Once I got home, I went straight into the shower. A good Scottish hot-cold-hot shower was the best thing to prop me up. Also, plain old soap apparently tends to burst the virus’ protein sheathe/outer layer, so it made for a good and cheap way to disinfect myself. After I got out of the shower, I went to the kitchen and arranged myself some chow. The booze I had drank with the Chief of Staff at the hospital had made me hungry. Of course, the instant they had smelled food, the two furries were all over me, begging for treats. I tossed them some chunks, then I threw them out of my room, banishing them back to the living. I was in no mood for them. Big mama and my daughter were already dozing off in their places. I took the tray back to the kitchen, then got under the covers of my bed. I fell asleep immediately, as the whole stress and running around from the last few days finally sunk in. It sucked to be old, even at a meager sixty.

Throughout the night, I had a terrible nightmare. I was being parachuted from a plane alongside fifteen other people, men and women, all without faces and incapable of speaking. In my dreamstate, I knew somehow that we were a commando group that was supposed to scout ahead a metropolis that has come under a bio-chemical assault. Our mission was to find any and all survivors, then take them back to an evacuation point near the shoreline. The whole point was to find as many “samples” from the survivors as possible, so they might be researched by the microbiologists to find a cure for the plague. The biochemical assault had been deployed barely one day ago, but had already wiped out most of the population within the city.

My team was proceeding through a parking lot in the middle of the town. We were all proficient at sign language, so we did not need to speak to coordinate. The trees, flowers and most of the landscape did not look fazed at all by the biochemical assault. After going through the empty parking lot, we reached the main parliament building of that country, a huge towering monstrosity that had likely been built by some maniac dictator, with more ego then common sense, one of those people that thinks the world revolves around them. In the adjacent park attached to the huge building, we spotted large masses of dead people, who had died right where they had stood. Bodies of children on overturned bikes or roller blades, bodies of grandpas and grandmas with papers in hand or lying dead on chess tables, their coffee cups still filled with liquid nearby. What brought me to tears were the bodies of two twins inside a stroller, with the mother still death-gripping the handle even where she lay prone against the wheels. I saw bodies of dogs and even a cat or two all over the lawn. I found even a french bulldog attached with a leash to the hand of a young lady, strangely similar to Obelix. As we went past the park and into the building, more and more dead bodies in diplomatic suits could be found. We spent like what it seemed an eternity inside the building and had yet to find any survivor. We decided in the same mute way with hand signs to head to the heart of the city, on two old jeeps that we swiftly “acquired” from the garage of the huge building. Even though they were two old clunkers, bereft of any of the “smart” gadgets from nowadays, the cars still worked just fine. Even the gas tanks were full. As we went past the shops in the old city center, we were being forced to zig zag through crashed cars and over sidewalks filled with dead bodies everywhere.

Only bodies of humans, cats, dogs, or even rats could be seen everywhere. Strangely, the outbreak had only killed “mammals”, but had left birdkind intact. The crows and even the odd pigeon or two were crowding over the fresh bodies, pecking away at the flesh, sometimes running away with an eyeball in their beaks away from the rest like it was some sort of candy treat. In one place, they were tearing apart the dead body of a tuxedo cat, which was strangely similar to Othello. “The horrors of war” series of paintings by Francisco Goya seemed like innocent selfies compared to the scenes before me.

