One of those things--an afflicted--made it all the way out here, onto the highway where we're waiting for a ferry. I saw it up close. It looked right at me with yellow eyes. Candice explained that its eyes were yellow because the afflicted are jaundiced. Their organs don't function properly and some don't function at all.
Research teams still don't fully understand the Renewer or its impact on humans. The afflicted are carrying some sort of parasite that floats in the spores (that's what the fog is: a cloud of purple spores, emitted from the Renewer bomb's point of impact). Thousands upon thousands of the parasites flood the afflicted's body until they just.. take control. Then they lay eggs, which create those Crystal-like formations. The afflicted's body then produces additional spores, creating a noxious cloud of vapor around it.
I'll never forget those eyes, regardless of my disease. They met mine. They were dead and alive at the same time. My heart stopped, much like the heart of an afflicted.
Then the afflicted just ran away, taking off down the highway with a stream of purple spores trailing behind it.
We're still stuck in traffic. We've basically been at a complete stop for two hours while we wait for the next ferry to come along. No one is getting out of their vehicles to stretch their legs or use the restroom, though; we're all too afraid of another afflicted showing up.
YOU ARE READING
The Imperfect's Journal: 1
General FictionThis is the journal of Darren Stratt, an "imperfect" who is being hunted in America due to a new law which has stripped disadvantaged individuals--now called "imperfects"--of their rights. In Darren's journal, he documents the horrors of a world run...
