InsaneJournal

The Premise;

Pandemic. A word that has made its mark in the history of the world more than once. There was a typhoid fever outbreak in Athens, Greece around 430 B.C. that destroyed a quarter of the population over the course of four years. The Antonine Plague struck the Near East between 165 and 180 B.C., killing up to five million people during its campaign. The Bubonic Plague has appeared in the world twice, the first spanning a remarkable 169 years total between 541 and 750 A.D. and killing over 10,000 people a day during its height. The second began in the 1300s and was more popularly known as the Black Death. It came back with a vengeance this time taking 20 to 30 million Europeans in six years.

The world was no stranger to diseases that could wipe out the majority of its population in a few short years. It was simply the process of natural selection, Darwin’s Law at its best. However, the advent of technology, of humans who would not give up their lives because of some bacterial or viral agent brought about a new age. A time where the earth’s inhabitants could defend itself against these invisible interlopers with antibiotics and vaccines. People felt safe because technology had provided them with a security blanket. It told them that, despite the occasional epidemic that arose from time to time, nothing could wipe them out. Technology and civilization was greater now than it ever was in any other time in history, but overbearing pride and self-confidence can blind a person, even an entire society, from witnessing its own downfall.

It was this hubris that allowed a simple virus to devastate the world. It had been lingering amongst society for hundreds of years in many different forms, perhaps waiting for the perfect moment when it was at its strongest to strike the population and spread its venom throughout the people. The virus had tried a few times before, rearing its ugly head and killing tens of thousands of people, but it never succeeded to do anything more than that. Medicines and supplies were gathered and scientists from around the world worked together to create multiple vaccines against it. Hundreds of possible scenarios were played out in preparation for another attack and the human population was sure they could defend against it.

It wasn’t enough, though. The RNA virus mutated at a faster rate than could be predicted even by the most sophisticated of computers. Moving from host-to-host in the animal kingdom first, it genetically recombined over and over again. These genetic mutations allowed the virus to spread easily from one species to another. It killed wild birds at first, birds that migrated long distances and were able to carry the virus. Afterwards livestock became infected: chickens, cows, swine — none of them were immune to the virus and they too were beginning to die, but not before it made contact with the human population via physical contact and consumption of meat.

After it made contact with the human world in April of 2007, the virus began to spread like wild fire. Its first human victim occurred on the fateful day of April 12, 2007.

Elegant in its creation, HPVX (Highly Pathogenic Virus of type X) manifested itself as a mere cold complete with enough coughing and sneezing to release the virus into the air, thus infecting the next five, ten, even fifteen people. Those infected were only alive long enough to spread the virus after its short two-hour incubation period before they succumbed to the lethal effects of HPVX three to five hours after that. The hour or two before death was marked with a lethal fever, though the victims would complain of being deathly cold. Aside from their complaints of the cold and reports of severe headaches, little else information could be provided by most victims. They would fall silent and unaware of their surroundings as their bodies were wracked with uncontrollable shivering and some more stronger full-body spasms. Death came afterwards, swift but painful.

Most deaths occurred in hospitals where the victims gathered with the futile hope that they could be given some medicine to ease their symptoms. There were some who were too ill to even travel to medical centers and they chose to stay at home under the comfort of blankets and cold medicine. But it was useless. Anyone who had caught the virus and exhibited symptoms was already knocking on Death’s door. The first week of the virus did not yield much attention from the world. Most news agencies had reported it as a variant strain of the flu and had said that it was under control. The truth, however, revealed itself when the death toll continued to rise and the range of the virus had increased.

The scientific community had no idea what had just hit them. The simulations did not account for the virus being immediately airborne, the shortened incubation period, or even faster mortality rate. Panic consumed the masses as people began to flood into hospitals for a vaccine, but the vaccines that were prepared to counter the virus had no effect considering the antigenic shift that HPVX had already undergone. No amount of technology could have prepared the world for the pandemic that was enveloping them.

It was in the third week of the viral outbreak when people began to realize the sudden death toll in hospitals around the globe. People were dying at an rate unseen for centuries — a rate even worse than ever before in history. Governments alerted their citizens of the deadly viral outbreak, shutting down mass transportation between cities. Transportation to other countries ended as airports everywhere were suddenly empty. Air travel was banned, though a number of cargo ships continued with careful permission and some sea travel went on illegally. The world governments told their citizens not to panic, to seek out hospitals for treatment. There was no vaccine, no cure, but they couldn’t tell their citizens this without evoking further mass panic. Some leaders even claimed to have a miracle cure, yet the death toll rose and rose until people could no longer seek out hospitals for the sheer number of corpses inside the pristine white doors.

HPVX had done its work. It was now a global pandemic, and the public had dubbed it with the popular name of “Pandora virus” due to its devastating effects upon the world. The scientific community began to refer to the virus as “PV” for short. During the fifth week of the Pandora virus, all human travel was suspended in hopes of preventing further spread of Pandora, but the damage had been done. It was too late to reverse anything. No bodies littered the streets, but the silence of towns and cities spoke of the end that was coming for humanity. The scientific community reduced greatly in size, many of its people succumbing to the virus as well. Pandora staked her claim upon the world, and she chose not to let go.

