After almost two weeks of illness, my daughter had recovered. The symptoms were all gone. We all decided to take the test one more time and it had come back negative. The only one that had not been affected at all had been big mama, since she had swam through the entire disease period without as much as giving off a cough. During my daughter's sickness period she had cooked, washed and cleaned like nothing had ever happened. Her general optimism had kept the both of us floating and strong. The two furry pe(s)ts had kept on fighting over the ownership of the sofa and of the couches inside of the living room. As far as they were concerned, the mortal virus had never existed.

At about the beginning of April, both me and my daughter had managed to shrug off the sickness. We were quite happy to have gotten rid of the damn thing, because the pandemic had already produced tens of thousands of dead within Italy and Spain. Everything was going bonkers. My country had declared a state of emergency, and the police and the army were patrolling on the streets. Nobody was coming out of their houses without a good reason. The old folk, who were the most sensitive to the coronavirus, had been banned from going out except for between the hours 11 and 13, and only to re-supply themselves. Most economic activities had been halted. More than a million unemployed had suddenly popped up out of nowhere. The smaller shops had been closed. Only the supermarkets and the pharmacies were thriving. Anyone that was caught walking around for no reason would be given a large fine.

What got me most unsettled was an emergency message I received from Wu, at about the end of March. He was literally screaming at me since all of the message had been written in BOLD CAPS UNDERLINE. He told me that the Chinese virus had mutated, and now there was a new and much more dangerous Italian version of the damn thing, which was almost totally lethal. Somehow, nature had upgraded it’s murder tool, and Wu told me that millions are going to die soon, that the spanish flu is going to look like a joke in comparison. He told me to immediately get out of the city, and as far away from other people as possible, then try and wait it out, because shit was going to get very dire, very fast. He told me to grab as many supplies as I possibly could before the rest of the world caught up with the news. He told me straight that humanity was going to go to shit, and to prepare myself for what will come. The survival rate for the new virus was somewhere below 2%, which basically meant that out of 100 healthy people, only 2 would make it out, if they got lucky, and he also pointed out that the entire Europe was probably already infested, since the damn thing was rather slow to incubate, taking more that two weeks to actually manifest.

That did indeed smell like a real apocalypse scenario! The fighting for survival that was going to occur among the ones not infected, was going to put the last nail into humanity’s coffin. If the first version of the virus had spread so far and fast, and this new strand was like ten times more infectious, then we were looking at a world-wide crisis of never-before-seen proportions. I instantly showed my daughter Wu’s message and his predictions. After seeing that, she agreed that it was a good idea to have the chalet as a well-supplied retreat point.

Starting immediately, I took out my SUV out of the garage, went to the closest bank and cashed in all of my savings, then proceeded to buy a second truckload of supplies for survival. After the first day, we would head out every day to a different supermarket and we would grab all non perishable items like cans, dried veggies, pasta, batteries and fuel that we could get our hands on. After purchasing, we would haul them to the chalet, which was about two hundred kilometers away from the capital, in a hilly/mountainside forested region, where the peeks met the plains. After that, we would return home and wait for the next day’s haul. In about a week, we had accumulated a few hundred kilos of non-perishables in the chalet basement, as well as a few hundred gallons of fuel-canisters, safely tucked away inside a cement well, to prevent any accidents from happening. The rooms had been half-filled with wooden logs for cooking and heating, since I owned the timber rights to my forest patch, and I had plenty to spare. The fuel was necessary for the upkeep of the gas-powered generator, which provided the electricity for the chalet. If I rationed the fuel properly, I was looking at about a half year’s worth of power. I had also bought a few hundred boxes of matches, lighter fuel, and even a couple of flint and tinder fire starters.

I was planning to “camp out” the disease with my daughter and mother-in-law, since the chalet was located in a decently remote location, at about 20 kilometers away from the closest village near the foot of the mountain. The silence and serenity of my ancestral forest had been the main reason why I had built the chalet there in the first place, around 25 years ago, as it had been my “soul retreat” and veritable “man-cave” that I could relax in. I could write in peace and not be disturbed by anybody for days at a time. I would usually spend about half a year there during the “warm” season there, then bounce back to the house in the city for the winter times. I had learned while staying at the chalet how to cope up with a minimalist lifestyle, by barely using an economic lightbulb each night, to save on the fuel expenses, doing my laundry in the nearby river, and making food over a wood-powered iron stove. Even though the whole experience was quite proximate to 1800 autumn tech, I appreciated the lack of temptations that the civilized world tended to throw in my way. I was glad I had done so, because I was certain that all of those “minimalist skills” would come in handy soon.

After we bought everything we could think of that was remotely labeled as “necessary for survival”, we were still looking at barely six months’ worth of supplies. Even though I was usually a very cautious guy, I knew that these supplies would mean jack squat in the following madness.

