Pandemic

The unedited 30k sprint story, quite harsh and visceral, think bfore reading (http://www.edpriceishungry.com/2011/04/20/nowt-to-3k/) does this make up for my fail tuesday blog post?

so the fog and haze was still thick in the air of the streets as i ode my bycyle home, i was ready preapared for anythinjg that may lurk ahead of me, what difficulties would face me at home this times, what falures would face em on this journey. i live in a boarding house, and the year id three thousand. the smoke lyes thinck in the sky from, the buring of the funeral pyres, if they can even be called that anymore. there i no moarning or sorrow for the poor wrechid creatues who nurn anymoare no one knows what side they are on, good or bad, are we going to suffer painfuil deaths at the hand soof our firenmds as the paranoia sets in, noone really knows for siure. all they know is that the pademic will eventallu take them, its an innocent enough story, thatr of how the pandemic started. and i guess thechincally i was a part of it, we all where at we keep playing the game, it was called paindermic also, it was a gme whre the whole aim was to distroy the world with a pandemic thqt woulsd spread accotss the intire planet. kiloing evey one in the most effective way. accouting for the fact that boarders wouls close and that the government would try to astop the infectionm with aid and rules such as martial law and cufews. but there was one differnace between this game and so many ithes that had proceded it. this game was completel open sorse, and could be changed at the whimiscl though odf any man or his child. it was pandemic 1.345695d that was the vertion most remebered and most downloaded. it took into account eh most dangerious an deadly killer and disyroyer of human kind, itself. I added in sypotoms that caused humans to lask out on each other. It was simple to win then, even coutries that shut there boarders could not escape the killers so hell been nt of distroting theat they would fly there own plains or row there own boats or even swim to counties where the promise of fresh uninfected meat lay. where they could keep infecting and killing. It was the most popular dowload, so popular that for the first time a game was taken off the pandemic list.
but then people started getting wise, and my people. i mean govebnments,m of couirse chamical warefare had bewen well and truely banned by the time pademic was realese. but since when has that stopped any govenment for doing what it belives neesary. noone knows much about the nation that invented it. where they are or why they did it. but they took down evgerything. every man child woman animal and building burnt when the pandemic escaped, as everyone knows pandemmics do. but the virus spread almost silenly accross the world before anyone really noiced what has struck. even socail networks such as the dead twitter and facebook seemied in the dark abou what was happening. It just seemed as if civil war had struck nations foir no apparent reason. As the populace slowly got worse. The pandemic was smart 2, the scientist leart for all pandemics that had swept the world before, it learnt from the black plaugue to pray on our socitys weakeness, it learnt from spanish infulenza and h1n1 the power of ease of transmission and it learnt its most deadly leason from the most deadly diese that had speread the world befoire 1.345695d that speed was worth nothing, the disease just burnt itself out, so the pandemic was slow, silent and stealthy, it is transmitted through any contact with skin or bodliy fluids, and it takes a week to die even if it is not infecting a person, meaning that it it i almost impossible to stop. but still we stry, under the hope that he disease will burn itself out and that we woill be left as the soul surviours to live on again. but as each day pased the pyres only grow bigger. i look back on my parents, remebering the day they left me, hoping for the best for me, The could not even give me a goodby hug. only call out to me, from far enough away that neither party would be tempted to run out and hug the other, they were so gallant, so caring that as soon as they saw the blood on the tap that they had just drunk from, they knew it was the end. Thats what some of the infected did, cutting themselves and smearing the blood where ver they could like biologiacal mines, killing smalled clusters of people before the the could be warned away from the places where the infected had struck, 6 monthes after my parents left me, public waterfountans were diabled. no one was sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing as then the thist set in, people so despirate for water that they would dig at the earth for moisure, some gave up so completely that they threy themselves on the pyres. screaming in ectacy as they did so, the watchers of the pyres had run out off sorrow, or at least thats what they said. But i swear that there eyes that constantly smarted from the fumes, smarted just a little more each time someone gave up. many people who belived they were infectyed threw themselved on the pires, but the complete despiration of those who had given up shone through those who were m,early doing it as a public service, before the frenzy kicked in.
