, sneezing, coughing, collapsing onto the floor. He spent most of the time lying down, pulling a blanket over himself. Watching closely, the professor noticed fluid dripping from both his nose and eyes.

“So what is this one suffering from?” Donald asked.

“You don’t need to be a professor to answer that,” Teresa interjected.
Donald shot her a venomous look, but she continued:

“This man has flu-like symptoms—triggered by viruses like adenovirus or rhinovirus. Just look at him; he’s clearly very sick.”

She watched as the man opened his mouth toward the camera.
“With influenza, you often see bacterial pharyngitis as a secondary infection. But he doesn’t have redness at the back of his throat, nor difficulty swallowing. That means it’s not pharyngitis.”

Donald’s stare made his thoughts painfully clear:
Teresa, stop interfering.

Richard jumped in to diffuse the tension.
“She’s right, but the problem is that flu and the new coronavirus share so many overlapping symptoms that distinguishing them is extremely difficult.”

“Fine—but what is a newly emerged coronavirus doing buried under ice in the middle of nowhere?”

The professor shook his head.
“If we’re asking that, then we should also ask what HIV is doing here.”

Donald behaved as though he hadn’t heard any of the conversation. He fast-forwarded the recording and brought another scientist into view.
Watching the zoomed image, the professor murmured,
“We can diagnose this one with certainty as well.”

“There are yellow and red patches on the skin, and those large purulent blisters on the face and body are the next stage of those lesions. These patients smell like rotten flesh; that is likely why the others are keeping their distance—because of the foul stench coming off him.”

They continued watching a slightly accelerated version of the footage. The professor leaned back in his chair and gestured at the screen, as if saying everything was obvious.

“The fact that he keeps holding his abdomen suggests chest pain and abdominal pain,” he said, before delivering his conclusion:
“I have no doubt this man has smallpox.”

They watched further footage sped up. One of the scientists was seen repeatedly going to the bathroom and spending most of his time there. Richard noted,
“This man is likely suffering from diarrhea caused by rotavirus. Some bacteria can do the same, but the leading cause is rotavirus.”

He then focused on another researcher, whose face was covered with numerous red spots.
“This patient should be measles,” the professor said.

A silence fell over the room until Teresa could no longer contain herself.
“What kind of quarantine is this? As far as I know, a quarantine involves a single contagious agent. This place looks like the United Nations of microbes. Judging by the symptoms, every pathogen imaginable is here.”

Richard laughed and glanced at Teresa.
“Yes, you’re right—though your metaphor is missing a piece. More like a United Nations without the Africans,” he said, then shifted back into a serious tone.

“So far, we’ve clearly diagnosed five patients with viral infections. Based on their sneezing and coughing, we can say they likely have the flu, or may have contracted coronavirus. But not one of them shows symptoms of bacterial infection.”

Donald cut in.

“How can we distinguish infectious diseases caused by viruses from those caused by bacteria?”

“The earliest epidemic disease we know of in history is malaria,” he began.
“Plasmodium is responsible for malaria. Mosquitoes transmit it as they feed on human blood. The patient’s abdomen becomes distended, and the spleen enlarges. Malaria kills very slowly. By draining stagnant water and swamps, the disease was eventually controlled.

Mycobacterium leprae, the bacterium that causes leprosy, killed many people as well. The skin becomes severely compromised. There are ulcerations; the facial skin wrinkles, giving the patient an aged appearance. The hands and feet resemble animal claws. The nose decays in fragments, and eyebrows and hair can completely disappear.”

“Ancient people believed leprosy was God’s punishment for those who could not restrain their sexual desires, for the adulterers and deceivers,” Teresa interjected.
“In the Book of Leviticus, cleanliness is said to please God, impurity to anger Him. They interpreted the emergence of leprosy as the consequence of disobeying God’s command for purity. And in another divine narrative, when Moses descended from Mount Sinai and found his people worshipping the golden calf, he halted their depravity. When he learned that Samiri had led them astray, he said to him: ‘As God’s punishment, you will not allow anyone to touch you. Whoever touches you will suffer unbearable torment. Tell those around you: there shall be no contact between us.’”

