HOME | DD

Description
It was the animals. The animals knew first. The animals were always the first to notice any imbalance in the course of nature. Us humans, however, we were stupid and blind, as we always were. Nobody even bat an eyelash for awhile. How often do people take into account the squirrels or chipmunks in their front yard? Or the stray cats on your street? Nobody really cared? They were much too busy with their day-to-day lives. Sure, there were the scientists and the environmentalists who took note. There was the random article in the newspaper, or a scientific journal, or a blog post somewhere on the Internet. But since when did the average person care about missing rodents? And even the few that did read up on the matter, how many of them actually cared? Ten? Maybe twenty? Most people were much too worried about things like gas tax and stock markets, the latest action flick or Hollywood scandal. Things that are now completely irrelevant.

My daughter noticed it before anyone else I knew. Maybe children are more perceptive to that sort of thing. I was sitting in my study, catching up on work that never got done at the office. She poked her small, innocent blond head into the doorway, looking worried and distressed.
"Daddy..." She whined. "The stray kitties haven't come to eat the food. Where'd they go?"
I fed her some lame excuse about the cats going back to their original owners. I was too busy with my work to worry myself with the problems of an eight year old child. Even if the child was my own.
Later, something similar came up. She pointed it out again, always the observant one. She saw that the bread in the bird feeder was starting to mold - something very unusual, due to the abundance of wildlife that usually inhabited our area. This time I didn't have an explanation to give her, but I did empty the bread dish. I never bothered to refill it.

By this time I began to watch the news. It seemed that my daughter wasn't the only one starting to notice these subtle changes in nature. Pet dogs and cats had gone missing by the dozens, and it was only the tip of the iceberg.

On March 15th, Shit hit the fan. The first attack was documented in Seattle, but it probably started in some rural area, on a farm or something. From there, it quickly spread like wildfire. They tried to contain it, but it was already in the wildlife. It was only a matter of time. A select few people recognised the disease for what it was. They prepared themselves accordingly. The media, however, painted it as a mental disease with some physical side effects that were nothing more than a coincidence of the condition. They were very vague as to what the side effects were, however. People bean to rush to bomb shelters, bringing as many supplies along as they could carry. Others stockpiled and boarded up their homes, preparing themselves for the worst.

It was my understanding that people were far more stupid and foolish in groups, so I opted to keep my family safe by boarding up everything, and moving us all into the attic once the disaster hit our city. The entrance to the attic was via pull-down stairs, so even if the infected managed to get past the covered windows and doors, they would never actually get into the attic. We were safe for as long as our supplies could hold out, hopefully until this horror had passed. My wife, however, didn't agree with me. She believed that there was safety in numbers, and wanted to go to a shelter and wait it out with the others. It took me a bit, but I convinced her to stay at home and hide where it was guaranteed to be safe. By the time the infection hit hard enough, I had enough supplies to last us at least two months.

Within two weeks of the quarantine in our city our street was littered with the infected. We kept the blinds closed, they scared our daughter. Every time we looked, it got worse and worse. We started to wonder if there were any healthy people still out there, or if they were all equally as scared, hiding in their homes? My wife began to go into hysterics halfway through the second month. She wanted to preform a group suicide, saying that it was better than giving ourselves up to the infection as well. She was prepared. We had my old hunting gun with us, for protection just in case, and she was about ready to blow both my daughter and I away. I couldn't believe that my loving and caring wife would descend into such madness and threaten not only her own life, but the life of our precious little girl. The fear in our daughter's eyes was the only thing that could bring my wife down from her hysteria. She woke up to her mother shouting, and when she looked into the fearful, innocent eyes, she couldn't do it. It was the one thing that saved us, was her. But now my wife is an empty shell of a person, almost as bad as those that stumble around the street. She has since refused food, and goes days without saying a word.

But now, our supplies are running dry, and I am running out of options. We'll soon be out of food, and there hasn't been rain for weeks. Once the last of the food stores are gone, we'll be forced out of the safety of our attic to look for more, but its more unsafe than ever to leave. There hasn't even been a helicopter or airplane over head in over a month. I would go alone, but I'm afraid to leave our daughter with my wife. She's nowhere near stable enough to care for herself, let alone another person. With each passing day, I am pushed closer toward making a decision I hoped I would never have to make. I've used a scrap cardboard from the last box of food to write this testament. Even if we're long gone, I want someone to know what happened, should they ever find it. If there even is anyone else out there.

My wife may have been correct, now that our supplies are gone, what do we do? Do we leave the safety of the attic, in search of more food, at the risk of becoming one of the infected? Or do I give them a quick, merciful end? I'm at the end of my rope, and I have no other choices. Tomorrow, I must take action.