Once we got to the city center, we got off from the cars and began exploring again. Everywhere, only the bodies and the feasting of the birds could be found. We reached the intersection of two large boulevards. To the right side there was a large building with neoclassical architecture sporting a large sign which spelled “University of”, with the rest of the letters crumbled to pieces. The front steps of the building were littered with young students. At each of the corners of the intersections there were signs spelling out “SUBWAY”, with stairs leading down to the underpass of a metro station. The passage was littered with colored posters announcing a wide variety of upcoming shows or festivals, all which now would never see the light of day. The metropolis was now empty, save for the crows and vultures and other minor assorted birds feasting on the fresh carcasses. Never had I seen so many birds in one place. The lack of human movement had given them courage. I was getting anxious that they might decide on a whim to attack our group and we’d wind up like in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds”, a suprarealist masterpiece. Our entire group climbed down into the subway station, hoping that maybe some survivors had made it by hiding into the tunnels. As soon as I jumped on the railway to follow my fellow squad members, I heard an ear shattering honking from behind, then two huge headlights hit my eyes, blinding me. That was all just a split second before I felt the impact…

I woke up in the middle of the night sweating bullets. The “impact”, of course, had been Othello’s cheeky little ass, who had been playing midnight mountain climber like most self respecting nocturnal felines and had fallen right on top of my head from the closet nearby. I was still in my bed, and everything had been just a terrible nightmare. I got out of my bed before tossing away the guilty cat, then stepped into the living room. The two furries did not even bother to look my way. In the living, big mama was snoring like a chainsaw, and her laptop was still playing Ceaikovski Number One Concerto for piano and orchestra. Nowadays, instead of forgetting the TV on, the old had “upgraded” to leaving the laptop on, before falling asleep. I checked on my daughter, only to see her sleeping profoundly, I headed to the kitchen. I sat down and felt the rush of blood in my ears. I had never been through such a horrible nightmare before. In fact, I had not had a nightmare for years, and even those had been mild ones, like running from a donut man with a cleaver that was chasing me and getting nowhere, feeling the floor slipping under me. Typical stuff, realy. Yet now, the dream had been filled with large amounts of detail, an entire city displayed before my mind’s eyes like inside a cinema or a game, and filled with horrors beyond belief. What the hell was going on with me. I always amused myself at the expense of those foolish enough to deem any sort of a dreaming experience as “prophetic”, since I generally believed that dreams are just “brain farts” that the cerebrum comes up with while trying to sort through the day’s “folders” containing relevant or irrelevant memories. Still, the nightmare had been quite vivid, and I also found myself being able to recall the whole thing in great detail, contrary to the usual vague sensations that dreams left me with. Had my brain circuits gone haywire? I blamed it all on the series of events that had plagued me during last month, which had resulted in a lot of stuff getting jumbled up together inside of my head. I was assuming that the resulting mix had been the nightmare, otherwise I had no idea where that thing could have cropped up from. I stared at the pendulum clock in the hallway. It was three and a half AM, but I felt that sleep had left me for the moment. Therefore, I poured myself a glass of Cinzano on ice, then I went back to my room to abuse the laptop some more. I began to write back to Wu, telling him all about the death of Elias and his wife alongside with the sailor. I also took some time to contact Alfie, and share with him my macabre story. I wasn’t expecting much from Alfie, solution wise, but I still cherished his input. Wu was the one that could clear my mind, because my brain was jumbling up in a messy fashion all of the recently received info. After browsing for a while, I closed my laptop around five AM, then I reluctantly went back to sleep.

Next day, I woke up after lunch. Luckily, the rest of my sleep had been dreamless, so I wasn't feeling that tired. From the living room, I could hear the raging barks of Obelix. Apparently, the pooch had a bone to pick with Othello again, and they were ravaging the landscape while chasing eachother. I ran over them even as they fought for the rights over the “main seat” inside of the couch. Big mama was watching them with an amused look from the sidelines. I went into the kitchen and brewed myself some instant-coffee. At that point in time, it was the only thing that I desired. I lit myself a smoke, even though I rarely participated in that vice anymore. Slowly, I was dragging myself back to reality. I knew that the nightmare had only been only an outburst of my subconscious mind, which had been burdened with a lot of info related to possible global pandemics. The brain is what I call a “narration engine”, which tends to make up stories out of everything and anything, because it’s a good method of storing interconnected information. Even so, I had to give props to my brain for the realism factor, 10/10 would watch again, if it hadn't been so daaaamn scary. Paradoxically, nothing that I had dreamt about was that far removed from reality. It might have been a horror movie, but in the event of some bio-terrorist attack, it would have been pretty close to that. I was going bonkers from all of my detective attempts and global pandemic anxiety. I had to calm myself and take it slower. “Chill the f**k out”, as my daughter would say. I brought the now-empty coffee cup to the kitchen, washed it, then returned to my room and laptop. Even though I tried to unwind, curiosity was still pulling me to read the latest news. As soon as I opened my laptop, I noticed that Wu had sent me a long message again.

