The Contagion

Prologue

Day 1,237

Journal,

What had once been a beautiful place was now nothing but a desolate wasteland filled with two types of creatures; the terrified humans running away from the nightmares and the monsters that hunted them in packs. The paved streets that once lined carefully maintained roads and lawns where now ridden with hideous cracks and stained with the blood of those who just hadn't managed to run fast enough. The sky that had once shone a brilliant blue now kept a murky grey over itself, blanketing the world below it in a constant twilight. The streets where there had been constant noise and celebration were now hated with the groans of the creatures that hunted us out of our homes.

We'd learned soon enough that the only way of surviving was to hide ourselves and fight for our lives whenever it was necessary. It was now everyone for themselves and there hadn't been much time for anything more than survival. Only the foolish chose to settle and make an attempt at a normal life for that only brought death and heartbreak and, consequentially, more creatures to deal with. 

The concept of trust and family had been lost a long time ago and it was now nothing but a mere myth among those of us left, we'd turned ourselves into animals, surviving to be able to live and living only to survive. I'd conditioned myself to live by the rules I'd once found etched onto a concrete wall of what I'm sure had once been a beautiful building;

1. Never give away your hideout to anyone you don't trust

2. Don't trust anyone

3. Never leave your spot in search for a fight, you are sure to lose

4. Be wary of those who you might keep around; the virus can be active without turning them

5. Always be prepared for numerous days in a hideout

6. Never, ever let yourself bleed around the creatures

Life had become nothing more than a game of survival, a game of us against them; hunter and prey if you will. It had been a devastating thing when it started, the first few cases had been attributed to a severe case of rabies, others to simple psychosis that led the patient toward the cannibalistic tendencies. There were, of course, those who saw it for what it was and made attempts at warning the public only to be ridiculed for being zombie fanatics seeing something where there wasn't anything. They were never thanked for their information, sadly, because by the time their assumptions had been proven correct there hadn't been enough people left to care about them or anything else.

The virus had spread sometime around the early 2000's when I'd been somewhere around 12. I had to see both my parents succumb to its effects without being able to help. They'd called it the Contagion about two years into the spread. The scientists never really managed to get closer to its origins than a few hypothesis before there hadn't been enough people around to care much about it. 

So, no one knows where it came from, how it spread and if there was ever a cure for it. It hadn't been well until half the population of the world had seemingly contracted the same 'severe case of rabies' in less than a year that the world powers had finally decided it was a real danger to whatever was left of society that they'd created the C.A.M.P.S.

The initials had stood for Containment Areas for the Mutation Project Subjects. The camps had been established initially with the hopes of finding a cure for the virus. They had sold their idea to those who had been left as safety camps where the uninfected could live in peace without having to worry about their safety or that of their family members. The illusion had lasted well up until the point where the governors had started to take the male newborns from their mothers as soon as they'd been out of the womb only to have the exiled later after they'd mysteriously contracted the virus. It hadn't been until after the civilians had raided the labs inside the compounds that they'd discovered the horrible truth of the origins of their safe havens. 

The boys had been taken to be experimented upon, they'd be subjected to the outside where the scientists allowed them to come into brief contact with the creatures forcing them into being infected with the virus to help allow the scientists in finding a cure. What they hadn't yet realized was that by allowing the children to contract the virus at such an early strength it was given a longer development period which they discovered sharpened their senses and allowing their strength to rise to inhuman levels by the time they were teenagers.

Those events and the revelation of the truth behind the safety we'd believed we'd achieved were the cause of life as it is known now. It was only a matter of time before people had realized the only one we could trust was ourselves and it had become individual survival from then on. There were always those who decided that living in packs and small groups would guarantee them a longer term of survival.

In short, humans are stupid and stubborn, always have been, but we'd learned solitude was our best option and I'd lived by that truth in a strict manner for most of my life and then, of course, they showed up. 

Great.

- Andi

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Hi! So, this is my first publicized original work and I'm both excited and anxious about it. I really hope all of you like my story and i wanted to thank you in advance for giving my work a chance. 

Lots of love to you all, darlings and happy reading!