2083
Prologue
Helena
It started out as a simple virus, a common cold. Something your neighbor down the street could have caught and gotten over in a couple days. Its symptoms then became like those you would get during flu season. Within a few weeks, it had developed into a full on disease. The Annene Plague was wiping out entire cities, and spreading quickly. The population was dwindling, and the government had to stop it.
They sent the healthy ones, the Spared, to vaults deep into the Earth, spread all across the country, where they would remain until they disease was controlled and the Plagued taken care of. Our family was Spared; only my aunt was forced to stay behind in the Quarantine, what they now considered the United States. She was showed one of the telltale signs of the Annene Plague-red veins spreading down your arms in intricate patterns. I remember how my mother cried at the sight of them, a hollow, sorrowful sound. How I wished I could stop that sound.
But I was young; I didn’t realize why my mother’s tears fell. I didn’t realize why my sister covered my eyes when Plagued people struggled to get to the glass elevators that took us to the depths of the Earth. But I remember struggling against her hands, callused and strong, to no avail. She only released me when we were deep inside the Earth, on our way to Vault 32.
And that, my grandchildren, is where my story really begins.
YOU ARE READING
Population 15
RomanceThe world is in chaos; people struggle to survive in vaults underground as a deadly plague ravages earth. But there are others who walk the now barren world, others like Cam Morrington. Unaware of this, Cam struggles to survive in a world where he b...
