World Without Souls

Chapter 1: Ivory

"Rise and shine!" My mum shouts at me from my bedroom doorway.
"10 more minutes!" I groan, rolling over and covering my eyes with my arm.
"Fine." I swear I can hear her eyes roll, exasperation evident. I try to go back to sleep, but I can't so I get up and get dressed into my school uniform, finally going into my sitting room and sit down on the one couch in the room. Well, try to. My mum and brother take up the whole couch, my brother lying down.
"Move." I demand. My brother dosent move, so I sit on his legs.
"Ouch!" He screams. Mum looks at me angrily as Hayden runs from the room. Avoiding her glare, I change my gaze over to the T.V, where the news reporter is talking about something wildly.
"Scientist Robert Perez has spent the past 17 years of his life attempting a cure for brain cancer, tested his newest creation on 28 people. It's meant to improve the immune system so much that it fights back."
Getting excited, I turn the volume up.
"It doesn't, however, work. Here is a speech filmed of Robert Perez explaining this situation on national T.V."
The reporter is replaced with a young, dark haired man. He must be in his early thirties. He stands behind a tall table while camera flashes scatter everywhere.
"I thought it would work so I tested it on 28 willing people. Instead of it improving their immune systems, it shut them down completely. It has turned their brains to mush like substances and made their skin loose. Due to the lack of brains, have become...cannibals. They attack everything that moves. This is highly contagious. I'm working on a cure, I have an idea on what to make-"
It goes back to the reporter.
"The disease, now called Inanimatum has spread all throughout New York and is rapidly spreading through the rest of America."
A picture of a street torn apart is shown. Broken glass and blood, struggle and loss. Clearly abandoned, everything is ruined in this street. A video is shown of people being locked up, yet they are not people. Their skin hangs from their bodies, pale, while blood decorates unhealing wounds that pepper their bodies. Clumps of hair are missing from their greasy heads and their clothes are ripped. I can see their veins popping out of their translucent skin and the screams of people. Their teeth, razor sharp and their dirt caked nails aren't what scare me most, though. It's their eyes, as if they are devoid of souls. Empty, black, staring with no emotion, no sign of anyone there.

Mum gets up and turns the T.V off.
"Hey! I was watching that!" I shout, my voice quivering.
"Go get ready for school."
"But-"
"Now, Ivory!"
I stomp away angrily and get ready for school, my mind on this situation. It's okay, I reassure myself. It's all the way in America. This is Australia, no one is going to let it come into this country.

My mum drops me off at my bus stop, where I am to wait for 20 minutes. Sitting down on the pavement, I grab out my phone and search up Inanimatum and a whole heap of results come up. I click on a website and read through this new information on the topic.

Named Inanimatum, Latin for "lifeless", this new found plague is spreading rapidly through America and Eastern Europe. I.A stops the bodily functions by turning the brain into mush and shutting down the immune system, as well as stretching out the skin tissues and filling the person with the sense for attack. This is because the disease was scientifically made by Robert Perez by accident, it's original purpose being strengthening the immune system so it can attack tumours. Due to this attacking inclusion, people with I.A attack everything that moves. Their bodies are unable to keep anything inside so they are filled with a constant hunger, making them eat everything they can. People who have I.A are not able to control themselves anymore, they become the shell of the person they once were, thus, lifeless.

I try to take in this new information, reading over the paragraph over and over again. Images of infected people eating other people and animals decorate the sides of the website, as well as destroyed buildings and places. One image haunts me, an infected man smiling into the camera with blood dribbling out of his mouth and down his chin, those eyes staring into the camera, soulless...lifeless.