Contagion: A Story of Survival (REPRISE)

One

The year was 2054, April 13th.

It was a Monday.

The government told everyone not to worry, to stay inside and only reach out to loved ones, a phrase the general population had grown so accustomed to hearing for weeks. But, everyone became a sitting duck. They tried to contain testing, but one small error lead to the extreme and deadly outbreak of the JC virus across the entire world. No one truly knows the actually reasoning behind the outbreak, but a fact is certain:

A group of scientists banded together to determine if autoimmune diseases could be cured.

A couple years later, testing made people rot from the inside out until they were just a shambling corpse with only one thing on their minds - hunger. It would attack the central nervous system, slowing its conduction of nerve impulses, causing impaired motor skills, which is a fancy way of saying it turned people into cannibalistic monsters. Hope for survival was bleak, and the world as everyone knew it became nonexistent in just under 6 months.

The sound of gravel crunching against the broken pavement filled the air as someone found themselves sprinting through the empty streets. A unusually warm day for October on the east coast, even with a chilly breeze. The city lay desolated; from the skies all that could be seen was devastation. Silence drifted through the empty air, a foul stench of death wafted in the breeze from the neglected ruins.

Ana sprinted through an intersection, ducking behind a rusted out newspaper stand. After what seemed like endless hours of constant movement, Ana felt as if she could finally catch her breath. Keeping her head on a swivel, she slowly sat down on the ground, pressing her back gently against the old metal behind her, the coolness sending a small shock up her backside. She didn't mind, feeling anything was a feat in itself to her.

Extending her legs out, she leaned forward to grab her ankles, stretching out her muscles the best to her ability. Ana chuckled to herself, quietly thinking she had always wanted to get into better shape but an apocalypse wasn't on her bingo card to do so.

Most of the country moved West when the outbreak hit. They wanted to get away from the busy cities and try to make it work down south. But with more of the population trying to go to more barren areas, it caused even more panic. Looting, murder, and survival was the only thing on peoples minds - everyone wanted to live. It was a miracle that Ana herself made it out of her small town alive, but she knew she couldn't stay. Before she had lost contact, she had family that lived up in the state of Maine. All she knew was they were pretty much cut off from the rest of the world, and her chance of living through this hell was to get to that cabin.

Ana didn't like to sit for too long and be alone with her thoughts. The war, the death, the loneliness - its enough to drive someone to the brink of death themselves. Things began to weigh on her as she stared up the street, her eyes landing on a small store with the windows busted out. Pondering for a moment, Ana took a deep breath and stood to her feet. She looked at her surroundings and seeing the coast was clear, she picked up her pace down the street.

She stepped over the small brick wall the window was originally connected to, small bits of glass crunching beneath her boots as she settled inside. She knelt down and listened for a moment. Hearing no sounds of the dead, she began to walk through the small store. Staring up at the broken light fixtures, a little dust bunny fell on Ana's cheek. A slight annoyance, but she rubbed it off her cheek and removed the cloth covering her nose and mouth.

"Son of a bitch..." She muttered, still keeping quiet as she began to get behind the counter and search in the back of the store. It defiantly use to be a little convenience store that would sell snacks, drinks, and cigarettes' - so Ana hoped for the best. She has not found many supplies on her trek to Maine, but enough to keep her moving and breathing. Noise filled the back of the store as she began to rummage through destroyed boxes and crates, not finding a single item worth a shit to her.