I visted the pyres daily, part of it was because the only service i could offer was giving the watchers some reief and part of it was a videral curiousity, as i watched shiliny eyes and flesh burn. though am in no way hearless. I still cry myself to sleep each night even thought the others sem to weiry. I scream for my parents in nightmares. i don't kmow how the others remain so composed, well i guess i am the youngest but that shouldn't make a differance i should be brave i should become accepting of the horros that each day brings, thare is no other way to survie this life in the opinions of all of the others in my boarding hose although they are wonderfully accepting and tollerant of this young man who ius to old to be accepted into an orpanage but not strong enough to be a wanterer of the wates. Naomi everynight through every nifht mare and every scream and fear she holds me. I cant help but feel ashaved of my cowardice, if the others canb survive without breaking down at each oprtunity then surely i can, i am almost a man. close enough in thius world as you really need to grow up fast. you need to put away your fears into a dark little corner where they cant claw at your heart with pademic infeted thoughts.
i hjave screamed at naiomi mnay nights
"how can you live like this" she murrmurs sofly in my hear in and attept to slow my rapid breath.
"i don't" it panics me more though
"then how can you sleep withough screaming, without the terror" insanity threatebning to grip me, turn me into one of the depirate sould who die in ecatcy. with death being a blessing, as they scream to there deities. weithing on this buring death bed, no religions hell is as bad as this life in there opinionts. death raging on and on and on incecently calosly and cruely, but not as criely as this magificently touturous life, pain maring every body, psycological or pysical.
at one point it was suggeseted that the infected should be hunted down and killed, but it was made apparent very quicly that this was completly the kwornd way to go about anything. anf the huters were infected on averge in days, witht the longetst surviving hunters, weeks not even the the best hunters names were recorded, they all diesd way to quicly for even the most dedicated person to record. everyone was dying. no one was sure if the population had dropped bellow a billion a million or even a thousand, i bacme harder to tell as each day passed. more people gave up, stopped stavelling and stpped spreading the word from other places, we were becoming m ore and more alone and more and more isolated. we feared the day that the pyres stared going out because when that day came it would mark the true coming of the end, we had been waiting and parying for years that that day would never end but it seemed as if it would and more and more people, we had no idea where they were coming from as the world stated to feel smaller and smaller more and more isolated. screams of the dying still reacing out ears. impossibe that life still seemed to go on childeren still being born in the sight of the pyres, the creamd of the schock of coing into the world seemed no differant that the pain of leaving it. some children were thrown on the pyres by parents who could be considered , amzingly bave and kind. or the worst kind of cruel, but there was no law anymore. we were only helb back by what socity if i could even be called that offered. you die without water, you die with the pandemic, you kill for food, you die for no reason. but you still have sex, love (if the twised up world could even truely hold that any more) the pademic, need and fear. the fear of what would happen if the screams stopped andf you were the only one left, if you were infected, if you were inferted and you found out before the madness hit you like a brick wall to the face. woiuld you have thge guts to go out like a hero by throwing yourself on the pyre like a true honest soul would, would you try to lock yourself in a room where you could starve out your frenzy all anone where you cdould hopefully hurt no one or would you give in at wait for the madness to set in and kill everyone. those were the questions that made everyone who lwas left (at least the sane ones) phlosophrs. we were eventhong now, philosophers , healers, teachers, pyre watchers, listeners, and we were all a little bit insane too, even the one who didn't show there night mares and fears how i did, still occtionally weep at the pyres when they found the energy or the time.
even nova, the harshes person i have ever heard of, (and i have to live with her!) could be spotter at the pyres. she said her eyes were just watering, but i dubted it. we all did, everyone left who was sane cryed. at least every one whio we had seen, and who we had been told about, although the population kept dropping the worl;d was steadly becoming bigger, we wondered what would happen to what was a tiny blue and gree worl abundant with life. would everything die, would we die and then the world manage to rebuild with us safely out of they way. none really new for sure, but we had the time to sit and ponder thouse things althought we arely talked anymore, you were either a realist or an optmist in this worf, and neith one was a respecvted title so people just jkept there mouths firmly clamped shut. and i was an crybaby already, i didn't want another ajective added to my name so i guess i really did conform in that way.
