The Plague
I sat there in our room on the bed, the sheets lay strewn across the floor. I sat there holding a dog toy, sitting there with a stickiness on my face from tears long fallen. There were no more tears to shed, no more shouts to scream into my damp pillow. The only thing left to do was sit in silence. An iron lump burned in my throat. Thoughts started to seep in from the darkest corners of my mind, the thoughts told me it was my fault that my family had been killed by the epidemic. That I could have saved them but instead I had failed all of them, and now they lay deep under the lawn that we had once cared and tended to. So I buried my face into the bed that my wife and I once shared, hoping that death would take me back to them; back to my wife, Jessica, once again pour my heart out to my kids, Mathias and Justina, laugh and play with my best friend, Kemo. Even if no one understood me he would, all he would have to do is look with his eyes into mine and show me that he depended on me and trusted me as no other could.
I woke up early the next morning still holding Kemo’s dog toy. Golden sunlight streamed in through the massive window that Jessica woke up to and simply stand in front of the window, basking in the very same glow that now illuminated the room. It was the I realized that all i had left of the people, that i held in my heart and devoted my love to, was memories that would quickly desert me. I knew that I had to keep those memories and never lose them or else they would truly die, and leave me an empty shell or the person that I once was. Although through my pain the fact that many people had also suffered similar fates gave me morbid comfort. Dragging my feet across the floor that had taken Jessica and I so long to decide upon. I sat down at the table and forced myself to eat, I told myself that there still was a reason to live and I didn’t have to give up yet.
Over the course of the day I grieved and mourned. Eventually I wrestled with my grief but I had subdues it for now, but every so often it fought back and tried to free itself. For the rest of the day I sat on the leather couch upstairs, lest i dare sit on the living room sofa, and watched the remaining channels on the aging television. I flipped back and forth from consciousness.When i finally got off the couch the room was yet again bathed in sunlight, but this time the pinks and purples of the setting sun. As i looked out the window the clouds were dyed wonderfully and inspired awe and stirred old memories.
I began to think of how this whole nightmare had originally started. The sky was very similar to the way it looked today. Jessica and I were preparing a nice large meal for our long time friends Bob and Christine who had also moved into the same neighbourhood and they lived not even a block away. our kids were already having fun in the backyard with their kids. Screams of play occasionally drowned out the sound of the radio that was playing a quick paced jazz/dubstep tune which sounded surprisingly good. I gave my wife a peck on the cheek, to which she smiled and continued to toss the salad. The song faded out and the radio announcer came on and said
“Breaking news; a new highly contagious virus has appeared in China, it’s still unknown exactly what the virus does but there have been already over 3000 reported cases.”
“Hmmm, that’s not that surprising considering the amount of people in China.” I said
“Yeah, I was expecting something like this to happen a long time ago.” she replied, and I nodded in agreement.
“...unknown whether or not the virus has spread to other countries, but the virus is almost impossible to detect and the only symptoms are cell deterioration. Again, we’re not sure if the virus actually kills, even with as many infections that have been reported so far there have been only 2 deaths due to unrelated causes.”
Within the month it spread across China and crossed the border into Mongolia and Russia, the other surrounding countries quickly shut their borders considering how fast it spread over such a great distance. Unfortunately people had already carried the virus and it then spread throughout Asia and moved into Europe.
Being a geneticist our lab worked furiously to discover the cause and possibly the cure to the virus. We corresponded with multiple labs across the world. The virus however showed sign no of slowing and it had already killed over 1000 people in China alone. In places like Germany the non-infected population were being screened for cell deterioration before they are evacuated to Britain, few made it through.
The progress was painstakingly slow and there were little leads to follow, it seemed as if this virus had bested us. Here and there the virus did give up a little bit of its self and he had discovered that it resided in the nucleus of the cell and used up the nutrients in the cell before infect and killing other cells around it. In another month a lab in Japan had discovered that it affected the genetics of the cell so it would release more of the virus, using the near dead cells as reproducing ground. By this time the global death count had reached about 98,000 dead.
I rarely went home now only if i needed some food or i became too homesick to work, but even then i only stayed for maybe half an hour before I raced back to the lab to continue. the virus had spread across the ocean through illegal immigrants to Britain and Japan, and there have been scarce reports from South America of the virus.
Finally after another 3 moths we found the source of it the cure and everything had come down to this. The virus was worse than we had ever expected when it arrived here; the virus caused blood vessels to become weak and burst cause painful blood sores, heavy bleeding noses, skin loss, hair loss, fluids in the lungs.
Now the virus had spread all over the world the virus had ravaged South America, and was spread up through Mexico and was now killing off the population of the US but the low population concentrations of Canada and the cold weather held the virus in the south. Although Edmonton had been just close enough and was now infecting everyone in the city including me and my family.
We developed a modified version of the virus which isolated the infected cells. Originally there were over 60 people in the lab but now the number had been reduced to me and 6 others. We tried the vaccine on ourselves and waited, we tried to work on the vaccine a little more but it seemed useless. Within a few days the three of my colleagues had died due to unrelated causes. and we teetered on the edge of becoming critical and following our friends in the afterlife, but with in the week our condition started to improve and in the month we were fully cured and i raced home. That’s when i found them, my family, huddled to together in a pool of blood, their blood sores burst due to thinness of the skin and they bled to death in a last show of affection. rivers of dried blood ran from their eyes.
When I came back to reality hot tears once again ran down my face, I realized that even if I could not save my own family then I could save others from my fate. Unfortunately I did not have enough of the vaccine to cure more than 20 or so people. so over the next few days I boarded up the windows, and packed up necessities. Then I set off to find someone to distribute my vaccine.
Author's Note:
This story doesn't have a real end as you can tell by the way it wrapped up so crappy, this was an assignment I did and didn't have time to finish it. I may or may not finish it if people want me to. and feel free to use it as long as you give me due credit. :)