When Tomorrow Dies

Chapter 1: Warning Signs

Mother nature has always managed to fight back against whatever has threatened the planet, most often mankind; with the Bubonic Plague, wiping out 30-60% of the European population in the 1340s, natural disasters all over the world such as earthquakes and tsunamis, and limited resources paired with overpopulation, causing world hunger. Whatever the way, nature has always had a way to keep down the human population, and thus limit the threat to the planet just slightly. Now, due to medical and agricultural advancements, the world population is predicted to be around 9.6 billion by 2050. However, more and more, it's not nature itself fighting back, but humans. Constantly waging wars against one another, mass murdering, all in an attempt to take control. Nature's way of fighting back against mankind is by pitting us against each other, over and over.

A woman's fingers hovered over her keyboard for a moment, before she sighed heavily and deleted the word document. This just wasn't good enough for her essay; she was delving too far into science-fiction, sounding too much like one of those crazy people on the streets, waving their handmade cardboard sign around, crowing 'the end is nigh!' She needed something solid, something she could prove without any doubt. She hated to admit how much she was struggling without access to the internet.

 'Now Kira,' she could just about hear her professor, 'stop daydreaming, and start writing.' Yeah well screw you! Now she was throwing a tantrum at herself. Honestly what the fuck?

 Kira sighed again, sweeping her dark curtain of hair out of her face, and logged off her laptop. She would try again tonight, hopefully when she wasn't so irritable. Her stomach growled. And hungry.

 As if on cue, an incredibly tall woman opened the front door and stepped inside, balancing a laptop and stack of books in one hand, and cups of coffee and a bag of McDonalds in the other. Finally! Kira walked over and took the food and drinks from her friend, allowing her to properly grab the rest of her things.

"Ugh, it smells so good," Kira groaned from the kitchen, taking a much-needed sip of her coffee, "what did you get?"

 "The usual," Leisha answered, putting her stuff down on he counter and taking her own cup. Kira all but ripped open the bag and groaned again as she took out two still-hot breakfast burgers. She held them above her head, as though praising the gods and hurried out of the kitchen, flinging herself onto the couch. Leisha chuckled and followed, bringing her own food and both her and Kira's coffee.

"You get anything done while I was out?" Leisha asked, placing Kira's forgotten coffee in front of her. She sat down on what limited room was left and stabbed one of her pancakes with her plastic fork.

"No," Kira replied, shoving the last of one burger into her mouth and moving on to the next one. "Man, I tried, I just can't find the right beginning."

Leisha nodded. "Yeah well, you've still got heaps of time to do it so don't stress too much. Are you gonna do that other thing today?"

Kira grimaced and put down her food. "I think I'm gonna do it tomorrow," she responded. Leisha raised an eyebrow at her. "I know I know," Kira sighed, "I just feel bad for him, you know. I mean, he's nice and everything, I just..."

"Yeah I know, you're not into him anymore," she said softly, "but you should still do it. You can't ask yourself to stay with Matt forever just because you feel bad."

Kira nodded and picked her burger back up. "Tomorrow." Just after she said this, the sound of a helicopter went over the house. "That's the third one today," Kira pointed out. She wondered if it was on the news. She sat up and grabbed the remote, turning on the television, clicking until she was on the right channel. The anchor-man was talking about the same thing he had been talking about all week; a group of small towns being quarantined for a suspected outbreak of Ebola.