The world was dead. There was no on left alive except for one man. “Dear God” he thought as he walked out onto the barren stretch of land that used to be Central Park. It was once full of life but now as he stood he saw nothing but charred trees and singed grasses. At his feet lay the bodies of countless wildlife. It was hard to distinguish one thing from another; after the bomb hit everything looked the same. Buildings lay strewn across the city in piles of rubble like discarded children’s toys. The sky was black from smoke and debris as he wandered aimlessly through the city seeing nothing but destruction and the bubbling flesh of singed carcasses on the ground. He knelt down beside the corpse of a small child “How could this have happened?” he whispered.
They had sent the bomb shortly after the infection started to spread; sadly it wasn’t just the infected that were obliterated in the blast. It had killed all of them. It didn’t matter who you were, or where you were from because no one was spared. And to think just a few short weeks ago the city was more alive than ever. He used to hate the constant hustle and bustle of the city but now looking at the desolate streets he missed the noise. If only they could have caught it sooner.
First it started with a burning fever, the type that causes seizures and doesn’t go away. Then as it continued to deteriorate the immune system the host’s flesh would burn and peel leaving festering sores and diseased pustules. Hospitals were overrun with the sick and dying. They outnumbered the doctors and the nurses and finally out numbered the rooms. He watched them as they had begun piling bodies in condemned areas and burned them to reduce the spread but it was too late. News reports had called it a biological attack on the United States spread though the food supply but no one knew how it started. Though by the time everyone realized what had happened it didn’t matter. Officials spent endless days trying to disarm the flesh eating, immune system destroying chemicals but there was no end. No one slept for fear that it would consume them in their sleep. And No one ate because nothing could be deemed infection free.
People say it’s always darkest before dawn, but it was after dawn that the sky went black. The ominous shade began to swallow the city shrouding it in complete darkness. Then in a frenzy of blasts the world sparkled and danced as flames licked the sides of buildings and people were engulfed in the hungry blaze. The fire lasted for hours feeding on everything in its path and when there was nothing left to burn it fled leaving nothing behind it. And just like that everything was black again. He shivered as the screams echoed in his mind. In just a few moments all life had been destroyed. So why was he still here?