Prologue

When the world began dying, it started with its most of its inhabitants oblivious to the hard fact. Life kept up at its usual pace and humans were unaware of the situation before/around them, living their lives in bliss ignorance.

It was not until a few deaths in the city of Stockholm, Sweden which at first seemed benign and unrelated to each other that caught the attention of some people. People began to realize that there was an anomaly in the world they lived in. There arose a number of speculations about the cause and reasons for the deaths, but soon some answers began to surface. The answers at first consisted of rumors and stories just like any other global problem would, but within a short period of time, the government was able to narrow them down to verified and possible clarifications. Firstly, the deceased all lost their lives in hospitals or medical centers in which they had been remanded as a result of their unusual maladies. Secondly, all the patients displayed common symptoms which mainly appeared as a mauve colored skin and blood shot eyes. Thirdly, the autopsies carried out on the patients presented no plausible cause for the deaths occurring. Lastly, results from experiments proved that the new disease had no cure and there had not been any record of its occurrence in the past, so it was a novel disease.

However, despite the level of threat the information posed to the world, it was kept classified by the Swedish government which did not want the news to spread and cause panic which would disrupt experiments and normalcy in the country. Experiments were funded by the Swedish federal government and they were carried out in secluded laboratories in the country. Information from the press in future airings would reveal the location of those laboratories to be Halmstad, where the first major death cases where recorded and also the name that would be used to denote the disease. The results of further experiments established a further shocking fact, the disease was viral and highly contagious. There were not many death reports from the disease at the time, so the government decided to withhold the news about the virus.

That proved to be a very fatal mistake as the disease could not be effectively controlled in the Swedish laboratories where the experiments were undertaken. The animal test subjects that were injected with antigens from the virus exhibited the same symptoms of the Stockholm patients and also acted rabid-like. The turning point occurred when a Swedish laboratory attendant in an attempt to extract a test rat from its containment tubule was bitten. Reports say he wasn't aware of the bite and unfortunately he contracted the virus. It was not until a few days later, he began to exhibit the same symptoms. He had already been in contact with almost all of the team of scientists and nobody was confident about their health status. The situation led to a unanimous vote being agreed upon and supported by the team members to enable them confine themselves to working in isolation.

The laboratory attendant was restrained in an observation chamber and various tests were carried out on him. The human subject gradually began to lose sanity and his body underwent various mutations. Extensive experiments revealed the routine of the virus. Its cells undertook regeneration per millisecond while repeatedly copying themselves into other body cells, organs and systems until it had whole possession of the body. An extraordinary characteristic of the viral cells were its inability to expire. Despite the ever increasing amount of viral cells, they never perished to allow for a stable environment. They simply replicated as they occupied space in the body until the body's own cells died due to the unsuitable environment and lack of adequate space which prohibited its survival. The body's immune system is therefore rendered powerless and the body follows suit in a short time. It was also discovered that the victim also displayed the craving to bite and portrayed an outlook similar to mental derailment.

Within a few weeks, the laboratory attendant passed away and in that short span of time, almost all of the scientists had acquired the virus and displayed full-fledged symptoms. When the proceedings of the assignment were submitted to the Swedish government by the remaining scientists who had not begun to display the symptoms and were still sane enough, the government ordered the termination of the project. Military action was engaged to take control of the situation and armed forces were deployed in Halmstad with the objective of exterminating all the scientists. Despite the action taken, not all the scientists were killed and some escaped to unknown whereabouts.

Realizing their mistakes, the Swedish government officials had no other alternative other than publicizing information about the situation. The entire world was thrown into panic and the Sweden was put into lockdown. However, the virus had already began its action, infecting millions in the country. It was a bloodbath as victims wrecked carnage on their surroundings and citizens were forced to migrate to other countries illegally. The virus got out of Sweden and that was the beginning of the end.