Population: 3,183
Dead: 7,134,543,994
A banner flashed across the TV in the mission launch center. Mia Rivera, the acting head of NASA, read it to herself.
"Billions dead from Vitium Putrosia." She closed her eyes and sighed before standing up and sweeping her eyes over the men and women dutifully working on the launch for Mars. "Alright, guys. We are of the last people on earth. If we don't get off, things will be even worse for humanity. I will go speak with our astronauts to prepare them. If someone starts to show symptoms, immediately quarantine them and don't let them out."
After the outbreak 2 years ago, back in 2044, people had gone down left and right, whether from total organ failure or a seizure or pulmonary fibrosis, and black pillowcases went up. Now, with only an approximate 3,000 people left on earth, time was running short for humanity. Those who did remain had somehow found their way to the NASA mission control center and began the quest to colonize Mars. God had seemingly abandoned them.
The door to the control room closed shut behind her as Mia walked down a wide, tall hallway big enough to house a small apartment complex. The walls were bare and the air smelled like a hospital, of chemicals and rubbing alcohol from the vigorous cleaning that had to be done when the building was power-cleaned every three days. At the end of the hallway was a door leading to the training area. She readied herself to see them for what could possibly be the last time before their mission.
The astronaut team consisted of 42 different men and women who had previously been locked away in their homes out of fear of the plague. Mia had learned through NASA's medic team that they were uninfected, although it had done little to easy her fear of bringing new people in. Before she reached for the door handle to the training area, she started to recall what the medics had said about the bacteria strain.
"How can you tell they're uninfected?" Mia remembered asking Rolan, one of the medics. He simply sighed.
"They don't show any of the symptoms and blood tests have come back negative," he had said. "Come on." He'd grabbed her arm and started dragging her down the labyrinthine hallways of the medical wing.
"The symptoms are nearly impossible to miss- a cough, nausea, insomnia, a rash- and, of course, subconjunctival hemorrhage, or the red sclera, which causes blindness in most and worsened vision in the rest." He guided her around turn after turn, as if running away from something… maybe the plague, though it was a fruitless attempt. If one person showed symptoms in the building, they'd all be dead within a matter of hours. "Um, the point is that the list is pretty long. The leading cause of death for this disease is total organ failure, which usually occurs within 2 days to a week of showing symptoms. I know I'm supposed to be the calmest about this, but understanding it doesn't mean I know how to cure it. I'm nervous." Mia noticed him wringing his hands anxiously.
"This disease has killed everyone," Mia had noted sarcastically. At the time, the plague had only taken maybe 3 billion at most, but seemingly had yet to touch the Americas. "Come on, nothing bad is going to happen. America is safe." As if she, being as uptight as she was, could tell this to the ever laid-back Rolan without sounding like some sort of body-snatching alien.
"For now," Rolan had replied before guiding her to the exit of the building in silence. The experience shouldn't have been as terrifying to her as it was, but she knew for a fact that something was wrong with Rolan. She had known him since her intern days, and he had never been this nervous about anything- not the Coronavirus outbreak of 2020, not the Blue Eye outbreak in 2032, not even during the Lemopherepathy outbreak in 2037. If he was that nervous about something, she must have been beyond the point of panic for her to be telling him to lighten up.
That night she had sat in her bed quarters trying to rationalize a way to fix the virus, repopulate the earth, and call off the Mars mission. She hadn't come up with anything.
Finally, she got ahold of herself and twisted the door handle silently before swinging the door to the room open. After the reminiscing she'd done, she feared the worst- and was relieved to see that all was working as normal. The astronauts were training and several yards away was the rocket, with the mechanics working endlessly. She sighed heavily.
"Oh thank the Lord," she whispered to herself. She cleared her throat and spoke up. "Hello, future pioneers! How's the training coming?" Jin Cheng, a short Chinese woman and one of the astronauts, sat up from where she was doing her daily exercises.
"Hi, Mia! We're doing good. Should be ready in the next few days. Any estimate when the ship will be done?"
"If the mechanics keep going at this rate, it should be tomorrow. All they have to do is tighten a few bolts, then we need to fill it with fuel. Have you run the simulation today?"
"It's like, ten a.m. Let me wake up a little," Jin joked.
"Aren't you supposed to be up by six every day?"
"I may or may not have been half-asleep during my morning routine," she admitted.
"Well, I'll let you guys keep going. Stay safe, and stay healthy."
And that was the last she had seen of the team.
The following morning after a fitful night, at 6:30, she awoke to her alarm, went about her morning routine, and put on her uniform before heading down to the comms room.
The comms room was packed by the time she got there at 7:45. People rushed around frantically, with papers and clipboards and all sorts of other things. She counted 12 heads in the room.
"Where are Anand and Tatyana?" she asked one of the interns buzzing about. He paused, glanced around, and frowned.
"I don't know, ma'am," he said. "My apologies. Maybe they slept in?" She nodded, not fully believing it, nor believing the intern himself believed it. He went about his busy work.
She walked over to the station she'd had when she was an intern, where a woman six or seven years younger than her sat.
"How long do we have until liftoff, Nadia? And how's the progress for the second ship?" Nadia jumped when Mia spoke.
"Oh! Um, only a few hours. Liftoff is at 11, then we immediately start preparing the second ship to reach Mars with the help of those on the first."
"Wonderful. Keep up the good work." She wandered off to grab something from the kitchen when she noticed something and stopped her dead in her tracks. When she had reached for the door handle, her sleeve had ridden up to reveal a rash on her forearm. She turned around swiftly.
"We need lift off now," she announced. Several people protested.
"We don't have scheduled lift-off for another three and a half hours," Nadia said from her station. She looked like she wanted to stand up and shout at her, but she restrained herself.
"We need to do it right now if we want that team to reach Mars safely. Use the comms, we can no longer leave this room."
"What are you talking about?" someone said in the back.
"It's- I'm really sorry, guys. Humanity had a good run, and now, I'm the reason it's coming to an end." She showed them her arm, rolling her sleeve up to the elbow to show her entire forearm covered with a rash. "I- I didn't get any sleep last night, and I've felt sick for a while now. I thought it was the stress of liftoff or excitement for the new colony, but… We're dying. Everyone in this room is dying and it's my fault." A quiet cough sounded from the back of the room. Mia felt something run down her cheek. When she reached up and pulled her hand away, red was smeared against her fingertips and her vision began to blur.
"T-minus one minute to liftoff," she spoke as calmly as she could into the mic as someone told her what was going on. The burst blood vessels had made her blind in a matter of a few minutes, and those around her seemed ready to risk their life for the success of the mission, which had kept her from being quarantined.
"They're strapped in," Nadia said a few seconds later. "30 seconds." Mia took a deep breath and counted backward in her head.
"T-minus 5."
"4."
"3."
"2."
"1. Liftoff." She heard the sound of the engine roaring as the ship blasted off into the sky with the astronauts and medic team inside. A grand total of 76 people were aboard the ship. She could only hope they would make it there safely and bring a ray of hope for humanity as she felt herself start to lose her breath and a lightheadedness overcome her.
The end.