This thread is where the chapter by chapter breakdown of my story 2017, will be located. I'd greatly appreciate it if you made any comments, suggestions, complaints, hate mail, etc, in the other 2017 thread. That means please don't respond to this thread, as it will allow other readers to transition more easily into the other segments/chapters. Any updates I'll be releasing will be made on the other thread as well, aside from this one. The other chapters of the book will be much longer than this, and as such, will probably take longer due school, gaming, and the like. So, without further delay, I present to yall' the first chapter of 2017.
Chapter One
What does the world of an apocalypse look like? How different from the lives humanity used to live out is it all? Daily tasks, daily activities, all of it. How does it change? I’m sure people asked these questions all the time before this happened, wondering to themselves what it’d all be like. I’m sure still others thought something like this’d be one of the greatest experiences anyone would ever have. I know, I thought just like they did. But this is nothing like what I wanted it to be like…
It’s the fifth month after the infection began. Almost the entirety of the human population is either dead, or dying. Least that’s what the army officials down at the military outpost are saying. I’m not surprised, seeing the reports from the other countries and states before it hit us. They say officially that somewhere around sixty percent of the world is dead, their bodies decomposing already. A small amount of the human race was immune to this ordeal, though. Around one and half percent is the number. We’re struggling to survive, obviously. Scrounging for whatever we can daily. It’s a terrible lifestyle, honestly.
But what of the remaining forty percent? Ah, that’s where this story gets interesting. That remaining portion of our old friends and society members are roving the streets of former cities, their mindless and broken states resembling that of ‘zombies’. They’re horrible sights to see, broken forms of their prior healthy state. Darkened skin and flimsy structures, a lack of any true form of thought, and a desire to kill. If they aren’t trying to kill some poor survivor, you can be damn sure they’re beating each other.
Some people ask where this whole thing came from. If you asked me, I wouldn’t really be able to give you a full, truthful answer. All I’d be able to tell you is that it came out of somewhere in Europe in mid-March of this year. It spread like wildfire, through almost all forms of human contact and even through the air. Europe, Asia, and Africa were pretty much gone in around a month or so. It just hit the United States in full force around three months ago. It got all the way over here to Oregon in early July. People, of course, got infected and the like rather quickly. My friends, teachers, co-workers; they’re pretty much all gone like everyone else is. I guess I got stuck with this curse of being immune, being among the few to be left upon this planet with the ability to see everything we’ve done be destroyed.
I guess I should probably introduce myself by this point. My name before the infection was Ryan Prestons, and I’m currently twenty-four years old. I was just about to finish up at college, majoring in archaeology and geological sciences. It’s funny, seeing as I was mainly interested in studying the falls of empires and nations throughout history once I’d gotten out onto the field. Now, I’m literally seeing one happen before my eyes, and it’s on a much larger scale. Who knows, maybe humanity will survive through this, and someone will be digging up my body someday to study what exactly happened. They’ll never know what really happened, though. Hell, I don’t even really know too much about it myself.
Before the infection and I guess still afterwards, I lived in a medium sized town called Sherwood about fifteen miles outside Portland, Oregon. I was living with a friend in an apartment there. Most of my family and friends from high-school lived around there, at least the ones who weren’t across the country attending other schools. When the infection came around to our town, people had already gotten a lot of work done in regards to prepping homes, businesses, the roads, etcetera. Quite a bit of the local homes had been fortified fairly well, and the military had already setup a base at the local Home Depot. Needless to say, their fortifications didn’t stop those from receiving the infection, and a lot of the people around town died and the like. Many of the few truly safe locations that remain are now occupied by various groups or collections of survivors. There’s so few people out there who go at it alone, if any at all really.
I’m just your average member of the Survivors Corp, an ‘agency’ formed by the CDC when stuff started to get really bad throughout the country. They provided specific guidelines for survival, prepared designated locations along with supplies. It’s really quite nice, because they prepared for way more people than there actually are who are able to use it. Most survivors out there are generally considered a part of this group, kind of a default. I mean, sure, you could say you aren’t going to be a member but it’s really your loss in doing so. We’re all pretty much accepting of anyone, and aren’t going to lock the door on some poor fellow who’s getting trailed by a swarm of infected.
Aside from the general Survivors Corp, there aren’t too many other groups around Sherwood. There’s the Red Bloods, an insane bandit gang that goes around butchering other survivors for what I believe is the fun of it. Then there are the Paladins, this righteous group that goes around killing infected, and getting people out of all kinds of shit. They really do the most to help out, saving lives, helping move supplies, clearing up an area, you name it. The military doesn’t really do anything other than hold up at their nice little fortress at the edge of town. There are other little pockets of people about, but as far as I’m aware, those groups are the only one’s around here that extend clear the way into Portland, and maybe even beyond. Someday, I think I’d like to go out and see what the rest of the world is like now. But for now, I think I like the safety of the Corps base…
To be continued...
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