One

Abby could not believe what she was doing. She was going out, like actually out. Out into the real world. It had been such a long time that she had  been out somewhere. For the last 5 years the only places she had really ever been in were her bedroom, the restroom, the living room and the kitchen. It wasn't until a psychologist told her she needed to do a type of therapy called "exposure therapy" that she had started going out bit by bit but always to the lesser crowded places. Just being able to build up that kind of courage to do that kind of therapy had been very hard for her. She would get the worst kind of panic attacks at the beginning and those panic attacks alone caused enough fear for her to never again want to step a foot out of her apartment. But she was given medications and those medications helped calm those panic attacks. She would still have them but they weren't as severe and were easier to manage. But just when she was finally starting to feel a bit comfortable going to the convenience store around the corner, a deadly virus started to spread all around the world. And that virus only gave her another reason to fear going out.

Because of this virus she even started fearing doing something as simple as going out to get her own mail, her mom was the one that had to take it to her. And getting her mail wasn't the only thing her mom did for her. Every Friday evening her mom would go to her apartment to take her all her groceries and necessities. Without her mom and that food she took her, Abby would have most likely been dead.

She was really only alive because her mom took care of her. But her mom was starting to get old, she was almost 63. And because of this Abby started feeling like a burden to her own mother. She wasn't the only that was sick after all, her mom was sick as well. But what Abby was sick of was something that could actually be worked on and cured unlike her mom's Diabetes that only got worse with time.

Her dad's health was just as bad or perhaps even worse, he was older than her mom after all. She couldn't keep depending on them. They had already taken care of her when she was a kid and now it was her turn to take care of them. But she wouldn't be able to do that if she wasn't even able to take care of her own self. She was going to need to take charge of her life no matter how scary or hard it was going to be.

She didn't have to do all the things she couldn't do right away. Her psychologist told her she could take things slowly, that it was actually better that way because that's what exposure therapy was about. To slowly expose herself to things she found hard to do. To anyone else such a thing would sound easy but to Abby it was a very scary thing. Not only would she be exposing herself to all the dangers of the world like getting in a car accident, being shot, being stabbed, but she feared becoming vulnerable to such situations.

She feared not being able to get help if she were to need it and that was one of her worst fears, to need help but not be able to receive it. She felt helpless out in the real world because it wasn't like she could control things from happening just like she hadn't been able to control the accident that made her the way she was.

Fear was Abby's constant companion. It never left her alone. It stuck on her like a leech but instead of sucking her blood, it sucked her life. And even though she was breathing and her heart was still beating, she wasn't really living.  Because living is much more than just those two things. Living meant being able to do things you wanted to do and even things you didn't want to. But yet Abby couldn't even do something as simple as grocery shopping, the most essential thing in order to live.

That same fear that constantly sucked at her life gave birth to another feeling and that feeling was panic. Each time she tried to go out, that feeling would visit her. It started with her heart beating faster then she would feel dizzy and out of breath. The only way to get rid of that nasty visitor was to avoid doing the things that made it appear. One of those things was being in crowded places.

No matter what she was doing, if a place she was at got too crowded she had to get out. It was a flight-or-fight feeling and taking flight was much easier than facing that fear and fighting it. Some would think she was a coward for not fighting but it was an everyday battle for her. Fighting it everytime wasn't always possible and it most definitely wasn't easy. If she wanted to feel better, opting for flight was the only way.

She would start to feel relief almost instantly once she was out of that crowded place that had first caused her that horrible feeling of panic. Her only comfort zone was her apartment, it was the only place that made her feel safe. Because nothing bad could ever happen when you're at your own home. The four walls surrounding her would protect her from all things bad. Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia was what her psychologist had called all this.

But as scary as that diagnose had sounded, it was at least something curable. The cure wasn't easy but it was there and it was possible, all she needed to do was try. And try she did, at least until she started hearing about the Coronavirus on the news. The CDC said that it was too dangerous to go out and the government was advising everyone to stay at home to self quarantine.

Seeing and hearing all these things that were happening, Abby realized that she had been right all along. She had been right in fearing going out. Right in fearing the world and all it's dangers. Because that's what this new disease was, it was dangerous. It was fatal. And once you had it, there was nothing that could help you. There was no cure for it and there was no vaccination for it either. It was a new kind of disease and all it's symptoms were scary. With the Coronavirus around, the dangers were no longer just in her head but they were really out there and not only to her but to everyone in general. It was contagious. Even quick contact with someone could get you sick.

Abby's mom was really her only contact but she wasn't the only contact for her mom. Her parents owned a popular Mexican restaurant in the center of Seoul. And even though it had just been a few months since the Coronavirus had passed, restaurants and other businesses had started opening. People had to make a living after all and so life had to go on despite all the dangers. People were told to take precautions in order to prevent the virus from returning and Abby took every single precaution she could. But not everyone was like her, a Germaphobe.

Abby would see on the news how people were starting to go to the beach and amusement parks. She saw how people thought it was too hot to wear a mask so they didn't wear them. Many of them were not even keeping a distance from others. Contact, that was how this disease had spread. Contact, cough and sneezes. And because of this, Abby had become afraid of these things as well.

