The Immune

2. How it all started

During the summer of my ninth birthday the world as we knew it to be , died.
Just like the Hollywood movies predicted.
A terrible virus swept across the globe.
Must of us tried to hold onto the old world's values and traditions but sometimes our weakness, was our humanity.
The contagious virus destroyed the immune system, and within three months had traversed the globe. 20% of the population were dead within the first day of contracting the virus - 2% of the infection ravaged survived. The ravaged survivors were merely vessels, shells of their former selves whereby the virus had so destroyed the brain, that the human being had basically devolved into a almost primitive version of itself.
They maintained no memory
They forgot how to be human
They are the primitive, the cannibal , the angry.
Ironically it was these 'survivors' that enabled the mutated virus to grow and infect the rest of humanity.

Being bitten was the worst way to go. The virus ensured fever, and sharp pains would take over your body. The pain would bring on twitches, hallucinations, then steadily progress to convulsions, vomiting blood, fits of rage and lunacy. It was a deterioration of the mental state as pathways and connections at the micro scale would break down.
It would take a day maximum, to devolve.
Yet It could also only take a matter of minutes, all due to the location of infection on the body.

We thought the virus only infected a specific percentage when in fact, it infected us all. Those who died in the initial wave remained dead - permanently killing off 20% of the worlds population. For everyone else, the virus took hold, latching on to our bodies, laying dormant, the virus waiting for a trigger - that could be death, weakness, or merely being bitten by a host of the mutated virus.
These animals would group together, they walked without direction, but became an imposing, impenetrable force. They run, and they are always hunting, always hungry.

They are not your traditional hollywood zombie, being that, the infected are still alive, with their circulatory system suffering from an almost enervated homeostatic status, meaning their heart beats, they breath, and infected blood flows through their body at a rate, roughly 1/16, of normal human function. The infection keeps them hovering in a state between life and death. From what I know, the infection also creates a potent mass of chemicals, a cocktail of inorganic hormones that stimulate and hyper activate the host, keeping the barely alive body, running, and screaming, and feasting. That is no medical diagnosis, that is just my 7nderstanding of all the crap I've heard.

The only way to stop them- a bullet to the head.

The world was in chaos. Cities and suburbs became battlegrounds of Gore, a site teeming with zombies.
Over time, the few, like my family, regrouped and began to rebuild. Humans were for once mainly at peace with each other, United against a common evil.
Life was alright, we began to live with hope, hiding behind strong walls and guards.
Until my mother was bitten.
She didn't turn.
And she survived the mutated virus.

Evaline Strike became a legend, she became the answer, the solution.
She was the cure, she was willing to help. Until they started taking things too far. Their research gleaned little, and as a result, their experiments became more rigorous . Cutting and slicing and hunting. They tore our family apart.
I don't really know what happened - One day I was sitting in our home, a sanctuary in the Compound. I was watching over the twins and little Lily when dad burst through the front door. His haggard appearance disrupting the calm of our home. Mom had been gone for three months, and we were almost getting used to her absence. Wise beyond my 15 years at the time, I was accepting of the worst.
"Ashlyn we gotta go, we can't stay" the panicked tone hurried me, yet it wouldn't stop me from asking questions. Questions that he didn't or couldn't answer.
We escaped into the day, assisted by a few of dad's friends. Dad had picked what he thought was the lesser of two evils - a life beyond the safety of the walls, a life amongst the zombies, a life away from the evils of man.
He later told me of mom's demise - mentioning organ farming and reinfection. "By the time the doctors were done with her," he said "she couldn't have even recognised her face"
She died violated, empty and abused. They drained her blood, removed her brain.
With her death, their attention turned to us. Her children, her blood, her genes, her brain.
We were hunted.
We survived four years on our own. We travelled hundreds of miles, across states, up mountains.
They were following all along, never quite catching up.
Our time running ended with blood, fire, death and zombies.