Description
It was the animals. The animals knew first. The animals were always the first to notice any imbalance in the course of nature. Us humans, however, we were stupid and blind, as we always were. Nobody even bat an eyelash for awhile. How often do people take into account the squirrels or chipmunks in their front yard? Or the stray cats on your street? Nobody really cared? They were much too busy with their day-to-day lives. Sure, there were the scientists and the environmentalists who took note. There was the random article in the newspaper, or a scientific journal, or a blog post somewhere on the Internet. But since when did the average person care about missing rodents? And even the few that did read up on the matter, how many of them actually cared? Ten? Maybe twenty? Most people were much too worried about things like gas tax and stock markets, the latest action flick or Hollywood scandal. Things that are now completely irrelevant.

My daughter noticed it before anyone else I knew. Maybe children are more perceptive to that sort of thing. I was sitting in my study, catching up on work that never got done at the office. She poked her small, innocent blond head into the doorway, looking worried and distressed.
"Daddy..." She whined. "The stray kitties haven't come to eat the food. Where'd they go?"
I fed her some lame excuse about the cats going back to their original owners. I was too busy with my work to worry myself with the problems of an eight year old child. Even if the child was my own.
Later, something similar came up. She pointed it out again, always the observant one. She saw that the bread in the bird feeder was starting to mold - something very unusual, due to the abundance of wildlife that usually inhabited our area. This time I didn't have an explanation to give her, but I did empty the bread dish. I never bothered to refill it.

By this time I began to watch the news. It seemed that my daughter wasn't the only one starting to notice these subtle changes in nature. Pet dogs and cats had gone missing by the dozens, and it was only the tip of the iceberg.

On March 15th, Shit hit the fan. The first attack was documented in Seattle, but it probably started in some rural area, on a farm or something. From there, it quickly spread like wildfire. They tried to contain it, but it was already in the wildlife. It was only a matter of time. A select few people recognised the disease for what it was. They prepared themselves accordingly. The media, however, painted it as a mental disease with some physical side effects that were nothing more than a coincidence of the condition. They were very vague as to what the side effects were, however. People bean to rush to bomb shelters, bringing as many supplies along as they could carry. Others stockpiled and boarded up their homes, preparing themselves for the worst.

It was my understanding that people were far more stupid and foolish in groups, so I opted to keep my family safe by boarding up everything, and moving us all into the attic once the disaster hit our city. The entrance to the attic was via pull-down stairs, so even if the infected managed to get past the covered windows and doors, they would never actually get into the attic. We were safe for as long as our supplies could hold out, hopefully until this horror had passed. My wife, however, didn't agree with me. She believed that there was safety in numbers, and wanted to go to a shelter and wait it out with the others. It took me a bit, but I convinced her to stay at home and hide where it was guaranteed to be safe. By the time the infection hit hard enough, I had enough supplies to last us at least two months.

Within two weeks of the quarantine in our city our street was littered with the infected. We kept the blinds closed, they scared our daughter. Every time we looked, it got worse and worse. We started to wonder if there were any healthy people still out there, or if they were all equally as scared, hiding in their homes? My wife began to go into hysterics halfway through the second month. She wanted to preform a group suicide, saying that it was better than giving ourselves up to the infection as well. She was prepared. We had my old hunting gun with us, for protection just in case, and she was about ready to blow both my daughter and I away. I couldn't believe that my loving and caring wife would descend into such madness and threaten not only her own life, but the life of our precious little girl. The fear in our daughter's eyes was the only thing that could bring my wife down from her hysteria. She woke up to her mother shouting, and when she looked into the fearful, innocent eyes, she couldn't do it. It was the one thing that saved us, was her. But now my wife is an empty shell of a person, almost as bad as those that stumble around the street. She has since refused food, and goes days without saying a word.

But now, our supplies are running dry, and I am running out of options. We'll soon be out of food, and there hasn't been rain for weeks. Once the last of the food stores are gone, we'll be forced out of the safety of our attic to look for more, but its more unsafe than ever to leave. There hasn't even been a helicopter or airplane over head in over a month. I would go alone, but I'm afraid to leave our daughter with my wife. She's nowhere near stable enough to care for herself, let alone another person. With each passing day, I am pushed closer toward making a decision I hoped I would never have to make. I've used a scrap cardboard from the last box of food to write this testament. Even if we're long gone, I want someone to know what happened, should they ever find it. If there even is anyone else out there.

My wife may have been correct, now that our supplies are gone, what do we do? Do we leave the safety of the attic, in search of more food, at the risk of becoming one of the infected? Or do I give them a quick, merciful end? I'm at the end of my rope, and I have no other choices. Tomorrow, I must take action.