"The Virus"

- TWELVE -

It was a nightmare to witness.
In these last five months, it had already become clear to them that there was no cure for this disease. No matter how hard they fought against it, it continued to gain ground and grow stronger.
In order to combat the outbreak, the government started planning the evacuation of large sections of the infected population. As long as they had a chance of finding an effective vaccine in time, people were willing to sacrifice anything to save themselves. However, as far as the infected were concerned, the best way to save themselves was to get rid of their sickness. At first, most people accepted the plan without question. However, when a new group of people joined forces with the government and started attacking people with the virus, they refused to listen. In some cases, they actually attacked others because they couldn't bear to watch people die of plague. So, in an effort to keep those people away from their families, the government created quarantine zones outside of all towns and cities. They placed guards around the quarantine zones and ordered people to stay away from them.
They were successful in keeping the infected away from their homes. But they were unable to keep them away from their loved ones. After a while, the infected started to attack their loved ones. They started to attack their friends and family members. They started to attack their pets, the children in kindergarten, and their friends. Eventually, it was not enough. The infected started attacking their enemies. Their enemy was now a friend. Their enemies became a brother. The infected started attacking their parents and grandparents. The dead began coming back to life.
At first, it was scary as hell. Even worse than watching a movie where the zombie apocalypse is happening. Worse than being trapped underground for thousands of years. But as time progressed, things calmed down somewhat. Most of the infected people became docile once again. They stopped attacking other people and instead attacked animals. Animals became their targets. And that meant food. Lots of food. Food for their starving stomachs. Food that they desperately needed to survive. Food that they could only eat through starvation and infection. If they had enough food, their numbers would gradually decrease until they eventually ran out and died of hunger or malnutrition. If they ate too little, they would simply turn into zombies and starve to death.
Eventually, the infected people learned that they could eat other people's food. Other people's meat became the main source of food for the people. They learnt to be careful and never devoured anything unless there was a huge chance that it may be poisonous and harmful to them.
Soon, the infected grew hungry for more. Now that food was becoming scarce, they began eating the corpses of the infected. They devoured anyone who showed signs that they may be infected. Soon, most of the infected were no longer able to eat humans. Instead, they resorted to eating animals. The government and medical authorities tried everything. They did everything they could to kill the infected with poison. They tried using different chemicals which would make them sick. But they couldn't do it. Not even medicine they developed to try and fight the illness worked. Nothing was working anymore. The people were becoming weaker and weaker and soon their condition was fatal.
Then, a miracle happened. One day, a scientist discovered that something very special was happening in the infected population. These scientists didn't know if it was possible to cure the sickness, but they knew it was definitely possible to prevent it from spreading. They called the doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, and psychologists of the city who had been infected and told them to start treating the infected with all kinds of vaccines and cures. The scientists knew that their research would probably cost them thousands of dollars, but they felt that the people could use a little bit of hope. Because, at the end of the day, it's better to fight something you don't understand then to live in constant fear of it. And besides, it was the government that needed the money to save the people from themselves.
But then, things changed. Something happened. It had never happened before. The researchers started discovering that all the vaccines they used had a high chance of making them all die from the virus. And it wasn't just any old vaccine either. Scientists noticed that some of the viruses had a higher rate of survival than others. Some of them even seemed to live longer than other viruses. That'l mean that these viruses would probably evolve even further in the future. This information caused fear throughout the scientific community. They knew that there would be some form of virus evolution that would cause them to evolve further. But, what exactly? What exactly was going to evolve next?