Thank you!

Tw - death, passive suicidality, animal experiments.

Edit: fixed the formatting

She looked down at the glass. "Lemon-lime", she said.

"Oh my god, did you just drink it?" He freaked out. While already grabbing a needle, he went on. "We have to knock you out immediately. Then, we can slow it down and maybe I can find a way-"

She put the glass down. "No", she said.

He froze. "What?"

"No. You're not gonna try to save me."

The scientist looked at her in confusion. "But- you're gonna die. Very, very painfully and slowly. I'm- I'm serious, that shit is the definition of deadly!"

"No, Sir", she said. Her yellow eyes watched the small fish in the tank next to her. They were destined to die, too. There were experiments planned to be performed on them the next day. But they didn't know that. They just went on with their time, eating the food they had gotten just a minute ago and swimming around in their little universe. "Am I contagious?"

"Not unless you get eaten"

She nodded. "I admire you, Sir" She picked up her coat. "Although this was my fault because I made the mistake, you didn't even tell me I did something wrong." She put on her coat, it was cold outside after all. "You just went on to saving me." Her gloves were next, then her phone disappeared in a pocket. "You're working in here, day and night. Just to save them. That's admirable. I'll see you sooner or later"

The scientist was so surprised, he couldn't even answer. He could just watch her walk out, into the world. She was one of the fishes - only she knew her destiny. But she didn't care either. She had made peace with death a long time ago, and she wouldn't stress herself about it now. She walked and walked while the pain grew stronger and stronger. The sun set and she kept walking, although much slower by now. At midnight, her legs gave in. She collapsed onto the ground, but she kept crawling. And she didn't mind. She crawled for a whole night - first over streets and stone, later over grass and moss. The trees of the forest were dark and calming, and she smiled the whole way. Once the sun rose, her arms gave in as well. And she just laid there, in more pain than you could possibly imagine. Worse than any human had ever experienced. But she didn't care.

And the scientist didn't either. She had been wrong. As soon as she had left the room, he had locked the door again. He had gone back to his work, unbothered and uncaring. He didn't mind her death. He didn't care about the others. He also didn't work to save them - they were just kids, they were reproducible. He wasn't. He worked to save himself. In the afternoon, he killed the fishes for his own sake.

And she got eaten by an animal. He was infected a month later. He died, too.