Waiting. Waiting for the end. I know it will arrive soon. It’s only a matter of time before they know what I’ve done. There’s no escaping the consequences of my actions. Running will get me nowhere; it will only lead to a slow painful death to which there is no cure. No, that is why I wait. It will be here shortly.

What is it I have done, you wonder. You will find out soon. The whole world will learn what I am capable of. Although, I must admit I could not have done it myself. No, in fact the whole world has assisted me in the success of this plan. At any other point in history this would not be possible, but I have been waiting, researching, creating, manipulating, building, and waiting. The time has now come to bring it all to a close, a beautiful, dynamic, painfully blissful end.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I have done nothing except only what the wisest humanitarian and most brilliant scientist would do at a time like this. Life has become an empty shell of what it was. People, now beyond numbering, are packed into the city like, forgive me the cliché, sardines in a can. But really they are and just as slimy. When the government restricted water usage beyond just cutting back on watering the lawn and washing cars (which neither of the two are possessed by people nowadays), bathing was the next thing to be sacrificed.

The air is barely breatheable through the smog. No one goes outside in the rain anymore, not after the girl died from acid burns. I watch them from my window as they run for cover at the first drop. I watch again on a hazy day, for the sun never penetrates the perpetual cloud of dirt and fumes above the city. People are herded like cattle into the buses, herded to work where they stay for the next ten hours. Children are crowded onto a different bus where seats are covered in mucus from sneezes and blowing noses.

I won’t say I created some new super virus that the world has never seen. I wish I could, but I am not that much of a genius. No, the world has seen it before, and it was feared by all. A great killer it was, destroyed entire armies. But scientists found a cure, a prevention. Vaccines were given for decades to every child, but men became cocky. There had not been an outbreak for many years. They claimed the world had been eradicated. Few ever wondered the possibility of it coming back.

A live sample was stored in two locations and guarded heavily, so history says. History also claims that fifteen years after the last outbreak even those samples were destroyed for fear of it being used for bio-warfare. I would have feared that, too, especially since the vaccine was no longer given to the general population.

Their immune systems are completely shot. The cold and flu season never ends now. Antibiotics, pfft, they were banned a decade ago in hopes the bacteria would forget to be immune to it. The cities are overcrowded; people are living, literally, on top of each other. They go, go, go and stop only long enough to eat a non-nutritional meal. They even think they’ve figured a way to survive on only four hours of sleep a night. Back in my day we were told we needed between seven to eight hours.

This is what has to be done. There has always been times for growth and prosperity and times of decline, of death, disease, and famine. It’s only a matter of time; I’m only speeding the process. It’s like pressing the reset button.

It will be happening soon. There is but a short incubation period. I know, I’ve done my own research and experiments. Everyone is already being infected, thanks to my connections in the water plant. Soon the whole city will be infected, and it will spread across the world like wildfire. Oh, some will survive, only the strongest, or rather those with the strongest immune system. And they will re-invent the vaccine, but not before millions have died. The balance will be restored.

It’s a shame I’ll not live to see it. No, I mustn’t. They will know it was me, and instead of seeing the good in my actions they will condemn me with Hitler. But my trespasses cannot be compared to his. Disease knows no difference in race or religion or eye color. No, I have only ever sought what was best for the planet, for mankind as a whole.

This life they all live is no way to live. So I shall take my life with this little rigging of dynamite to my chest. I shall leave this world with a lasting impression. And now, alone in my laboratory, I light the fuse.