Planet Cypro

The Virus(WIP)

"Quarantine freakin sucks. Being stuck at home at all day is infuriating. I tested positive for covid-19 yesterday and I'm stuck sitting here instead of working, and I'm already losing my mind. Laundry is done, everything is clean, and my wife and son are currently out for a drive to avoid me as best as they can. What have you been up to?" My best friend since high school, Jake, who also has covid right now, is in the same boat I am. He says "Same as you Don, just stuck here while the wife and kids try to keep sanitary. Since we're both already under the influence of this crap, want to go fishing?" I laugh a bit and say "Sure man, might as well. I'll be out there in an hour." We both hang up and I get ready to go fishing. I stand up off my bed, I was sitting here since it's so early. Already dressed, already eaten breakfast. I came in here to do something.. but now I can't remember what. Oh well. I make my way over to my closet and reach in to get the fishing pole and bait box. I hear something from the living room, sounds like the TV. Jess must've left it on. I stand up and make my way into the living room, and sure enough Hawks News is on. They're talking about mass panic spreading in China due to the mention of the virus now causing deaths worldwide. I guess they mistakenly said something about it also mutating the body, or someone leaked something about it causing rapid mutation? Freakin psychotic people out there trying to bring the world down sayin dumb stuff like that. I hear "Dr.Faust has confirmed that this virus is spread by contact and by immediate air travel from coughing or breathing, and is now saying a 6ft social distancing mandate will be in immediate effect in the coming days." So first they say we have to wear masks indoors and out, and now we can't even be 6ft next to each other? Fairly certain a virus isn't gonna die in mid air just because it travels 6ft. Ah what do I know, I don't care, not like it applies to households, more so people out in public I'd imagine. They can't confirm whether the virus started in a lab or if it was produced by nature, and it's been several months since the virus was discovered, and so much for quarantine. There's idiots out there that sores the virus on purpose purely just because someone said not to, and they think everyone around the world now needs to social distance, or even WILL social distance with each other. Oh well, like I said, not my area of expertise. I've gotten stuff packed while thinking to myself. I make my way into the garage and hop into my truck. Jake has the boat, and I already know where to meet him. I start the truck up and it hums to life, rattling a bit before the radio comes on. It's a bit of an old thing, I really need to get it fixed up. It's my father's truck, so I rather not just outright replace the thing. Besides, it hasn't given me any real trouble, just gets loud is all. The garage door opens and I begin backing it out. The radio is nothing but static at the moment, which catches my attention pretty quickly. I stop and turn the dial, searching around, but nothing. Darn thing has crapped out, or so I thought, until I finally come across just one channel that sounds like it's on advertisements. Better than nothing I suppose. I continue backing out, checking around me while I do, and then I head off towards the lake. I hear a strange noise while driving, and it sounded like the truck bed was rattling. I turn the radio down a moment to listen, but I don't hear it again. Probably a loose panel. I turn the radio back up and I hear the ads are over. It's a news channel, great. Didn't I just finish hearing these stories? I sigh and just let it become background noise as I focus on the road. The lake is just a couple miles from here, so it won't take but five or ten minutes to get there. The radio starts cutting out rapidly, making the news unintelligible. I slam my fist on the dashboard, and I hear the words "thirty seven point nine mag-" before it goes to full static. I try hitting it again but nothing. I just grumble and turn it off completely. Wonder what he was saying though? 'Thirty seven point nine mag..' what? Magazine? Magnet? Ah whatever. Nothing important, that's for sure. I hear that sound again, and this time I can definitely tell it's the truck bed. Suddenly the truck jolts as if I just hit a deep pothole, which startled me. I look in the mirror quickly and see nothing, although I can kinda see now that it does look like a pothole back there. They need to fix these darn roads. I don't remember there being potholes here. A couple cars pass by, followed by an SUV. No one I know. This is boring. Kill me. After about five more minutes of boredom, I finally arrive at the lake. I pull into the entrance, and drive down a decently long road until I get to the parking section. They have it done much like an amusement park, purely so people can enjoy the view without a bunch of other cars blocking the place up. I make