Post-Pandemic: A New World

Chapter One: The Survivor Group

August 17th 2025

Bridge Winters was standing at the 7th floor apartment balcony and looking out upon New York City. Normally a New Yorker would hear cars driving along the streets and the voices of people going about their daily lives: headed to a business meting; going off to work; returning home; walking their kids to school and just living the lives they wanted to live for themselves. But as Bridge looked out across the street, all he saw were run down cars with their gas siphoned by the Rikers, buildings with planks boarded up on the doors and windows and even the occasional corpse. Even though it had been seven months since the St Peters Virus mysteriously disappeared, the world was still in anarchy and even though it was two and a half years earlier, Bridge still remembered the news report of a sudden viral outbreak in St Petersburg Russia. Who would've thought that a mere cough and a sneeze that would lead to a nasty red rash and then lead to vomiting, a high fever, severe memory loss and death due to a heart failure. Within a week since patient zero, twenty thousand people were dead. Within a month one million and by the end of that year three billion people were confirmed dead. Bridge looked across the street at a large building with scaffolding covered in yellow sheets all over it and those yellow sheets having a quarantine logo and the huge words "Caution! This building is under strict quarantine, lethal force is authorised for any unauthorised attempting to enter or person, or persons, attempting to enter or leave this zone. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED" in a bright black on the building. Bridge remembered how the governments panicked during the outbreak and quarantined people for showing even the mildest of symptoms. He remembered how one by one, his neighbours began perishing from the virus and things started to fall apart. Bridge was about halfway through his Bachelor's Degree in Literacy at Empire State University when the Virus appeared and he still remembered how the whole college was transformed into a massive quarantine camp after the Mascot was diagnosed with S.P.V.

Bridge had obviously never been able to complete his degree, but he didn't care much. Now he just cared about surviving in this new world. He still remembered how planes used to soar across the sky, but now there were no planes and all one could hear from the skies were the chirps of birds. Whose population had greatly increased since the end of the St Peters Pandemic. Bridge still remembered how just a year and a half after the virus appeared, half the world population was confirmed dead and any citizens that were not authorised to leave their homes were shot dead by the police. As Bridge thought about the time when he saw a woman get shot by a New York City Police Officer just for opening her window for some fresh air and thought to himself "So much for Protecting and Serving". Bridge then remembered how due to the maximum level lockdowns no one was going to work and the power plants could only power Manhattan for three hours a day. Bridge remembered the riots and mass protests that occurred all across the country and the world and how no vaccine or attempted cure was working. Bridge remembered the shouting of protesters and the sounds of riot police coming from nearby, but now there was no shouting, or gushing water, or gunfire, just silence and the occasional noise. Bridge also remembered how in September of 2024, the last national governments fell apart, sending the world into anarchy. Bridge still remembered when one day President Adams appeared on National Television and announced that all news outlets would be temporarily shut down and how the next day there was no more power, no more television, no more police sirens, no more ambulances, just chaos. More people died over the coming months, including Bridge's host parents, whom he'd lived with after moving to America at age fifteen as part of a student exchange program. Phinehas, his host parent's son, was devastated and dearly missed the two of them. Phinehas was about two weeks infected when suddenly, he got better. Something that had never happened before. On the 2nd anniversary of the St Peters Virus Pandemic, all of those infected around the world suddenly got better and the virus disappeared.

In the seven months since then, Bridge and Phinehas had been trying to survive and carve out a new life for themselves in this new world. After the virus disappeared, people started forming into gangs and organised survivor groups all over the place. The most dangerous survivor group in N.Y.C were the Rikers, escaped prisoners who had taken advantage of the chaos and were trying to take over the city. They often extorted food and other valuable supplies from entire families and threatened to kill them all if they didn't comply. Sometimes they would just raid entire settlements for supplies and burn whole buildings to the ground. Bridge had even come across a man while he was once out scavenging and learnt from him that the Rikers often pinned people up on walls, both dead and alive and played a sadistic form of darts. In which they would throw knives at the body and deduct points depending on what part was hit. It was horrific. That was when Bridge heard the sounds of police sirens, for any law abiding citizen that would mean a sense of safety and hope. But now it meant fear and despair. Bridge quickly walked back inside the apartment to see Michelle sitting by the fire place and Phinehas making improvements to his rainwater collector. It had been their sole source of water since the taps ran dry one year prior and Phinehas was trying to attach a bigger bucket to it. Michelle, who was sixteen while Bridge and Phinehas were both twenty five, was sitting on the couch and gently rubbing her large baby bump and softly saying "What are we going to call you?" Bridge and Phinehas had saved Michelle from a gang of Rikers three months earlier and taken her in. She was heavily pregnant and had sworn that she had never had sex with anyone. Bridge often said that she had to have had some form of sex, because that was the only way to have a baby. But deep down Bridge knew she was telling the truth. There were many differences between the three of them, including the fact that Bridge was a white British immigrant to the U.S and Phinehas and Michelle were native born African Americans. But they overcame their differences and were striving to survive together in this broken world.

Worried for the family he had built over the last year, Bridge said "Rikers" to both Michelle and Phinehas. They both looked at Bridge as he quickly shut the balcony doors. Phinehas put down the bucket and ran towards the window. He quickly shut the curtains and Bridge lowered the blindfolds on the balcony door. Michelle was about to get up and help, but then she felt a contraction and slumped back onto the couch. The three of them fell dead silent as the room fell dark and heard the police siren get louder and louder. Bridge looked though a small cut in the blinds and saw the Rikers drive by in a vandalised police car. The Rikers were still wearing their prisoner uniforms and were equipped with police body armour that they had stolen from the now abandoned Police Station. The police logos had the letter R painted on them in orange and the police car had the word "RIKERS!" spray painted on the hood. There were two police motorcycles with Rikers on them and the sirens were blaring throughout the streets. The top of the police car was gone and a female Riker, who was high on Heroin, was standing up with a megaphone and shouting "There is no more crime! No more law and order! No more cops and no more prisons! Just the only currency and the only two ways to gain it: POWER, MADNESS AND ANARCHY!!!" The Rikers cheered on the drug addicted mad woman as they raced through the streets, terrorizing the entire city. As they raced past the quarantine building Bridge had laid eyes on minutes ago, Bridge said "All clear" and both him and Phineas raised the blindfolds. As the sun light made Michelle's dark and curly hair shine like a diamond, she looked at Bridge and said "I really think we should leave for the countryside, my Aunt owned a farm in Vermont. Maybe she survived and we can go to her?" Bridge could see that Michelle was scared for her as of yet unborn baby and understood her fear. He sat down on the couch in his black shirt, jeans and leather jacket he had taken from an old abandoned clothes shop and said "Don't worry, soon we'll leave this damn city and try to make a new start in a safer place". Phinehas sat on the couch as well and said "Well with the Rikers tearing this town to pieces, I'm not sure there'll BE a New York for much longer". The three of them all understood the danger they were in. They had been a family for months now and soon a fourth member of the family was going to be added. It had been difficult with Michelle's pregnancy and Bridge had taken over gardening duties at their fruit and vegetable patch on the roof since Michelle entered her third trimester and could barely move. Bridge saw the sun beginning to set outside and knew that the fire in the living room was about to become their only source of light. It would soon go out and then this city, would become a literal City of Darkness. But a new day would dawn and with it, the passing of another night they had survived.