Chapter 1
#1 of Working Title
No one ever wants to clean up the mess that they made. It's always someone else that is stuck cleaning it up and it's usually a shitty job. Sadly that person is me most days. It's not all bad it has good pay and very good benefits. It also has free room and board if you stay at the compound. I get 4 weeks of paid vacation the company pays for up to 50% of it as long as its not close to a Chaos zone. There are issues such as having to be exposed to some nasty shit usually some kids mistake that got them killed or worse. But I have managed to survive this long by not being stupid and plan to keep it that way. Overall, some people say it's one of the best jobs after the world went to shit. Well, I guess I should start from the beginning so you know what I am talking about.
The first reported issue was in the town of Attica, Michigan. It was 79 and sunny with a light breeze from the south. The report came in on the 4th of July 2007 from a frantic mother. The report was that there were children stuck in the Elk Lake. That was all that they got from her that was not gibberish. When cops came in they found something out of the twilight zone. The entire lake had frozen over and gone to the water they found kids at the water's edge in just a few inches of water or what should be water. Most looked like they were running from something but all were safe for the most part. After 30 minutes of work, all the kids were free. One had a broken leg but the rest just had mild frostbite.
Some people started to study this and they found that the lake was frozen solid all the way to the muddy bottom. At the time no one had a clue what caused this till 2 days later. A 10-year-old boy was reported to the cops to be holding his classmates hostage. The first thing assumed was that the kid had a gun. The reports showed that the kid had 5 of his classmates pinned to the wall with ice. The cops had little time seeing as large shards of ice were closing in on the boy's necks. The cops ended up shooting the boy with a bean bag shotgun knocking him out. As soon as he was out the ice stopped and melted within minutes. He ended up being carted away to who knows where that's where the records end.
From there complete and utter chaos broke lose. Things that defied nature started happening all over the world. Things from folklore, fantasy, and even religion took form in ways that never were meant to be possible. Nothing was safe gods and goddess were popping up as well as creatures from most people's nightmares. All Things were hell on earth for over 4 years. Overall it's thought that we lost one-third of the human population in that time. The sad part of it is that we still lose a lot of people even today but that is nothing more than the gun killings from before the end happened.
Year 2 people were starting piece together what was the trigger for the chaos. All things had one thing in common and that was that each incident started with someone that had higher than average intelligence. Every one of them had something they knew a lot about or were specialized in that area. The final puzzle piece was when there was a mass virus outbreak from a lab. An entire city was infected within 24 hours within 48 one-tenth of the population was infected before there was a stop put to the spread.
Almost all cities with airports large and small were quarantined but end the end the virus run its course. After 72 hours the reports of new infections were no longer coming in. Everyone started to relax and the infected areas were cleared out. The sick were still sick but no one was complaining that they were no longer contagious. Within a month the cities were cleared and camps were set up for the sick. Two months out everything was clear and the world seemed to be working as it should again.
It was about this time that people started to show signs of their illnesses showing to start clearing up within a week all the people that were sick were able to return to their lives with little to no side effects. Surprisingly enough not a single person that became sick died. Then again what was found out later is that some people that were terminally ill were people cured and were in their prime health.
In the chaotic mess the world was it this was a win that everyone welcomed. Everyone was checked out and confirmed to be in prime health and let go. During the whole thing, it was found that small groups of people were immune to this illness even being in the center of hundreds of sick people unprotected they came out fine and were even able to help the ones that were sick. It seemed that those people had a resistance to magic that was not even known about at the time. This in the larger scheme of things this ended up being both a blessing and a curse to those who lived through this first trial of many to come over the next few years.
Things seemed to start to return to normal and besides few odd things that happening from other smaller sources. This is where you might think things get better. Well, yea that would have been nice but that would have been nice. But I never said it was easy to get through the hell we lived through. Sadly this is only the beginning of the world being forged like an iron from a flame.