my way towards the very back where they have a boat unloading section cut out that leads to the lake. I park nearby and of course, I see Jake pulling up to it. I shut my truck off, and then I feel a vibration rattle the truck pretty decently, but only for a second. That's the same sound I heard while driving. Odd. I get out and oook around, but don't see any signs of.. explosions or anything like that. Maybe a tremor from a coal mine detonation? Probably it. I close the door and make my way to the tailgate and grab my tackle box and pole. Both about to be in hand, I also put my cap on before taking the gear off the truck bed. I shut the tailgate and make my way over to Jake who's standing next to his truck. I nod at him and upon getting into earshot I say "My man! Time to catch us some good food. Been a while since I've fried up something good on the skillet." He laughs and says "Maybe this time we won't waste so much bait on false snags. Ticks me off when that happens, they need to clear some of that debri out of there. The broken trees make it miserable on the far side, but that's where all the darn fish are." He's right. It's such a pain when every other cast results in a broken line and a loss of expensive bait. I say "Jake, did you hear any sounds or feel vibrations on your way over here? I hit a nasty pothole a moment ago, but after that it sounded like there was a coal mine detonation going off." He says "Oh that? I felt all that too. That probably wasn't a pothole, was more likely a shockwave from a really big earthquake going on in Saudi Arabia. Weird place to have a massive earthquake. I didn't get to hear the size of it though. All I heard was the shockwaves were enough to be felt almost all over the world." Earthquakes. I say "Isn't there.. a word for that? A word that determines the like.. measurement or whatever, of an Earthquake?" He pauses for a moment before saying "Ah, yeah, there certainly is man but I can't remember it for crap right now. It shouldn't hurt us though, it's way too far away. If anything, we'll just get a couple more shockwaves again." I shrug and we unhitches the boat, letting it tilt back onto its ramp. He lets the boat slide off onto a chain rail system that makes the boat roll right back into the water with ease and no damage. We use the rope that was tied to the front to tug it over to the dock. I tie it down and Jake says "I'll be right back, gonna park the truck and trailer." I smile and say "I'll be waitin' on ya." and he goes to do just that. I step over onto the boat carefully and set my gear down. I sigh and get comfortable, looking at the water, with the sunlight reflecting off it, as well as the far side's tree-line. I open the tackle box and pull out a small box of cigarettes and lighter. I flip it open and pull one out, fitting it in my lips as I set the box back inside. Holding the lighter up close, I flick out the flame and light the tip, sucking in the warm filtered smoke. I feel it soak in, hitting me with the calming sensation before I blow out the remaining smoke. I sigh and set the lighter back down into the box. I take the cigarette in my hand and continue admiring the view. It's something I see a lot, but not regularly enough to get tired of it. I don't how you could ever get tired of nature. I hear Jake walking along the dock, and I get the cigarette back in my lips so I can keep the boat steady for him. He steps down into it, and he unties the rope from this end. With a hard push, we both send it drifting away from the dock. We have ores, but we don't use them until we want to move a second time. Pushing like we did usually results in us drifting to the other side of the lake after about an hour of slow gliding. I get a hold of my fishing pole, and I say "Well, let's get this party started. I'm feeling lucky today." in a low voice. He speaks softly as well and says "I think I'm feeling that same luck. Bet we catch a whole boat load." We ready the bait and get to casting immediately. Once we pick our spots, all we can do is wait. Normally we just spend this time admiring the lake and enjoying the warmth of the Sun. It's very relaxing to be out here on the water. It's my dream to do this in the ocean someday. That'd be so fun. Gonna need one heck of an expensive boat though. Guess we'll just have to catch enough fish to sell, if we could fish for a couple hundred years straight that is. It's still nice to dream though. Jake starts to speak, but something bumps the boat. His eyes widen, and his lips tilt up into a big grin as he grabs his pole. I do the same, and I focus on my bait. I watch the line carefully, and sure enough, it starts to move. I whisper "Jake, it's on mine." He carefully sets his pole down and watches my end. The line is slowly starting to get straight as the fish pulls it directly away, and I get ready to give it a light yank to hook it in properly. As I'm about to tug it, the line violently pulls forward, and the pole is ripped from my hands into