Alternate 2020

Episode 1: The beginning and the ending (1)

I gazed out of my window as the stars glittered in the deep, dark space. It's rare to see stars at night in an urban city like Coventry.

"3:00 am..." I muttered to myself.

The night sky was awfully quiet as I listened to my laptop playing a live stream in the background.

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"Yahoooo~ this entire world is finally now under 'my' control!"

—————

"Huh... what an idiot," I thought to myself. It took him five hours to finish the game 'infect'. There were many routes he could have done better but...

"Haaa..." I let out a sigh. "Why am I getting so annoyed? It's just a game, not like I care much..."

Suddenly, my phone buzzed and the screen illuminated the entire room.

I shielded my eyes as I peeked through my fingers trying to make out what was being displayed.

It's Janda.

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Janda: "Hey look!"

Janda: "There's some hot news goin..."

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That was the two messages I saw before I got bombarded with more messages moments later. My phone kept buzzing and flashing non-stop for the next few moments as I saw the notifications replacing each other through the tiny gaps of my fingers.

The bright light gave me a shocking feeling as I rolled my eyes.

"Agh... what's this? Messages 3:00 am in the morning?" I said angrily. "Come on... I was about the head to sleep after that boring stream! Forget it, I'm gonna check tomorrow."

I turned the phone screen off, put it on silent and headed to bed.

* * *

The next morning, I make myself a slice of bread and headed off to uni[1]; just another typical Monday.

I slid my EarPods in, turned up the music and started scrolling through my messages.

Cars paced by the busy streets as I walked along the pavement heading towards the engineering building.

"What the-? 26 messages? That's ridiculous! Is he spamming me or something?"

I tapped his contact name and opened his messages.

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Janda: "Hey look!"

Janda: "There's some hot news going around lately!"

Janda: "You gotta see this!"

Janda: "I know you're not asleep man..."

Janda: "Anyway, apparently some random virus was found. Here's the link below..."

...

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I quickly glimpsed through the paragraphs within the website. To summarise, it was talking about how the virus is dangerous and some important features this virus had.

"C19...? Is that the virus name?" I muttered to myself.

"Symptoms..." I said looking at my phone.

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"...feels hot when touching the back or the chest..."

"...continuous coughing..."

"...change in sense of smell and taste..."