Pra Zamo?it

The Black Death, which had put out the light of millions of living candles, dissipated in the mid-fourteenth century. People all over the world began to rebuild their shattered lives, always fearful that someday they would look in the mirror to see Deaths cold hands wrapped tightly around their neck. This fear spurred doctors to search for a way to completely eradicate the deadly disease.

In 1427 a cure was found in a mixture of common herbs, including garlic. With these found so readily around the planet people grew complacent, confident in the knowledge that should this terrible diese reappear, they could be rid of it. Should you notice any signs of this infamous mass murderer, simply boil the herbs and drink the tea it produced. And so it was in the dawn of the twenty-first century, when the Black Death was but a nightmare fading with the morning rays, that a new player took the stage.

His countenance was much like his predecessors, but more like something out of Poe or King. First a red ring, like a bloody handprint, would form around the afflicted person’s neck. Within a few days their neck would swell, constricting the windpipe, making respiration almost painful. Next there was high fever and delirium. Dark spots would then appear across the body, many weeping black blood. And within hours of death the victim would begin to vomit large amounts of phlegm and blood. Just before death, their bodies were wracked with terrible seizures. The whole time from contraction to termination was little more than one week.

There was no way to hide from the killer, for he traveled undetected through the air. He moved silently through all the worlds’ major cities and smallest villages, taking whole families and town’s one place while leaving a handful alive in another. No age, no race, no colour or creed was left untouched.

Three months after the first reported case of what was called the Red Plague, there were less than six million humans left alive and for reasons unknown to them, they were immune to the plague. They began to form colonies in the many deserted cities. Large cities like New York and Bangkok had several such groups, many unaware of the others.

Slowly the population began to grow, with one out of every six or seven newborns contracting and dying of the Red Plague. But as with the Black Death, after many years people began to forget the horrors of the Red Plague. Doctors once again worked for and found a cure for the plague. People grew complacent once more, few worried about another outbreak. The world kept turning and time continued to move forward, perhaps counting down to the next deadly plague; the one to cleanse the planet of all human life.