DROPS OF JUPITER ▹ KOTLC | ✓

road trip (sokeefitz)

warnings: mention of vomit, sickness

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The end began when the Human Assistance Program was re-introduced.

Sophie had settled the elven world a few thousand years back (she'd been counting, not wanting to lose track of the day she'd truly found peace) and she'd been living as normally as she could ever since, juggling life as a woman, a Regent, a daughter, a friend -- even a girlfriend.

She'd pushed to have the program reinstated. Pushed and pushed and pushed until finally, a few Emissaries agreed. With guidelines, of course; If she could monitor and document humans for a few months and return with thorough proof that they'd made improvement since the last time the program was cut off, she could bring the matter to the Council.

All her friends were a huge help. Assisted her with surveillance and articles and even a few stake-outs. Fast forward to a few years later, the elves had come out of hiding and ties with humans had been made again. The two species had just barely begun to mend old wounds and create allies with one another before they broke apart again.

Only this time, not by either sides' choice.

It started two years after the elves integrated themselves back into the Forbidden Cities.

"It" being the disease. The end.

The first death barely made a dent in the world. The very first recorded woman to die of the virus was practically overlooked -- the media didn't bat an eye. It was one case. One fluke in the system. What did it matter? She was in her 60′s, anyway and that marked her as more susceptible to infection or disease.

They were kind of right. She had been vulnerable, but not because of her age, like they thought. And she hadn't caught influenza, like they'd originally deemed.

From there the first cluster of deaths started to gain traction. The world began to panic as news flooded over the globe. Like a steady poison, people gradually learned that there was a new infection, an unnamed killer spreading around, curiously targeting women.

And it moved fast. Once a victim showed symptoms, they were dead within the next couple of hours.

There were only four stages of the plague;

Phase One: Sweating, difficulty focusing, fever, headaches/migraines, abdominal pain.

Phase Two: Vomiting, impaired reasoning, distortion of reality.

Phase Three (Critical): Difficulty breathing/pain in the chest, throat, or stomach, difficulty swallowing/refusal to eat, complete breakdown of rational faculties; erratic behavior; violent thoughts and fantasies; hallucinations and delusions.

Phase Four (Fatal): Emotional or physical paralysis (partial or total); Death.

Once the humans finally got around to panicking and taking action, the elves were still stuck in their own blissful bubble of naivety, assuming because of their "higher" genetics that surely they were safe. Hell, they didn't even have allergies like humans did. What was a little human plague going to do to them?

Their even-mannered state of mind eroded when the first elven child contracted the disease.

Within a matter of months the globe dissolved into chaos. With a 50% death rate, the virus moved and worked fast -- faster than doctors could keep up with. A cure was never invented.

The world suffered a loss of over half its population.

Hundreds of jobs left silent (the medical industry suffered the most).