1. Survival


    Date: 11/10/2017, Categories: Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Author: tomcat, Rating: 4, Source: LushStories

    The wind broke on the concrete, making it more bearable, and I desperately found shelter in one of the dusty buildings. Life I as had known it, as humanity had known it, became extinct. There were not many people alive anymore. Things didn’t even happen fast and sudden, and were not caused by one event, like in the movies. Against the prognosis from scientists, the temperature rose more than two degrees centigrade by the year 2018. It was not, however, something that would have destroyed humanity by itself. The sea levels rose and flooded most of the coastal areas. But dikes and dams kept most humans safe, though some valuable land was lost. The rise in temperature brought along the drought and many crops were lost, causing famine for the greater part of the world’s population. On the news I watched millions of people die of starvation, maybe even a billion. Living in the rich west, food prices to rose, but we didn’t starve. However, the luxuries that we had known for decades were lost to most of us. Cattle began dying all over the world and it was a side effect of the dying cattle that would in the end, wipe away most of humanity. First news reports from Africa were shown on television and the Internet. Some kind of disease had struck most of the countries on this continent and spread like wild fire. It had gone viral. Special teams from the western world were sent to those countries, hoping they would find out the origin of this disease. But before the scientist could get ...
    any of the answers needed, people that had returned home from Africa brought the disease to the United States and Europe. That was when I was first confronted with the effects of the disease. Being in the Army, I was posted at one of the national airports to coordinate the quarantine with law-enforcement and civilian agencies. This was the moment when scientists and doctors in Africa began reporting back. The report had some important conclusions. First, the disease originated from cattle and it was a virus. This meant, unlike bacteria, a cure could not be found that easy and most likely it would only suppress the virus. The second conclusion was, as we all had already found out, that humans could also be infected by the virus. But the most shocking was that virus was airborne, meaning the breath of an infected person could infect you. The third was that incubation time was very short, a few days to a week. The final finding was that the virus was very deadly. I immediately ordered that respirators should be distributed among the emergency services. It was all in vain. The combination of the shortages of food, leaving people vulnerable and the warm temperature that was ideal for the virus, meant that extermination of most of mankind was unavoidable. Emergency services were affected, the army was affected and in the end, I don't think any form of government survived. Like me, some of the people were immune to the virus. The world was empty, harsh. Due to the warm temperatures ...
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