The Sickness

                It happened so suddenly. The Sickness had come and exploded into a worldwide epidemic in the blink of an eye. It took more lives than any war could ever hope to claim. Its victims for pitiful, yet shunned away once spotted. It spread quickly and killed slowly. The pain was agonizing. It was worse than any human being could have possibly imagined.

                The Sickness claimed victim after victim, showing no mercy and leaving no survivors. Once touched by The Sickness, you were a dead man walking. Humans dropped dead left and right, screaming and writhing in agony until death finally took pity on their destroyed forms.

                The Sickness only killed humans. Every over living thing in the world went untouched by it. Humans began to fear their loss of dominance, when they were not busy fearing for their very lives.

                Every town in every country on every continent became affected by The Sickness. It was a ruthless killer which took down babies, toddlers, children, teenagers, young adults, adults, and the elderly. No one was safe from The Sickness.

                Scientists did all the research they possibly could, studying the dead and destroyed bodies of those that had been killed off by The Sickness. None could come up with an explanation of what The Sickness was, or where it had come from.

                Theories exploded, but none could be proved. Some claimed it was a mutated strand of this sickness or that. Others claimed rodents had brought The Sickness about much the same as The Black Death. Others believed that it had simply come to be. Nonexistent one second, a vicious murderer the next.

                There was no fancy scientific name given to The Sickness. It was simply referred to as such. To give it a name was to solidify its very existence in the world, and humans were cowardly beings. In such a dire time of desperation, a little hope was needed. Something, anything. To keep it unnamed was their only defense against it.

                It raged and roared around the world for two terrible years before beginning to slow slightly. It had crashed into the unprepared world, claiming the lives of over one billion unsuspecting victims.

                But, like anything else, The Sickness loss its power slowly but surely. The death toll per day became less and less as the sun rose and set over the ocean. The Sickness was certainly still around, that much was made known to the survivors, but it was beginning to weaken.

                Humans fell into terrified isolation. Some hid out with their families; others wanted to be completely by themselves in a desperate attempt to avoid infection.

                Families turned on each other. Family members who became infected were often thrown out on the streets, left to die painfully by themselves. People had become too terrified to leave their homes what with all the infected dying out in the streets, shrieking in agony.

                Desperate, a facility was built over a small, deserted town. It became known simply as The Zone. When a human began to show symptoms of The Sickness, they were taken to a special doctor. If confirmed to be an infected one, they were sent off to The Zone where they would spend the rest of their numbered days with all the other infected. It was nothing more than a hopeful attempt to, at the very least, control the spread of The Sickness.

                It was effective enough to please the survivors. The Sickness began to infect less and less people as the infected were taken to The Zone.

                Still, some families refused to send their members into The Zone. Mothers held onto their infected children, refusing to let them be taken away to die, never to be seen or heard from again. Special teams were assembled and trained. Scientists and doctors worked rapidly to develop a protective suit for the special teams to wear to protect themselves against The Sickness.