Ends of the Earth

Part 1

It's been exactly two years since it all started.

George can remember the exact date that the world began to descend into chaos around him. It had been about a week before his twenty first birthday, and he was in America traveling with a group of friends on a gap year from university. They had traveled all the way from England in their search for adventure, but they had no idea what awaited them.

He remembers seeing the first cases of the virus on the news. They had been huddled around the small television in their hotel room in Florida, and between worried calls from their family, they tried to gauge just how bad the situation actually was.

The first few people to get sick were in America, just a few states over from where they were. The news downplayed the symptoms in an attempt to keep the public calm. In the beginning stages, they said it just feels like a minor case of the flu; body aches, chills, fever. But what they don't tell you is that the virus eats away at you slowly, transforming you from a normal person to a zombified version with no self control.

It only took a couple of months for the outbreaks to start. The virus spread like wildfire, and the world was in a frenzied state of emergency that had no end in sight. There was no time to find a cure, and the hospitals simply couldn't contain the infected. They spilled out into the world, spreading the virus and infecting hundreds of others.

And now it's almost George's twenty third birthday, and he's still in Florida, but the world around him is completely different from what he used to know. Cities are abandoned, and nature has already begun taking hold of areas that used to be bustling with people going about their lives.

The infected roam freely, mindlessly wandering and searching. They're people who used to have families, friends, normal lives. And now all they do is bring about more sickness, spread a disease that can't be stopped once you've been bitten.

Those that have survived the past couple of years live in small groups around the world, fending for themselves and trying to outrun a virus that has brought complete and total ruin. It's like a post-apocalyptic movie come to life, a nightmare that never seems to end.

George doesn't carry much hope for brighter days. When it first began, he thinks that he was much different from the person he is now. He was hopeful, and he tried to stay that way if even for the sake of his friends. They told each other that it would be okay, that it would be over eventually, and they would get to travel back home and see their families and friends again.

George is cynical now. He thinks they'll all likely spend the rest of their lives living in this apocalyptic wasteland. They won't get to travel home, because there's no home there for them anymore. He thinks it's likely that some of their families haven't survived, and that maybe some of them even walk the earth among the countless infected. He doesn't speak it aloud, and he tries not to think about it too often, but in the back of his mind, he knows that this is the new normal.

George sighs, tries to shake the dark thoughts from his mind as he rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms. He has no idea what time it is, or what day, for that matter. He knows it's early by the rising sun that he can just barely see through a dirt covered window of the abandoned diner they've been staying in. He watches dappled sunlight spread across a muddied, tiled floor, and he knows that despite the early hour, he needs to start his day.

Slowly, he pushes himself up from the makeshift bed he's constructed in one of the many booths of the diner. The group that he's been with for the past two years is still sleeping soundly, and he tries to keep quiet as he makes his way across the diner to where one of his friends is sleeping curled up under an old, beat up jacket.

"Tommy," George whispers, nudging Tommy's leg.

Tommy stirs underneath the patched up jacket, mumbling incoherently before blinking his eyes open. He grumbles again, and George whispers, "we're on patrol this morning, you need to wake up."