Parasitic Extermination
Within the provinces on the eastern side of China, there was heavy disruption in major cities and large towns as authorities and frenzied crowds clashed; traffic was at its peak and large sections were blocked by armed police, further enraging busy commuters who had not a single clue of the sinister events unfolding beyond the fortified barricades. All they heard was the gunfire, which also caught the attention of local and international press, although the situation was not exclusive to China – it was occurring in populated cities in several other nations.
In numerous cities in China, the same disruption was occurring. What was happening exactly was unreported to the masses in order to avoid panic, yet this achieved exactly the opposite. Armed police were called in to deal with the disturbances, and were instructed to use force. This, however, didn't work. The Infecteds' brains had been corrupted by the deadly parasite, reducing their rational capability and devolving them into mindless killers who saw all uninfected as an enemy. They tore through the streets, attacking the crowds of uninfected, killing many using any brutal method that crossed their unstable minds.
Behaviour among the infected varied. Most lost their ability to produce intelligible speech, and those who could were usually spitting nonsense about "Rapture" in their mother tongue, whilst clumsily treading the streets and colliding into objects as they passed – a good portion suffered from a severe suicidal state of mind, impulsively self-murdering or self-harming in some way. Of course, the symptoms for most of the infected were not as severe, but early signs were showing all across the globe, such as clumsiness and increasing diagnosis of ADHD.
The police were ordered to retreat in Chinese cities, as it was not easily distinguishable who was infected and who was not, and most civilians were shot regardless.
The army was mobilised and martial law was declared in the affected provinces; large sections of cities were quarantined and numerous reports of artillery bombardment and strategic bombing raids surfaced, but the reports abruptly ended after the government arrested journalists and banned any sort of press from entering or leaving the country.
This epidemic attracted the entire world's attention, and cure research took place immediately, whilst more nations reported similar incidents. Months passed and the death toll had now reached almost 70million worldwide, and it became immediately clear that the disease was a serious threat. Large amounts of money were given to fund cure research which was now only 25 percent complete. Scientists had still not managed to fully comprehend the parasite, nor had they located a place of origin.
There was mass hysteria after gruesome images and videos of were leaked to social media, depicting the behaviour of the infected in the most extreme cases, and shocking footage of a Chinese city being bombarded with artillery and napalm.
The death toll dramatically increased to at least 200 million worldwide, mostly in third-world countries, especially India. Ordinary people began to panic, and soon followed a series of protests and strikes by the general public in the west, criticising their governments for seemingly allowing the disease to spread. Conspiracy theories pertaining to population control became popular. Mistaking the protests for aggressive infected, governments responded with force, killing and injuring hundreds of thousands across the globe, resulting in widespread disorder as riots and looting soon followed.
The death toll increased to 500 million by the first year that passed. This was clearly the deadliest plague in all of recorded history.
Governments took preventative measures and bombed infected areas without mercy, attempting to purge the infection completely, or to contain it at least to buy more time before total anarchy descended.
Regional councils and local militia formed in areas where the government could not afford to station military units, mostly in the poorer countries within Africa and South America.
Nations were in complete lockdown and any travel, besides designated aircraft carrying vital components for cure research, was prohibited. Millions of refugees were killed. Conflicts arose from border disputes, between both Korean countries and the Middle East, with high levels of radiation detected in Iran. Disputes between city folk and those who lived in the favelas arose, elevating to armed conflict between gangs and the army, and ending with heavy bombing of the slums.
Within a couple of weeks, China succumbed to the disease and became ungovernable, having sustained heavy losses totalling nearly 40 percent of its population. India fell into anarchy soon after, followed by its neighbours and several nations in Africa and South America. The death toll was now 1.5 billion and rising.
However, cure research was miraculously complete when neuroscientists managed to manipulate, and as a result understand, the parasite in detail, and expended vast amounts of time and energy into curing the most deadly disease known to mankind.
Remaining military units and volunteers were among the first to be vaccinated, setting up cure stations in major cities that were somewhat manageable and airdropping DIY vaccines into cities that had succumbed to the disease.
After achieving some peace between numerous militias and gangs or at least a stalemate, governments regained control, and it was estimated that 3.5 billion had fallen in total, with just over 1.5 billion directly from the disease.
Regional councils elected one candidate from each group to form local branches of government in an attempt to unite whoever was left. The process of rebuilding would take many years, including clean up of the vast number of bodies that littered the streets, the deep scars left by bombs and rockets and the shattered economy.
Somewhere in the ruins of China, a hunched scientist, holding a tin of parasitic worms he had collected as an obsession, looked over the ruins of a city which was void of any human life and claimed by Mother Nature. He smiled to himself, revelling in his great achievement. From his perspective, it seemed like he was the only man in the world, the only one deserving of life. He began to laughed manically until his throat was barren, then raised a gun to his head and fired.