Forget me Not

By:
twisted-remnant

Chapter 1:
Prologue

2008 was the year the world ended. It wasn't in a spectacular blaze as the sun expanded and absorbed the small rock within its mass. It wasn't in a grand explosion as the core imploded. The end of the world wasn't even due to nuclear holocaust, although it was one of the main catalysts that had shaped the world into the way it appears now.

A simple virus was the cause of mankind's downfall. Found naturally in the environment, but completely harmless unless extracted and mixed with a liquid, Solanum was a bacterium that allowed certain plants to reproduce with dazzling colors. It also allowed dead plants to still continue fertilizing other plants for several years. Scientists discovered early on that it was easily extracted, and when injected directly into dead animals; mainly rats, they were reanimated, brought back from the dead.

Testing progressed from animals to human testing, and the results were marvelous. The once dead were up and moving again. The motor functions, memories, and intelligence of the previously deceased returned completely. Their names, addresses, names of their children and or grandchildren were still fresh in their minds. It was as if the men and women injected with Solanum had simply been asleep for an extended period of time. It was a spectacular moment in human history. The discovery of a bacteria that could be used to bring loved ones back from the dead without any adverse effects, or so it was first believed.

Even after successfully reanimating the dead, the subjects were placed under observation, and underwent daily tests to check their vital systems, muscles, and neural synapses firing in the brain. It was through these daily tests that a disturbing discovery was made. The subject's organs were failing. In the first subjects, the people that had first received an injection of Solanum, their organs were failing slowly, at a rate that wouldn't have been noticed under normal observation, but daily tests allowed them to see it much sooner. Each subsequent test group after that had their organs fail faster and faster, until the bacteria simply reanimated the dead for a few seconds, before killing off the human.

The scientists, heads downcast and hopes shattered, left the clean-up crew to dispose of the bodies. It was in this hour, which people have come to know as "Final Hour" that the true infection began to spread.

The subjects were not truly dead, in a mobile sense. Instead, their vital organs were shut down, while their neural synapses continued to fire at random. It was due to this that the subjects were still able to move, but their intelligence and memories were obsolete.

The clean-up crew entered the lab, unaware of the danger that surrounded them as they bent over the infected bodies to move them to gurneys, after which the bodies would then be rolled to large incinerators where they would be tossed in. The men were instantly assaulted by the men and women that were believed to be truly dead now. Large chunks of flesh were ripped off of their bodies as their screams echoed through the lab.

Alarms rang and security teams moved into position to stabilize the situation, but they were overrun, their tactics ineffective against the infected test subjects. The men that were assigned to dispose of the bodies soon joined the onslaught. In another room, computers recorded the data that was transmitted to them via the electrodes that were still attached to the test subject's bodes. A team of scientists monitoring the information were astonished at what they saw. The test subject's heartbeats were non-existent, and their core temperature was well below that of normal, and was still declining. By all standards, they should've been dead, yet they were up and moving; the dead were walking.

It took only a few hours for the entire staff and faculty of the building to become infected. Some only received minor cuts or scrapes, and were able to escape the compound and return to their homes, to their loved ones. It was here where the infection finally took over their body and "killed" them. Their wives and children, the ones who had once looked to them for protection, had become their victims, and they were devoured mercilessly.

That was only the beginning, it's been several years since then, but to truly understand how anyone could possibly survive now, you must return to the beginning, and follow the story of four people, each with their own skills, fears, strengths, and weaknesses. Each one of them capable alone, yet weak unless united together.

A/N: This is just the prologue to my new story. Please R&R, even though there probably won't be much to say about this, until next time.

Disclaimer: Credit for Solanum goes to Max Brooks, however the characters are my own.