Plague Overrun

Plague Doctor

I had a visit with a plague doctor today. I'm not sure why they feel it necessary to wear cloaks with bird masks instead of gasmasks and hazmat suits. In any case, it was a pleasant time.

It's rare for someone working for High Command to show care like the Plague Doctors do. Unlike the guards, they won't immediately execute you when you get injured, but instead they patch you up, and while doing so they strike up a conversation.

I've had the same reaccuring dream. I don't tell it to the Plague Doctor, no matter how much she asks me. The dream is one I wish everyday would become a reality. That dream is to call her my own. In a world where everything is Hell, and nobody cares, it's not surprising I cling to her like I do.

I always ask to see her face, but she always refuses, saying that she'd rather not get shot by a sniper who keeps watch over her at all times. Sometimes I see a man watching over head, and I assume that's who she talks about.

I see her twice a month. She has appointments with dozens of others, yet she never seems worn out. She always feels full of energy and life and love, but calm and slow in every tiny movement she makes.

I part ways with her, knowing I won't see her again for another two weeks. Unfortunately for me, I soon realize I won't see her ever again. I've been drafted into a Plague task force. I had to let my cat go that day. For the next hour before we took off into a helicopter towards a quarantine zone, I flinched with each distant gunshot, wondering if my cat met it's end.

The uniform I have feels uncomfortable. They're all in two sizes, so for most people it isn't fully comfortable. I can't see behind any of the gasmasks, but I can feel the fear in every inch of the helicopter.

I've held my first gun today. An MP-52D, a compact SMG built just like an MP-40, just made of cheaper and more angular parts with less curvature to cut down on production speed and putting the parts together. For the first time I feel safe, even when I'm being flown to my certain doom. This is the eleventh helicopter this day. This is the last helicopter I may ever see.
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I've never seen this many people die this quick. Even in an execution, there would be a ten second delay before each body fell to the ground. Here? Even without being killed by bullets they still die before they hit the floor.

The Plague is worse than I could have ever imagined. One comes towards me now, one half covered in gear and a panicked face shown, the other half being a mass of red flesh and many holes oozing gore out. Some don't even have heads.

They aren't mindless. They have tactics. They go into cover, dodge out of the way of fire. I saw one man try and stab one with a knife, but it knocked the knife out of his hand and turned it on him. I ran for so long.

My legs ache. I must run. I can't feel my feet. I can't look back. My gun is gone. There is no hope. Being backed to a corner, a mass of flesh standing over me, the mangled corpse of the previous host being discarded as the red sludge crawls onto my body.

In my final moments, she came into my mind. Her loving embrace, her kind words. I remember when she patched me up when a guard skinned my ankle. I remember her voice, her laugh, and tears filled my eyes, before darkness came.

I heard screams before my vision returned. I was no longer in control of my body. What is that taste? It tastes amazing, better than anything I've ever had before.

He stares up at me as I eat him, his eyes wide and full of tears as he screams in pain and terror as his flesh is torn from his body.

What could this taste be? I only know one taste, and that's like Hell to this Heaven. I gulp it down greedily, satisfied with the amazing flavor.

I drop him, letting his lifeless body fall before other infected come along and fight over the remains. I stand so much taller than the rest, like a tower above houses.

I've never felt so high before. My friends are so small compared to me. I feel like I could fall over, my body not my own. Another friend grip my arm, appearing small and scared.

I rip his head off, a small chunk of my flesh in his toothless mouth. The only form of teeth he has are sharpened flesh. I toss his head aside, moving along and away from the other infected.

Everything is so peaceful and calm. My friend hug each other sitting down and eating with each other happily. But then I see her.

A single crow stands atop a pile of rubble, staring down at me. In a flash, everything comes back to me. I fall backward, watching infected savagely consume humans like as if though they themselves weren't once human.

I stare down at my hands in horror, at my sharpened flesh claws. I have no skin, only deep red muscular flesh. Small magenta veins are the only difference of color across the surface of my body.

How did this happen?! I'm an infected! One with the Plague! But... my senses. I'm myself mentally, but physically an entirely new being. Night falls in the sky, and for a moment I wonder if this is a dream.

I run off in horror, past other infected who fight each other over large mounds of piled fresh corpses. I soon I see one thing that sends a chill up my spine. The quarantine border. Guards stand on top of it, too distracted to notice me from this distance.

My powerful shoulders slump, my entire muscular physique seemingly gone as I fall to my knees in realization and defeat. I can never go home. I can never see her again. I never even knew her name.