In the message, he was confirming in broad terms my fears and my hypothesis, and that only served to fuel my unrest. He also wrote that the situation over there was getting worse than they had predicted, with almost 20000 deaths already. Even though most of the victims had been old people over 70, which already had underlying health problems like diabetes, hypertension, were overweight or had other assortments of long term chronic diseases, the death rate had become way over the usual norm, all things considered. The weak had been culled first, mother nature not knowing any mercy. To her, we were still just another animal, and not some great and brilliant human mind, like all bipeds seem to wrongfully think of themselves. Wu had even been forced to write from another address, a foreign embassy one that bypassed the “great wall of China”, since all of the local communication avenues were being draconically monitored. Wu said that all three people that I had written about had mostly likely died because of his kind of virus. The incubation period, as well as the general symptomatology matched perfectly to the pattern they were facing over there. He told me to try and find a way to test myself and confirm whether I was a carrier of the virus or not, especially since I had been in close contact with the deceased. He told me that I should also test my daughter, mother in law, and even the Chief of the Tropical Diseases Clinic that I had seen, as well as anyone else that I could think of that might have come in contact with myself. He told me that there was no actual medication that would be even remotely effective, since this was a viral infection and not a bacteria-based one, so common antibiotics would do more harm than good, and viruses can’t be killed by medicine alone, only by one’s own body can the infection be beaten. Of course, boosting the body’s fighting power with a proper diet, smart lifestyle, and extra protective measures against further adjacent infections helps by a huge margin. He told me that the best “medicine”, if I was already sick, seemed to be Chloroquine, which had been used for hundreds of years to combat malaria. Why exactly that worked, he did not specify, but I took his word for it. He also told me that I should, for the foreseeable future, “stay the f**k inside of the house and not contaminate other people with my presence”. I was shaken for a while after I read the message. Reality was slowly creeping towards my nightmare. I wrote back a few words of encouragement to my buddy Wu, then I turned off my laptop. I remained like that in my armchair for a while, pondering my options. I had to admit it, but a lot of dark thoughts were dancing inside of my brain to a macabre waltz of impending doom. I had never been afraid in my whole life of a fight, but I feared deeply stuff like this, which you were absolutely helpless to fight against with either brawn or wisdom. It’s not like I could punch the virus to death or scam it with well forged documents, to get out of my body. I picked up the phone and called Mariah, the lady who had been my family doctor for more than twenty years. She was an especially skilled doctor, and possessed a generally open mind that understood stuff from the get-go without me having to “draw her a picture”. I asked her to keep a “slot” open for me later in her schedule, and that I would be coming over. After that, I showed my daughter the messages from Wu, and my endeavours to find out the cause of death of the three recent victims. I told her that I was heading over to Mariah, to pick up a prescription for some of the medication Wu had told me about. I asked my daughter to come along with me. A few minutes later, we both got dressed and took off. We made a beeline for the first pharmacy, then bought ourselves a few boxes full of medical face masks and latex gloves. After both of us put on our masks, we both felt like we were about to pull off some sort of a bank heist, and everyone in the street was looking in a weird way at us. Few folk had seen people walking around with face masks at that point in time, since the virus had barely reached the country and was not a major problem yet, so they were unconsciously avoiding us. We both climbed into a cab, and headed for Mariah’s medical office.