"From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate and drank, they were doomed…"
- Steven Spielberg remake of The War of the Worlds
The virus was the end of all civilization. Those who did not die from the beginning stages of infection soon became hollow shells of the people they once were, their faces deformed and minds reduced to that of wild animals that attacked anything that was not infected. They travelled in hordes that swept across the globe destroying city after city until no human was left clean. During the final days of humanity the Chinese government authorized all out nuclear bombardment of border areas in order to halt the advancement of the infected but it was a vain effort for in a matter of days the infected breached the border and destroyed the final survivors.
During the next few weeks the infected slowly died off from starvation. The mutations that allowed some of the infected to be a major threat soon became their undoing as the virus finally destroyed their organs and left them to rot in the streets of the empty cities. Now this may sound like the end of a tragic tale, but this is only the beginning.
You see, the virus had no more carriers but the maggots and other insects that feasted upon the flesh of the infected. But these maggots became partially affected by the virus when they matured, making them more resilient and more eager to bite larger animals. This allowed the virus to survive for hundreds of years, waiting for the day something like humanity was unfortunate enough to have of their own become infected, to be foolish enough to take him/her back to their cities to be treated, and to be helpless when the virus unleashes its destructive power on their world.
Our story begins with a small spacecraft landing in Central Park on September 11, 257 A.E. (after extinction).