One cough or sneeze from her mom and she would go running into another room. 

"What if you have the Coronavirus?", she would ask her mom. 

"Please buy me some more disinfectant wipes, disinfectant spray, antibacterial soap, hand sanitizer, KN95 masks, latex gloves, plastic utensils, foam plates and foam cups." 

"Why do you even need plastic utensils, foam plates and foam cups for? You're the only one living here. No one else uses your utensils and dishes." Her mom had a point but Abby wasn't always logical, it was a characteristic of hers and one that came with her mental illnesses.

"Just get them for me please. I'll give you however much money you need." Because unlike everyone else whose jobs had been affected due to the Coronavirus, Abby worked from home as a freelance editor and so she had not been affected financially as others had been. Authors always worked from home either way so it was not like there had been no writing for her to correct.

Her mom had gotten everything she asked for. "Please don't put the food in the fridge or the pantry." The things needed to be disinfected with spray and wipes before they were to be put away.

"You were out, please don't come any closer." Abby stopped her mom with a meter stick. The first thing she would do once her mom was gone was mop the floors. It didn't matter if she had taken her shoes off. Because another thing Abby did was make her mom take off her shoes at the door even though they weren't Korean. Mexicans just didn't do that kind of thing and living in Korea hadn't changed that for them either. But the Coronavirus had made Abby adapt to this habit.

The second thing Abby would do after her mom was gone was put on a mask and some gloves. She would get the urge to disinfect everything. She even had to disinfect the things she used for disinfecting. She would use the antibacterial wipes to disinfect the disinfectant spray can and the disinfectant spray to disinfect the packaging for the wipes. Then once finished with disinfecting all the food packaging, she would take her clothes off and go in the shower. Hot water was what she always showered with even if it was hot outside. Because hot water worked best to kill germs. It didn't matter to her if the hot water burned her, she felt a need to kill all the germs on her body.

She would scrub and scrub all over. One time, two times, three times, four. Once done, her hands would be as wrinkly as raisins and her skin would be as red as a tomato. Recently her showers had been almost an hour long but that was the only way she would remotely feel clean. Germs were everywhere and there was no such thing as being too careful for her. She didn't want to get sick and die. And if no one else was going to take precautions then she was. She was going to protect herself from every virus and germ out there. 

Even though Abby never went out and there was no need for her to take all these precautions, she still took them. Every measure she took was drastic but drastic times called for drastic measures. She would even change clothes three times a day. Her laundry would pile up so quickly that she had to do it three times a week instead of the normal once a week. And washing her clothes wasn't the only thing she washed often, she would also wash her hands multiples times in an hour, basically right after touching something, anything, she would wash her hands. It didn't matter to her that the thing she had touched had already been disinfected with both disinfectant spray and a disinfectant wipe. She could never be too careful. And she just NEEDED to wash her hands in order for her to feel reassured, to feel safe.

She had started spending more of her time cleaning than doing her actual job and because of that she was getting behind on some of her work. Authors had started to email her asking her when she was going to be done editing their books. Abby couldn't believe that there were people that still cared about their books when there had just recently been something as horrible as the Coronavirus. Some of the authors whose books she was working on were even planning on doing book signings and that thought alone scared her. Because the more events like these went on, the more chances there were of the virus returning and the more likely she was to get it. She didn't care if there was already a vaccine for it, people could still get sick.

To everyone else life had just simply went on, something that Abby had never known how to do. Life could just never "go on" for her. If there was something that was bothering her, that thing always held her back. And this was why things like her Agoraphobia and most recently her Mysophobia had taken control of her life. She knew this and yet she still let them because she thought they were too big for her to tackle. Her psychologist wanted her to change that though, she wanted her to tackle them or at least try to. She believed in her, something she herself did not but she was still willing to try just to show everyone that things just weren't that easy.

Because of that change that her psychologist wanted to see in her, she was once again out in the "real world". There had been no more cases of the Coronavirus in over 2 months and her psychologist had thought it was enough time for her to finally feel safe going out but Abby still didn't feel safe. She was never going to forget how horrible the Coronavirus had been. There was finally a vaccine for it and she was to get it that day, it was actually the reason why she even agreed to go out to begin with. When her psychologist had asked her where she wanted to go first, she told her she wanted to go get the vaccine for the Coronavirus. Abby was sure there were going to be a lot of people there though so she "armored up" before even setting a single foot out of her apartment.

She had on a KN95 mask, googles, a face shield, latex gloves and clothes that covered her up completely. It was what she had chosen to wear for her first time out since the Coronavirus. She didn't want even the slightest chance of her getting any kinds of germs directly on her. But because of the way she was dressed, every person she passed by gave her funny looks. Some people even laughed at her but she didn't care. Once those people got sick she was sure they were no longer going to be laughing. At least she was smart enough to take care of herself. She wasn't going to let herself get sick even once. Not even a simple cold was going to hit her. She was going to be healthy and stay heathy.

