The Outbreak

"Roughly a month ago, three viruses surfaced into different parts of the world with unknown origins. I'm not supposed to say this, but based on the discoveries of the viruses since then, the human race could be wiped out."

"What?!" Irene looked at Kira to see if she was joking, but the latter was dead serious. She turned her laptop to Irene and showed her the contents of the screen.

"The first virus called the S Virus. The second is called the Z Virus. The last is designated the L Virus. Individually, they each have the ability to collapse society as we know it, and all three surfaced at once."

"What are the symptoms? Is there a cure?" Irene took the laptop and read the descriptions of each virus and frowned when she read the names.

"Sanguine Virus? Zombie Virus? Lycanthrope Virus? Are you playing with me?" Irene watched as Kira tapped the screen and a video appeared.

"This is a carrier of the Z Virus." The video started and Irene could see a figure standing unsteadily, staggering towards the camera.

It's facial features became clearer and Irene felt her breath catch in her throat. What she saw was not a person! It's face was partially decomposed and it's eyes were milky white.

"The Z Virus is the most understood one at the moment. The next is the host of the Lycanthrope Virus." Another video started and Irene saw a woman glaring at the camera angrily.

She didn't look sick or anything like the Z Virus Carrier, so she was about to ask what happened when her eyes widened. The woman on the screen knelt and a loud crack sounded from within her body.

Irene watched in horror as the woman's skin turned furry. Her bones broke and changed, but the woman didn't seem to feel it at all because her rapidly changing face showed no discomfort.

A minute passed and Irene stared at the wolf on screen, teeth bared in a snarl. The camera shook and the wolf vanished as agonizing screams sounded in the background.
"That facility was evacuated immediately. We lost over twenty research personnel and forty soldiers before we managed to kill it."

"How did a person turn into a wolf?!" Irene felt that her world view and common sense was collapsing alongside her right now.

"We aren't sure. Anything we get is either straight up useless or irrelevant. Last is a carrier Sanguine Virus." Another video started, but unlike the others, this wasn't from a lab.
Three people were walking down a street and Irene wasn't sure what to look for. Then it happened in the blink of an eye. A figure blurred into existence behind them, and punched forward at the back of the slowest man's head.

Irene watched in fear as the man's head exploded like a watermelon. The other two tried to run, but the person followed, tearing one's heart out and biting the other's neck.

"Unlike the other two infected, those infected by the Sanguine Virus feed exclusively on human blood. Nearly all the blood in their bodies were drained when we found them."

"Like you saw, both Sanguines and Lycanthropes can move at extremely fast speeds, and are strong enough to kill normal people in a single hit."

"Not only that. Based on our experience in trying to bring the Sanguine Carrier in, we lost over a hundred soldiers and officers. Some of the soldiers were part of the Special Operations teams."

"In the end, we managed to learn that both the Sanguine and Lycanthropes have accelerated healing, Sanguine more so. A Lycanthrope can be killed if their vitals are hit, but when we fought the Sanguine Carrier, no matter what we did, it kept healing."

"It took the sacrifice of the soldiers to bring it down." Kira sighed and wished she understood these anomalous creatures better.

"How did you kill it? The Sanguine one?" Irene couldn't even begin to imagine how desperate those soldiers must have been to have to fight that.

"A sniper managed to land a bullet on it's head." Kira squinted as she read reports from her phone, while Irene tried to make use of the information.

"So they would die if the head is destroyed?" Irene shivered even in the warm car as Kira shook her head in sorrow.

"That only made it possible to kill it because it was still healing. It was recorded to move at speeds of several times hundred feet a second, and we only won because it was always trying to run."

"We didn't understand why until the sun rose. Even with a chunk of it's head missing, it could still kill us effortlessly. The sun rose and because it was disoriented, it started to burn when the sun's rays touched it. In a few seconds, the the Sanguine Carrier started to burn like a flammable torch."

"What was left was nothing, just ash. We had another encounter with a Sanguine Carrier and even though the sun didn't touch it, it burned to ash upon it's death."

"Like a vampire from myths?" Irene would have felt a bit silly if she didn't know and see for herself that these things really existed. Seeing the serious look on Kira's face, she knew that things would change drastically from here on out.

Okay, last short one I promise. I wrote it somewhere else so I wasn't sure how many words I wrote. Hope you enjoy it. 🥰