Extensive fear gripped the hearts of those left in the world. What was the reason for this horror sweeping away human beings like dust? Only one answer made sense. Numerous countries were convinced that such a virus was man-made. Cries of biological terrorism rang through the air. Panic consumed the earth, and nations took up arms against one another. With such a death toll from the virus, nothing else answered the fear of humanity like firing upon their neighbors in retaliation. As if the devastation of the Pandora virus wasn’t enough, the world was now engaged in war.

The first bomb was launched during the early earliest hours of a Tuesday morning on May 29, 2007, heralding the start of the war. After only one and half months of the virus consuming the world, it was now time for new horrors to be unleashed — the fear and hatred of humanity. No infantry was used for this war. Most of the armies had been wiped out. It was a war involving distance, countries aimed at other countries, and they did the only thing they knew how to do. They fired numerous bombs into the air, littering the surface of the planet with large plots of destruction. None of the world’s citizens even had time to react. Before anyone knew it, whole cities were ravaged in the blink of an eye. Rumble laid where buildings once stood. The largest of the cities across the world went down first, and people fled from the foremost targets in order to seek safety in non-human inhabited areas.

Nuclear weapons were launched not long after the first bombs. It was a war to end all wars as paranoia consumed the world. Soldiers with intimidating weaponry lined up all around cities in a number of domineering countries to keep those areas still standing in check. Citizens seen acting out in some countries were gunned down, infected people sometimes shot where they stood before they drew too close to others. People were too busy attempting to survive and escape the ravages of bombs and the infection of the Pandora virus that riots did not even have time to begin. Those that did ended because hours later no bodies were left standing to continue the protests. PV, or the Pandora virus, continued to claim lives as well, even though the planet was devoured by the jaws of nuclear war.

All methods of travel during this time were nearly impossible. Only small groups of people could successfully travel, and those that wished to survive avoided all cities, military bases, and human-occupied areas. These were danger zones, where bombs were targeting relentlessly. There was no time to rest for those traveling for safe country. Near the end of the war after the devastation sank into the consciousness of people, citizens began to fight amongst themselves. There was no hope left by this point for many, and citizens turned into personal soldiers. No human being could be trusted if one wished to survive.

On the Wednesday evening of August 8, 2007, the war finally came to an end. For a little over two months, the planet suffered unimaginable destruction from the airborne weapons of war. For almost four months, the continual spread of the Pandora virus took care of the rest. The war itself only lasted nine weeks before countries realized that the virus was not an act of terrorism, but just a fluke of nature that was overlooked despite their preparation. However, the damage had already been done: nuclear weapons had been launched, napalm had consumed the land, and whomever wasn’t killed by PV was left to suffer at the hands of famine and nuclear radiation. Small groups of those still alive had no choice but to avoid the danger zones of cities and military bases because of radiation and the virus in hopes that they could survive despite the world’s condition.

At its height, PV took the lives of more than 25,000 people in just one day. The numbers in rural and impoverished areas were even higher. There were even some communities that were wiped out completely. The idea of having an immunity to such a natural-born killer like the Pandora virus was a dream. Most didn’t think it was possible considering PV’s almost 100% mortality rate, but then again, most were completely unaware of a class of people that possessed a natural immunity to PV in all of its forms.

Praeternaturals.

Praeternaturals were those that existed beyond the natural world in the land of myths and fairy tales. They were beings that belonged in bedtime stories and urban legends: vampires, merpeople, werewolves, elves, and various types of metahumans. But those are just a few. All of them were real, however, despite their categorization as the opposite. They had lived alongside the human species for thousands of years, lingering in the shadows and staying out of sight because of the fear that people had towards them. Now, they were among the few that could survive the devastation in the world, the few that could provide the earth with a new future.

Under the guidance of the oracle known as Euryale, the praeternaturals knew of the coming of the end. They began to prepare themselves for several months before the virus took its first victims. Together, they created safe havens around the world in areas that were uninhabited by men. Groups gathered supplies and set up magical barriers that would shield these areas from the outside world. Once the first of the havens was complete in April of 2007, it began immediately to take in people from all across the globe. Other havens quickly followed suit. They took in praeternaturals and humans alike, providing all with stability in a world full of chaos. The survival of every species was at stake now, and the future of the earth was in their hands.

Dependant upon a “back-to-basics” approach with hands-on work and the help of magic, these communities decided to put no value on the idea of currency and return to the simple methods of making their own goods for the people with the occasional barter and trade amongst others. There were no cars anymore, no need for gas, and no need for buses, trains, and planes. Travel went back to horses. Since the havens were very large in size, typically the expanse of a small country or slightly larger, horses made a reasonable method of travel. Winged horses known as pegasi and the tough-to-train eagle and horse hybrids called hippogriffs were also available for faster travel by flight.

Head Councils with reliable members were established for each haven to ensure a sense of order and structure to the areas. While the councils were able to maintain connections with each other from far away through various means, they were not yet able to travel to each other by person due to the conditions in the outside world and the uncertainty of just how safe it was out there. Within these safe havens, however, life had a means of continuing on once more. Without them, there would simply be no way to survive at all.

Welcome to Elysium, the first of the havens.