We kept stuffing the chalet with supplies during the next few days. After I had received the ominous mail from Wu, I had decided to pull out of cold storage my old hunting rifles, and also check on my bullet count. I had about four different types of hunting armaments, but they were the types that you hunted duck or rabbits with, not bipeds. Each had about 200 bullets, since the state did not really allow people to stockpile that shit around here. It had been a veritable pain in the ass to get my shooting license in the first place, since guns are a general no-no in my country. Here, we usually just stab eachother with ornamental ninja swords, rather than shoot eachother like the more “modern” western world.

At first glance it might seem like 200 bullets each was a decently high amount, but on the other hand I knew that I was a crap shot, and also blind in one eye so my depth perception was whacked. If shit really hit the fan, my few “boomsticks” would mean very little in front of an angry mob. Not to mention the fact that if everything really went to shit, stealing weapons from the army would become a normal occurrence. I just hoped that I would not wind up in the “pray” category of survivors.

What I was the most grateful for, was that my daughter had beaten the virus. On the last day before leaving, we had taken the virus tests again and had come out negative. We were both somewhat ready to face the incoming crisis. As far as big mama was concerned, she had not even flinched. It was quite amazing to see her like that, considering that most of the victims had been old people so far. The two furries were the happiest, since they had been promptly transmigrated to the chalet right during the first excursion over there. I had dumped them in the chalet’s yard, and had left them to their own devices. They had their own swing door that they could use to come and go, and plenty of dry food to last them for days, even if we were away for some time. We had felt that the two furry moochers would become a boon for our sanity, if we had to stay away from humanity for more than six months.

The second wave of the virus, the one Wu had been panicked about, had begun making victims during the middle of April in other parts of the world. It was not known who patient Zero had been, but the new strand of the disease had started somewhere in the north of Italy, from inside Contagious Diseases Hospital that had already been overflowing with patients. After about two weeks since the appearance of patient Zero, all of the doctors inside that hospital had displayed an acute form of the symptoms similar to those of the coronavirus, except that none of them had seemed to be getting any better. Of course, the authorities had been way too slow to realise that the mutation of the virus had occurred, which had allowed a large mass of people to become infested with the new mutant virus, because they had come in contact with the doctors at the hospital or with the personnel that took care of the maintenance of the entire adjacent system. The spread of the new virus had cascaded, with everybody that had been infested carrying the new stand further and further away, without having any idea how drastically they were going to impact the whole planet. Even though many areas had already been quarantined because of the old Corvid-119, the main transportation avenues were still functional. The slow incubation period of almost two weeks had allowed the mutant virus to infiltrate itself into all of the maintenance systems of humanity.

It’s surprising how intertwined all of the systems created by humanity are, from transportation, fuel, water and food, as well as how dependent on those systems all of the urban areas are, relying on remotely delivered supplies for almost everything.

A driver making the supply rounds for food at the Italian Hospital where the disease had first started, had been infested because of the doctors. After that, he had brought the disease to his transport headquarters, infecting the rest of the drivers there. Those drivers had taken off in all possible directions, delivering their own cargo, and by doing so they had infected all of the inns and gas stations along their paths. As service hubs, those in turn had infested the local normal citizenry, making it snowball until a large swathe of the population was now already sick.

The first country to be really affected had of course been Italy. At the end of may, seeing that people were dying in droves and nobody was actually healing the symptoms anymore, the Italian authorities had been forced to establish the highest emergency state that they had available, which allowed the army to open fire upon anyone attempting to leave the quarantine zones. Everybody had suddenly become stuck inside of their homes, but since every form of transportation had been shut off, then the external supplies were not coming anymore as well.

This of course led to the desperation and rage of all of the people who were stuck inside, which now had no way to get any food or living necessities. The fact that people inside the quarantine zones were dying constantly did not help either. Entire swathes of houses or even entire blocks had been cut off, because everybody inside had perished from the sickness. Disposing of the bodies had become a huge problem. Anyone that would get anywhere near a recently dead victim would almost certainly get infected as well. In the end, every corpse had been abandoned inside of their homes, and left there to rot. The survivors had migrated to different places, and paranoia was running rampant. Nobody was getting anywhere near anybody else, and everyone looked suspicious. A mere cough, and you could wind up banished from the “safe zones”. Nobody was taking any risks, but that did not help one bit, because the food was running out. Trying to run away from the quarantine zones would get you shot. Some indeed had tried, and the army had promptly opened fire. The army had blocked off any major traffic ways, and had cordoned-off virtual “bubbles” around any center where the disease had been found. All major avenues and highways now either had tanks or humvees parked side to side across the streets, to block any runaway cars, and barricades full of barbed wire had been constructed. The authorities had foolishly decided that if they could not control the death rate of the virus, then the least they could do was to stop the spread by making all of the humans remain where they were, even if it meant for entire neighborhoods dying off. This, of course, did not pan out that well in reality. The despair caused by seeing everyone around you die from sickness, the lack of resources and the constant presence of the military had driven some groups to desperate acts. After tossing a few boulders at a patrolling army unit, some dudes made a run for it. After the soldiers chased them into an alley, they found themselves surrounded by a larger group. Battered with rocks, molotovs and axes, the soldiers had barely managed to fire off a single shot. After the rioting group took the soldier’s uniforms and weapons, they had infiltrated the army campside, and had begun to sabotage the compounds. They had of course, been caught. But by infiltrating the army, they had also spread the virus to said army.