the water. Before I can even react, it's like the lake just blows up, a large bubble of solid water forming as the boat starts rushing towards land. I shout "Hang on!!" as we crash into the ground, large amounts of water rushing over us. Luckily it pushed us towards the trees, because it gave us something to hold onto. It only takes a couple seconds for the water to clear us, and my body feels like it's on fire from being slammed against the trees. I look around and spit Jake right next to me, and I also see a small wooden stake stuck into his leg. He's groaning and almost growling in intense pain, but he's holding himself together. I'm panting now as I try to get over to him. He says "W- What the.. heck was that??" and I groan as I almost pass out for a second. I got hit harder than I thought. I say "I.. I don't know, but let's get an ambulance here and we'll.. nngh, figure it out later." I get him up on his feet, or foot I guess, having him lean against me as we start to slowly make our way through the trees. We landed on the edge, so it's just a few meters to the open grass. After hobbling for a minute, we come out, and I look over to see.. something that makes no sense. Where there used to be a lake, is now an empty bowl of land, with a giant.. tree truck looking object protruding out of the middle, standing around.. thirty or fourth feet tall? What the heck? It's huge! I get Jake laid down and pull out my phone to call 911, but it doesn't have any signal. I dial it anyways, and I'm instantly met with a monotone beeping. I throw the phone down with irritation, and then I hear shouting.. everywhere. I hear screams all around us. What is going on!? The ground starts rumbling violently, as if an earthquake is happening right here beneath us. I struggle to stand up, and I shout "Jake, hang on!!" but when I turn around, to my horror, where Jake was just laying, is now a very deep bottomless crevasse, and it's slowly widening as the ground starts to rip apart. I quickly run out of the way as the ground tares open, and I scream "Jake!!?" but no answer from anywhere. He must've fell in. Is this some sort of freaking nightmare!? I quickly scramble away from the hole in the ground, but then I look ahead of me, and as far as I can see.. is total chaos. Over the tree lines, I see mustard yellowish tree trunk looking structures that look like big tree roots diving up and down out of the ground. I'm talking ones the size of whole football stadiums, if not several times bigger. Some of them are embedded with glowing orange lava, others brown or silvery with dirt and stone. I turn around and I see something moving down in the broken ground. Way down below, I see movement, like something is crawling around down there. I get carefully close to the edge and shout "Jake!! Is that you!?" and when I do, the ground violently jerks around, throwing me backwards away from the hole. The loudest sound I can possibly describe recks my ears to the point I can't hardly hear my own thoughts. I land on my back, and it knocks the air out of me. Dirt and dust is now filling the air, making it hard to breathe as the world seemingly crumbles like bread, and then, I hear a screech come from the last place I saw Jake. I lean up, being shaken around by the ground, and I then see something that looks like it crawled straight out of hell. A big bloody meat fleshed beast with six legs, only a few hundred teeth, four eyes, and long devilish ears, comes tearing out of the hole in the ground. Its skin is just.. red exposed muscle, large veins leaking blood all over the place, big snarling teeth, and a face that doesn't resemble any animal I've ever seen. The eyes are greenish, with no pupils, just.. Iris like material, and big pitch black claws that also have blood dripping off them. It tilts its body up and screeches into the air before it suddenly and violently snaps its face towards me, going completely still. I'm now shaking violently, although not from the ground, but from fear. It just stares at me... and then it narrows those evil horrific eyes. I look down at its back leg, and I see a piece of wood sticking out of it. It's... it's.. the same wood from Jake's leg. I look it in the eyes again. Jake had... green eyes. Its eyes widen as it lets out a horrifying bark like roar, tearing up the ground as it rushes at me. I try to roll out of the way, but my legs are met with unfathomable pain, before suddenly going numb. I get going to the side, and I see my legs are missing, as well as partially my.. torso. I gasp and fall back. I look up at the sky, and I try to just.. focus on admiring what remains of nature. My wife. My kids. They're dead. I know it. All those screams. Those were the screams of the dead. This is the end of humanity. I don't know how I know it.. but.. it is. I'm about to close my eyes when that same horrific beast jumps over me. I see those big open bloody jaws widen.. and I see my leg half way lodged in its throat. The jaw lurches at me, and I-