"Mysophobia" that's what her psychologist told her she had the week before over their video chat appointment. Abby hadn't even realized she had it until the psychologist pointed it out. She had heard of people being "germaphobes" but this was the first time she had heard the word "Mysophobia", the actual medical term for it. She no longer just had Agoraphobia but she apparently also had this thing called Mysophobia.

Her psychologist had told her she was going need to therapy for it just like she had been getting therapy for her Agoraphobia but Abby didn't see why she would even need to get therapy for such a thing. It hadn't bothered her that she was now cleaner. And her being careful was not something she wanted to change. Because her being cautious was what had kept her alive and safe all those months. She hadn't even caught the Coronavirus despite thousands of people in Seoul having gotten it. She thought her Mysophobia was what had saved her life. If she hadn't taken care of herself so well she probably wouldn't even be alive till this day

Taxi or a bus, those were Abby's only options. She would have chosen to walk if the clinic weren't too far but it was. The only way she could get there was by vehicle. Since she was Agoraphobic, there had been no need for her to own a car but now she really wished she did. The taxi was the obvious choice for her even though it was going to cost her more but at least that way there weren't going to be a bunch of people around, people that could cough or sneeze at any given moment.

There were still germs in a taxi since a lot of people ride them but at least it was just going to be her and the taxi driver, less chances of coughs and sneezes. If the taxi driver did end up coughing or sneezing then she would just need to tell the taxi driver to stop and drop her off wherever they were and that was exactly what she ended up doing. She had been lucky enough that the taxi driver had coughed only a few blocks away from the clinic so at least she didn't have to take another taxi but could instead walk the rest of the way there.

The first thing to frighten Abby upon her arrival at the clinic had not been a crowd of people like she would have thought but an object instead, a very commonly used object, the door handle. The whole way over she had hoped that the clinic would have automatic sliding doors but all that hoping had been for naught for the clinic had the normal door handles almost any other clinic had.

She stood in front of the glass door just staring at the door handle, imagining how many people had touched it. She had her gloves on but they were thin and she would still be able to feel the door handle, that THING that had so many germs on it. Just the thought terrified her. She never thought such a thing as a door handle would scare her so much. She was even afraid of the doorknobs at her own apartment despite her living alone and her being the only one touching them. Just the feel of them disgusted her and so she would always use gloves and a napkin to open every door at her apartment. It was a waste of napkins and she would always have to buy more than she would have normally bought but that was the only way she would even dare open a door.

Abby had taken a look in her purse to see if she had any more napkins but she didn't. She had used up all the ones she had when she got on the taxi. She had to, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to open the door or even take a seat. The taxi driver had looked at her weird as soon as he saw everything she was wearing and he looked at her even weirder when she started putting a bunch of napkins on the back seat of the taxi. She had been planning on using some of the napkins to sit at the clinic but now she didn't even have a single napkin to open the damn door to be able to get in. She was going to have no other option but to ask at the front desk if they had any napkins or tissues they could give her, that was if she even managed to get in.

Abby looked around hoping to find something, anything she could use to open the door with. There were bushes and trees and that was really all there was. There were a few flowers but she would have felt bad ripping out their petals just to open a door, the petals probably weren't even going to be big or thick enough either way. There were some twigs on the ground that had fallen from one of the trees. It seemed like they had just trimmed the tree but those twigs were on the ground. The ground was dirty. But a twig was probably going to be the best thing she was going to find that could help her open the door. She bent down to try and reach one of the twigs but quickly shook her head at the thought. There was no way she was going to touch something that had been on the ground. Trees were a part of nature and they were usually clean, at least cleaner than most people so a tree she could touch (with gloves on that is). 

She looked up at the tree to see if perhaps the gardener had missed any twigs and she saw one. But it was somewhat high up. She would have to climb if she wanted to reach it. She had been good at climbing trees when she was younger but that had been ages ago, she was now 28 and hadn't climbed a tree in over a decade. But she was going to have to do it if she wanted to get inside the clinic and get her vaccination for the Coronavirus.

She had sneakers on so that was a good thing, they would make climbing the tree easier, wearing gloves however would not. She wouldn't be able to get a good grasp while climbing but she knew she couldn't take them off. She wouldn't even dare touch the tree without them. She was going to try as she was, it was her only option.

Right foot up, left foot up, right foot up, left foot up, right foot up and lastly her left foot up. She was almost there and she was almost able reach the twig she wanted. She just needed to reach out a bit more. Her fingertips were touching it but just barely, there was no way she was going to be able to grasp it like that. She had to pull herself up just a bit more if she wanted the twig. It took her great strength to pull herself up that she hadn't noticed she was only holding onto the tree with one hand and that the glove she was wearing on that hand had ripped. She had been cut by the tree and was bleeding. She let out a scream at the sight and fainted.

But when she fainted she had not fallen on the dirt like she had thought she would. She had fallen on top of someone and she woke up being shaken by that someone. She thought she might have gotten a concussion because the person that had just shaken her and that was underneath her was none other than her. But falling on top of oneself was not possible and it wasn't like she had a twin. "Who are you?"