the haze was still drifing sofly, as i roe over the bumpy rubble of the ground, the grey houses the only thing that surrounbded me in the silence that drifted away at each explamation and scaream and incoherant scram of indanity in the disance as anoither thrwe themselves on a pyre. like the pandemics of the past hoses were forsaken , but with fire, the wooden ones having as mush of the woord taken as possibe fot the fires. out hose was the only one in our street, distance ws seen as a main factor to keep every one safe, but it was really an illution, with infected moving accross contanat and nations there was no hope brough in the disance of a few strees in suburbia, nor a few mile, not even a few miles under the sea was a garenttee any more. I just kept rining, carefully though brecause any damage to my bycycle was hard to repair, i was luck just to have a bike, they were a raity and this one was my fathers, so i would never leave my possention as long as i stayed sane. well i guess sanuity was really quite subjective, so i will say as ling as i remain sane enoughhto not trow myself on a pyre in a screaming rage like i saw most days. it was an impossible way to exist in this inbetween, in this limbo still wondering and praying over what tommorwo would hold for us, what horrors were in stor for us what was needed to survive and what ws desprately wanted. to escape for this impossibl lonely ness. was it possible, physicall contact was a risk, but most who avioded it went insane, or gave up, not wanting to live the last... no one knows what time frame.. of there lives untouched unwanted my anyone, or wanted so badly but avioded. i remeber every contact i had with a person since the pandemic, it wasn't something you jus forgot. I let my thought be absorbed in the physical exertion i was partaking in, trying to shut out my babbling thoughts for at least the shortest of whiles, round and round my feet go, fingets clenched tight on the handle bars, no helemt, it didn't even seem like a risk in thius world. roung and round forward and onwards.
and then it struck me, what was the point with keepin on trying with this world, we have done so much evil and hurt so much. we were worthless, we deserved tpo be killed an maccecured in the streets like animals by out own frieds, so i moved steathly, the pedals turing and the gears spinning on my bike gained a whole new meaning as i pedaled harded and harded towads home, ready to show them what i had realised, and show them with my bare hands and teeth, to claw at there throats with despiration for blood, io needed there deaths to purify this place that we have tourtured for so long, and still keep tourring. the light of the pyres making the night sky light, and the smoke hiding the clouds. childrenj have been born who have never seen the stars who mhave never seen life beyound the little hell hole that we live in. who will never see a tree. This world is dirty and horrible nasty and messed up by all the things that we are trying to do to msave our selves. what is the point, we are going to die. we are killing each other is the most ingenuios way of doing it. we are truely paying for our sins with the blood of our friends that are spil all over our hands and clothes. clothes that we have not changed stained with ash and sweat and tears. pointless hopeless tears that make no sense. we deserve to die. I cant wait to feel the suffering and pain that i shall inflict on my friends, the ones who i though were my friends. but in fact they are all evil; and heartless, Nove would go to the housed of those who had fleed and stael food, micheal would spend half his time praying to an false godess and the oither half trying to jusify his beafief to thoers instead of helping where it ws really needed. What is the point of his existance even i we derseved to live he wouldn't. He tells tales o saving children accross the nations before they were annexed into this mess we call a United Nations, but i realise now that he is a liar, no good ever came out of humans, not ene to each other. sasha says she takes our foor to orphans near the easter p[yres but i know now that she is lying she is eating it all herself or sharing it with he true friends, the dirty theif/ my legs are starting to cramp from the last hill before home, befor i can have my vengance. Before i can rake my broken finder nails accros scared chests, smear blod on the walls, run and claw at as many others as i kcan. spill my blood in there food. I feel the blood pound through me like nothing else ever has. Like nothing else ever will. i exist to kill and take life, I will spread death, I will bite, eat the hearts of my lovers, as they still boil in my hands. I finnaly reach home I Iam preapred I first see Sasha and nova talking in a corner, the spot me and wave hello, but the dont seem, so cheerful as i pounce on them hungry for them needing them. I smash my palm into novas throat cutting off her aggonized scream as i hear the carttilage clooapse and the blood explode from her mouth like pure water from a faucet. Im on mical next as he mive forward to stop me, i slash at him, naomi comes next and i bite at her, she deseved a more personal touch, as we were VERY close, if you know what i mean. Nova, who i had forgotten about calls my attention moving closer to her turning and snarl;ing. she fires the 2 shotgut pellets through my chest, i lunge at he at my heart fails. But i die happy, at they are all infected too only one drop of blood of fleck of salia or smear of sweat.