STAGE 1

1

A/N: This story has taken me four days to fully develop. All of these ideas were created through research, and my own mind. Recently, I unfortunately discovered that the fungus that I have used, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, has been shown to create a zombie apocalypse in a video game called "The Last of Us".  This was a devastating blow to me, but upon research of the video game I have come to discover that we have very separate ideas, just relatively the same cause for the apocalypse (they use a mutation of the Cordyceps fungus that is close to the fungus that I have used). I hope that any fans of the game can look past that similarity and really take in what I am trying to do with this story. I am not trying to recreate anything that the creators of, "The Last of Us" have done. This is my own story, these are my own ideas. 

Thank You for your time!

- glenniegreene (Mackenzie) 

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Day 1:

Dr. Stevens opened his weary brown eyes, he removed his glasses and rubbed the sleep from them. Looked to him as though he had pulled an "all-nighter" once again. He sat up and moaned as his old back cracked and stretched. He reminded himself that, "He was getting too old for this." The sound of his lab door opening with a cheerful BLEEP startled him. He turned to find his younger assistant, two coffees in her hand. Denise smiled at him sympathetically and passed him the second coffee that was probably meant for someone else, he thanked her and took a drink. She looked through his notes with fascination.

"You did all of this last night?" She asked, it was hard for her to hide her astonishment.

"Yes, I did. Even ordered the Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis and everything," He said, taking another drink of the sweet coffee.

"That's the fungus, correct?" She asked, he smiled at her and nodded. "Wow, mind control. I didn't know that this even existed!"

"Neither did I, people like to keep it a secret. I'm personally just interested in the nerve control aspect," he explained and she nodded.

"So you'd use it to fix people with nerve damage," she said, her eyes still trailing up and down his sloppy notes.

"That's the idea," he said. "The fungus does seem to kill it's host each and every time so we need to dumb down the 'murder' factor." She laughed, it was a nasally and loud but a laugh nonetheless.

"When will it arrive?" She questioned, finally looking up from his new experiment's outline.

"Within a day or two," He said, getting up from his chair with a squeak. "So I'm going home, thanks for the coffee. I'll see you tomorrow." Denise nodded swiftly and watched the Doctor walk out of the lab.

Two Days Later, (Day 3):

The fungus arrived at his door, courtesy of Denise, an hour or two after he arrived at the lab that morning. The fungus was orange and much smaller than he was expecting for such a threatening species. Denise watched him closely as he carefully snapped on gloves and brought the fungus out of his packaging. He knew that the fungus had excluded humans from its list of victims but he was still extremely careful.

The day ticked down and Dr. Stevens had only just begun with the Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis, he dissected it, put it under a microscope and even tested it on some ants he took from Dr. Hernandez's ant farm. It was a fascinating species to watch, the ants spasmed as the fungus infiltrated it's body and it infected the brain within 20 minutes, the ants suddenly snapped to attention and moved around like mindless zombies. The fungus would then make them latch onto anything near a higher population of ants and kill it's host, it would quickly sprout from the host's body, ready to infect others. It was a parasitic plant to say the least. It all happened so quickly too, the whole ant population was dead or infected by the end of the day.