“What Moses described as punishment must have been leprosy,” she concluded.

“Yes, there are beliefs that God will cast the lepers into a liminal state,” the professor said, continuing.
“Although leprosy did not vanish completely, its spread was eventually contained. Then another bacterial disease emerged — plague, known among the people as the Black Death. It generally affects the lungs; in many cases, the patient dies within twenty-four hours. Nosebleeds, dark blotches on the skin, egg-shaped swellings in the lymphatic regions, and high fever are its defining symptoms. The Black Death ravaged the world especially in the fourteenth century. It is estimated that twenty-three million lives were lost. The last major outbreak was in France in the eighteenth century; how it disappeared from human concern afterwards remains unknown.

In medicine, syphilis — known colloquially as the pox — is caused by Treponema pallidum. It is believed to have spread from the Americas to the rest of the world. Its primary route of transmission is sexual intercourse. Patients develop ulcers around the genitals and face, ring-shaped, as though punctured with a circular stamp. These ulcers are characteristic of syphilis. Today, the disease is mostly found among a limited number of people involved in illicit sexual relations. Outside Africa, it is extremely rare.

Typhus, another bacterial epidemic, emerged in Ireland along with the potato famine. And Mycobacterium tuberculosis — tuberculosis — surfaced especially during the Industrial Revolution, when harsh living conditions triggered its spread. The lungs fail, and bleeding occurs.”

 “So you’ve listed seven or eight bacterial epidemics”Teresa said. “And as far as I can tell, in both viral outbreaks like AIDS and bacterial ones like syphilis or tuberculosis, there are overlapping symptoms. We can’t diagnose everything based solely on symptoms.”

Donald responded with mocking admiration.
“The smart scientist is, as usual, not wrong,” he said, handing her a stack of microbiology lab results.

“Before you arrived, we collected blood, urine, and swab samples from every person in quarantine and sent them to the lab,” Donald said. “As you already noted, each of them carries a different infectious disease — and more interestingly, every one of those diseases is viral.”

“In any quarantine, there is usually one dominant virus,” Richard replied. “Which is why everyone ends up with the same illness. I’ve never seen a quarantine with multiple viral diseases coexisting like this. Yes, we can carry different pathological viruses at any given time, but in very low numbers — dormant, invisible. Yet looking at this place, it’s as if different viruses are communicating, dividing the hosts among themselves. It’s bizarre…”

“Let’s get to the real question,” Teresa said. “Don’t tell me that egg is just sitting there untouched. You tried something. Something leaked from it.”

Donald let out a dark chuckle.
“All right then — get ready to watch a horror film. The answer is right here.”

On the screen appeared footage of Kathy, moving as if spellbound, striking the egg with a hammer, while Professor Nash desperately tried to stop her. Later, Kathy lay fainted on the floor, then revived, staring in confusion — as if awakening from a dream she could not remember.

“I hate to say this,” Teresa whispered, “but something clearly took control of her mind — even if only for a moment.” She raised her eyes. “After that, did anyone else behave like a zombie?”

“No. Just that one incident.”

Teresa shook her head slowly.
“In prisons, inmates are counted morning and evening. Even with full surveillance systems, the practice continues. Now tell me — you said there were six researchers in quarantine. So why have we only seen five of them since morning? One of them is either dead or escaped. And my guess is escape.”

“You need to be honest with us if you expect our help,” Professor Richard said, furrowing his brow.

“I don’t think that’s the real bombshell,” Teresa replied.
“I compared the date when the research team arrived here — the timestamp on that footage — with the unofficial timeline of when the coronavirus first emerged. Guess what conclusion I reached.”

Richard narrowed his eyes.
“My God… you might be right, Teresa.”

All eyes shifted to Donald. He shook his head slowly from side to side before speaking.

“Yes. Unfortunately, you’re correct. The scientist who escaped from here infected the world with corona.”