The Modern Day Apocalypse

Chapter 2: Something Stirring

October 24th 2020.

Today was a really odd day, I read in an online news article that there had been two cases of cannabalism in Italy and four cases in the USA. It baffled me how anyone could even think of doing such a weird and horrible act. "Maybe some people just spent too long inside from the Isolation that they lost their sanity?" I pondered the slightly disturbing thought and hoped the world would continue to get back to normal though it did seem to be doing that with each day that passed.
Some days it felt like all of those months of panic and uncertainty were all a dream; The world felt safe again. When you walked through the towns and cities it was as if they had never been deserted. Tourists had returned and so had the locals, all bustling about doing whatever it was they were doing. It made me happy. I decided to move further South and get my own place.

I was sat on a bench in the lovely city of Inverness, in the Scottish Highlands, I was watching the ducks and other birds on the river as I had just been to the gym and I didn't feel like going back to my flat just yet. I was still waiting for my vaccine as there was such high demand a lot of people were still to get it, we were allowed to go anywhere though. The people at high risk had all gotten theirs so the government had lifted all precautions with an aim to get everyone vaccinated before December.
My thoughts and peace were suddenly ruined with the noise of several sirens; "typical city stuff" I mumbled, and decided that it was a sign to get up and head back home.
I had grown used to it by now though, there was always sirens these days, a lot more than before the outbreak but I figured people were still worried about it coming back, calling for the ambulance when they had a cough or a common cold for more than a few days. Nobody wanted to go through all of that again, and a lot of people that were yet to get their vaccine chose to isolate for even longer. It wasn't really talked about that much but everytime someone coughed or showed signs of being ill there was always someone that would look very worried and quickly exit the area.

I got back to my flat and as I was unlocking my door I overheard my elderly neighbor 'Fran' talking to her carer as she was leaving, she was insisting her to make sure she was extra careful and that she knows something is stirring, she can feel it in her bones. Fran had a history of being right about things. She invited me over quite a bit and I figured that after all the time she spent alone during the isolation the least I could do was chat to her for an hour or so, plus she had a brilliant tea selection so I began trying a different tea everytime I visited.
Her stories were great and I've actually learnt quite a bit about her, she doesn't gamble anymore but she used to be amazing at it, she just seems to almost have a 6th sense where she just knows things. It's quite amazing really.

I enter my flat and close the door behind me, trying to forget about whatever Fran is worried about. Usually I leave my door unlocked as I don't really think I have anything anyone would want to steal but I decided to lock it today. I don't own a TV but I do have a radio and I figured seen as it was coming up to 5pm they'd have the news then some good songs to boogie to. I began listening as I prepared vegetables and a basic bechemel sauce for a vegetarian lasagne; one of my favourite dinners. I was sort of enjoying listening to the news as they reported another day in the UK with no new cases of covid-19, I twirled round my kitchen with happiness then continued to make my lasagne. I think we were past 60days without any new cases now but seen as there was still fear among people the news stations continued to announce that the country was free from it.
The rest of the news was rather uninteresting to me and they didn't mention the cannibalism story so I started to wonder if that report I read was even real. A lot of online tabloids had quickly discovered that making stories that related even slightly to the corona virus would get them a lot of clicks and there for more money, I'm not sure if it's legal and usually in tiny print somewhere on the article it will read something along the lines of"we can't guarantee this particular story is 100% accurate or entirely non-fictional", I usually scan the page for this type of thing though and I was sure I didn't see it this morning. I decided to load up the article again but after 20minutes of searching I couldn't find anything, not even a fake article. Perhaps it had been taken down for being false.

I was really tired so I set a timer for my lasagne and went for a nap on the couch. I woke up half a minute before it went off and took my delicious smelling dinner out of the oven to cool a little bit. Far too often I burn my mouth as I'm too impatient to wait for food to cool, but I wanted to actually be able to taste my dinner today seen as I had put so much effort into it.
A painfully long half an hour later I couldn't wait any longer and began eating.
After my dinner I cleaned my flat, watched some YouTube videos and went to bed. I was glad the cannabalism stuff seemed to be fake as I really didn't want to have to go through more stress and worry. This year had sucked enough already.