Writhing bodies. Hundreds of them. All of them celebrating the reunion of peace from the parasite in one glorious orgy of writhing bodies. There was a heavy beat of primitive nature and the sound of sweaty flesh slapping and rubbing against each other in a beat only they could hear. I couldn't hear the beat. I couldn't see the writhing bodies as they should be. I saw half-dead bodies all bumping into each other, each moaning softly in a symphony of agony. Insects, centipedes mainly, crawled over the bodies and each other, hissing and snarling as they feasted on the flesh of the half-dead bodies. The scare of the parasite has ruined me. I can no longer see in the eyes of what I used to see. I try - damnit, I try so hard, yet I always end up scaring myself. I don't know why. I always think that the parasite will appear again and come for me like it desperately wanted to. I'm scared but I don't tell anyone. I say that everything's fine and that nothing's wrong. On the inside, though, I'm terrified. I'm terrified of touching, of eating, of sleeping, everything. Some think I'm sick as far as appearances go. I can't argue with them. I've gotten little sleep and I hardly eat; of course I'm going to look ragged and worn out. And besides, I doubt anybody - save Alex - would believe me if I told them that I, Dominicus Metternich, am absolutely terrified of living. There were times Alex had caught me in the bathroom late a night, tears in my eyes and a razor in my hand. I had thought about it, thousands of times, but I can't just up and leave Alex or anyone else that's close to me. The world had killed off millions of people, all to cleanse herself of the evil they were polluting her with. Hard to believe, though it sounds, but it's true. Mankind had brought the parasite from the South American rainforests and thought of cultivating it for their own corrupt uses. They thought they had the parasite evolved enough to cultivate it and use it... They were wrong. It infected the ones that were cultivating it, feeding off of them and gaining knowledge it needed to evolve into the parasite it became. It's hard to believe that a simple parasite, brought up from the rainforests, evolved into an intelligent virus; all in the span of one week. Mother nature may be fickle, but one eventually learns to not mess with what we don't know. We learned from this outbreak. Hundreds of millions of people died to purge the planet of taint. Perhaps it was a good thing that all these people died out, but the silence of the millions of voices is terrifying. Were it not for the celebration going on now, it'd be silent, much more silent than I'm used to. People think that we can rebuild from this. I don't blame them for thinking like that, but they want to rebuild the world like it was, not starting out on a brand new slate in order to prevent something like this from happening again. But then, no matter what we as humans do, we'll always find a way to terminate ourselves. This peace won't last long - a few centuries at most, but then we'll be back to where we were. In the end...all will die and the planet will finally be free to do what she pleases. ~FIN~ |