Valli : Personal Journal of Valli Pillay, a Living Dead Pandemic Survivor

Entry 3

Today was rough. I haven't been sleeping properly. I went to see Fergie and asked for something to help me sleep. He gave me a chamomile tea bag.

"You need to deal with what's inside your head," he said, and handed me the kettle. "Chemicals are not what you need. Write it down!"

Okay, Fergie, I'm writing!

Nalina and her parents went back to France a few days after the dinner party. It was the last time we saw them in person. We Skyped them until the very last moment.

It was back to school in the second week of January. Sometimes after school my paternal grandfather, whom I called Tata and my grandmother whom I called Tati, would pick me up. They also lived in Rose Belle not far from our house. Vani and I stayed over at least once a week to keep them company. My grandparents spoiled us rotten. Dad had a younger brother, Uncle Nevin, who lived in Flic-en-Flac on the west coast of Mauritius. We didn't see him often; he was a manager at a five-star hotel and was always busy. Whenever he did come by, Vani and I would get cakes, lotions, and soaps from his hotel. Mom would tell him to stop bringing so many, but Uncle Nevin never listened. I usually ended up sharing the small lotion bottles with friends from school.

My Tata was a farmer. Though he was retired he still had some land that he planted on. He wasn't the stay at home and do nothing type. He was popular and well known in Rose Belle for being a good farmer and all around decent fellow. Dad took care of one of the plots; it was in a place called Deux Bras about five to ten minutes by car from our house. It had a kind of cabana on it. I helped him sometimes, riding our bikes there taking the back roads. Tata had planted litchis, bananas, breadfruit, and jackfruit trees on the land. It was about four thousand square metres. I remember that detail because I helped Tata write his letters to the Ministry of Agriculture and his suppliers. In return for helping him, he gave me cash for my phone credits. It wasn't a bad deal and I got to spend time with him and my Tati.

When school started, nothing was amiss. I was happy to go back. My two best friends Stephanie, who was also my cousin, and Sakinah were in my class. I was in form four and had to choose if I wanted to do science, business, or languages. I opted to take all science classes and so did my two besties, which was great. With school starting, I could also meet Andy more regularly. He had his O-levels that year, which meant he was going to be busy studying, but he promised to find time for me. He told me he was taking Rémoire. He wasn't the only one; a lot of the girls in school were taking it. One girl in my class took it to help her lose weight. She dropped those kilos without doing any exercise. I'd been raised to believe anything that came easy was, well, too good to be true.

It wasn't until I saw the video uploaded by the hacktivist group, the Unknowns Who Know, at Stephanie's party that I started to think something might be wrong with this miracle pill.

Stephanie was my cousin on Dad's side, her dad was Dad's first cousin. She looked white as her mom was mostly Franco-Mauritian. Sometimes people didn't believe we were related. Stephanie was also related to Andy on her mom's side and had invited him to her party. Andy's family, like mine, was a mix of different ethnic groups and religions.

The party, which was held in February, was going well, but I lost Andy at some point. I went looking for him and found him with a group of other kids. They were all crowded around this guy called Ritesh. He was showing them something on his smartphone. I turned to leave.

"Val," Andy said. "Come back. You have to see this."

"Why? Is it another YouTube vine?" I said, rolling my eyes, because I must have seen a dozen vines that day.

Andy came to where I was standing and grabbed my hand.

"No. Val, I think Ritesh is with the Unknowns Who Know," he whispered and pulled me back to the group of kids. "The UWK, Val."