Blue Aisle
Phantom #11
In 2055, a huge epidemic hit the entire earth. It started in Mexico, and defied all vaccines and antibiotics. The people who are infected experience high fevers, vomiting, blindness and ultimately perish within three days. It's a gruesome and painful disease that kills by internal bleeding. Animals are affected by it as well, but instead of dying, they become mutated and violent, and they produce offspring which carries the same mutations. No one was able to give a solid answer to how it spreads, or where it came from. The virus was named Tertia, characterized by the absolute death that it brings within 72 hours. The human population was falling rapidly. With new prototypes of medicine constantly being made, people practically lived on drugs. Everyone scrambled for the latest "cure" as soon as they came out. Unsurprisingly, the use of these chemicals took a toll on our fecundity. The birthrate dropped to a devastating percentage the world has never seen before. Humanity was at its wits end. In a desperate attempt to keep us from extinction, Project Vitus was created.
But the sad truth was that Vitus was not a cure, it was preservation.
Vitus was by no means complete, its initial purpose was to keep patients in comas healthy through great lengths of time. When the idea first emerged to retain healthy individuals by putting them to sleep, no one brought it. As time went on, the people gave up on being cured. Hopeless parents sold everything and signed up their children for Vitus, looking to at least save them from the excruciating pain of Tertia. Still, it was not widely accepted, many people didn't have enough money to participate, and some preferred to stay locked up in their homes, too frightened to interact with the outside world.
You are one of the few who entered Project Vitus. The last thing you remember was the face of your relatives/lover/friends looking down at you as you are put into an indefinite slumber. When Vitus finally ran out of all energy sources, your sleep has come to an end. You had no idea what year it is when you woke up, and everything you saw around you has aged. The laboratory that contained the eight Vitus machines was now horribly ancient. Vines, moss, rust... you are forced to realize that you might have slept much longer than you expected.
For now, Tertia seems to have passed. The world has gone through more than 300 years while your eyes were closed, and nothing is the same as before. There are plants, there are animals, there is water, but do you dare to touch any of it?
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