Now, even the troops were coming down with the disease. Suspicion was running rampant among the soldiers as well, and paranoyed and stupid soldiers armed with heavy guns makes for a very dangerous and volatile concoction. It was no wonder everything blew up.

Soon, everywhere you could see there were groups of survivors vs army, army vs army, and survivors vs survivors. Everyone was out for themselves, trying to get as far away from the diseased zones as possible. Of course, this only led to the further spread of the virus. Seeing that the army wasn’t doing shit to protect them, and would rather shoot first then lend a hand, everybody had taken their fate in their own hands and had begun to raid and pillage and and all supply centers they could find. Ramming jeeps through the storefronts of supply depots, stealing away from supermarkets cartloads of foods, and then running away as fast as possible before the army could arrive and shoot, the bipeds were now causing chaos everywhere. The quarantine zones had broken, and the virus was spreading everywhere.

The same scene began to replay itself all across the world, albeit with a delay of about two weeks, which coincided with the incubation time. The occidental televisions were competing at broadcasting each and every horror that was occurring as much as they could. The concept of censure and that of “politically correct” had gone down the toilet. Rules like “not being allowed to show dead bodies” that the televisions had respected for so many years were now impossible to uphold. How could you even broadcast something without including bodies, when the dead were freaking EVERYWHERE! What would have usually been counted as an exceptional “yellow headlines” story, was now commonplace at every corner. What could the reporters do? Put the camera to the ground and pretend that it’s not happening? No, the vivid gore was raging across the web! The armies had almost given up at containing the rage of the populace. In the end, the troops were also made up out of humans, they could get scared, sick, intimidated, paranoid, and confused, so everything went to pieces. The disease had spread all across Europe, and in the latest news it had even reached across the oceans into the Americas and Australia.

I had not heard anything from Wu or Alfie at all. They had probably been caught in the madness and had died, or were somewhere that could not be reached by technology anymore. Each one of us now had to take care of ourselves from now on.

Slowly, the madness also arrived in my country. The moment that I had seen on the local News that even inside of my country people had begun to pillage the shopfronts, I had decided that it was time to get the hell away from the city. I knew that I had to get out of the urban areas as soon as possible, before the army began to block them off.

Even though my daughter was protesting and squealing at me that I’m crazy, and that she refuses to come along with me and big mama to the chalet without her boyfriend, when the next morning came up, I literally grabbed her like a sack of potatoes while she struggled and then I tossed her inside the back of the SUV, then locked the doors. Big mama had been much more cooperative, and had already taken the shotgun seat of the car.

After I had stuffed the car with the last of the necessities and supplies that had remained around the house during the night before, there was barely any space inside of it. Even my daughter was sitting on some canned fish, pork and beef. I left the city swiftly, using as many side-streets as possible, to avoid the eyes of any armed forces that might attempt to stop me.

It proved in the end that I had been quite inspired with my getaway, as the next day after my departure, the highest emergency state had been declared in my country as well, and all roads had been blocked off. My countrymen were now also being “guarded” with the Kalashnikov by the army.

After about three hours of travel time, I had reached the chalet. I had gone past the nearby village, which was 20 Km. away, and the village had seemed peaceful as always. The villagers had no fucking clue about what was comming, and were just going about with their lives. The village had seemingly avoided getting infected so far, because it was so remote and everything sucked so much inside of it that nobody wanted to come nor go away from it at all. The peasants would just hear the news, then shrug it off like it wasn’t their concern, because it did not affect them in any way yet. The fact that the local bipeds were much more calm than the rest of the world had relaxed me a little bit.

Once we had reached the chalet, it had taken about half a day for us to unpack the car and install ourselves inside the house proper. My daughter kept squealing at me, demanding that I hand over the keys to the car, so that she might go and “rescue” her boyfriend. Honestly, at that exact point in time, I did not care even a bit about Mr. Boyfriend, or as everybody called him, Brick, because he was as dense as a brick at times. In all honesty, no father will ever totally accept a daughter’s life partner, no matter how handsome or smart he may be, because it feels like he’s stealing something away. At least, that’s what Mr.Freud said.

Therefore, I Ignored her pleas, even though she kept arguing with me that he was necessary “to perpetuate the species”.