Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Broad Institute was founded in 2004 to fulfill the promise of genomic medicine. Announced on May 14, 2025, scientists discovered a way to implant non-human genes inside the human genome. Specifically, they had managed to put the genes of a Desmodus rotundus, also known as the common vampire bat, into the human genome. According to Doctor June Lumpur, the leading scientist at Broad Institute, the genes they implanted are the same ones that allow Vampire Bats to be unaffected by many viruses such as Ebola This worked by allowing the now newly edited human cells to induce changes in viruses, making them less capable of harm.
This was proven to be extremely effective over the next two years, with deaths from influenza falling from twelve thousand annually to zero within the group of four million people who received this genetic editing treatment. However, during the middle of 2027, many people started to get self-hospitalized complaining of pains all over their body with the greatest pains coming from the eyes, mouth, arms, and head. Of course, with any illness, not everyone showing symptoms or pains went to get it checked. Accompanying the physical pains were severe nausea and moderate sensitivity to the light and loud noise. At first, doctors thought this may have been a new disease or infection of some kind. Blood tests would come back that all of the patients were part of the four million who had undergone genetic editing. Over the next several months the genetic editing would be stopped as more and more people would undergo the genetic editing treatment would be hospitalized with the same symptoms.
The patients who had originally been diagnosed at the hospital would find physical changed to their body. Their hair would slowly begin to fall out, which would be quickly followed by their teeth rotting and falling out. This would be all that would happen for a few more weeks before they start experiencing seizure like symptoms, which would then hospitalize them once again. Symptoms would ramp up quickly as the patients who had undergone the genetic editing treatment first would start to change physiological with sharp teeth growing where their old ones had been, even pushing up any denial implants. Their ears would elongate to be roughly one and a half time the length of normal humans and would also now come to a point. Their skin would change to a grey corpse-like skin color. Accompanying this would be an insatiable hunger. However, the patients would vomit any and all food that was fed to them.
These patients showing physical changes were transported to a more secure quarantine facility called D.I.V.I.D or Disease Infection and the Virus Investigations Department located in Cambridge. The patients would become more animalistic, growling, and snarling at scientist who would come and take their blood. One day, things would go haywire as the most far along patient, known as Patient Nulla, would bite one of the scientists when they went to take saliva samples. After going through proper sanitation and disinfectant procedures, the scientists were put into a three week long quarantine. However, it was released after showing no signs of anything wrong along with being sent home on paid leave. Only a few days later the same scientists would start to show symptoms however his condition would quickly worsen with his body changing from normal to near end term infection within a few hours at his home in Boston, Massachusetts.
The scientist would already be the animalistic humanoid he had worked with these last couple of weeks. The infection that once took years to produce severe symptoms now only took hours. The scientist now infected would end up biting his wife in her sleep, who would turn in only an hour. It would take a few hours for these infected individuals to work their way out of the house into Boston late at night. At this point, these infected individuals were much different from Patient Nulla. Their bodies were emaciated, they had long claw like nails, and they were far stronger able to dismember a human with ease. It wouldn't take long for more to become infected with the infection period growing shorter and shorter from a few hours to only about half an hour at the shortest.
Through the different generations of infections, the mutations of the infected would also change with the infected developing worse eye sight with them barely able to see thongs right in front of them. This made them have to use their enhanced hearing in order to hunt. Within the first night, eighty-nine percent of Boston had been infected with now 600,000 people infected by the next day, and by the time anyone learned of this. This day, November 7th, 2028, would be known as V-Day by the survivors. From here, it would spread like wild fire from Massachusetts to the rest of the world in only a few weeks, with only around four hundred million people left in the world as of November 21st, 2028. Rumors of a cure in Cambridge began spread amongst the survivors, many meeting their end trying to make to make it there in hopes of finding this rumored cure.
