Note: Thank you for reading. I hope you've all been very well.

Virulent

Chapter 8

Society did break down. Quicker than it had been built. There was often a debate about whether human beings were inherently evil or inherently good. Such a debate was often rephrased with the simple question: are human beings born good or evil?

One way to answer such a complex question was to look at babies. That was what many researchers, scientists and philosophers did in fact. Edward Cullen took a keen interest in the complex area many years ago. He read books and asked professors who were more experienced than him about what they thought.

The minds of babies could be easily described as a 'clean slate', and in some sense, having the absolute minimum of any cultural or societal influence. They were not born with the instant recognition of their status. They would not have friends the minute they were born and would not be able to comprehend many things around them, thus weakening their susceptibility for intricate manipulation. It could be debated that it is in the later years when a child begins to grow- emotionally and mentally- that influences begin to accumulate. It'd be a natural process in society as the child would seek information for his or her development, thereby allowing external sources to impact the thoughts of the child immensely. Parents, teachers, friends.

Within these experiments with babies, by trying to conclude whether they were fundamentally good or evil, many results have suggested that even these young human beings have a sense of right and wrong, preferring to follow the good course than the evil. Of course, many still disagreed. But the scholars at Yale University took it upon themselves to discover the answer to this mysterious question.

The experiment was simple.

A puppet show was performed for a baby, with a scene featuring a green hill. Two figures took up the view of the baby, with both shapes attempting to climb the hill. Both struggling and falling down. Struggling and falling down. It repeated. But then the baby would be able to see two demonstrations of the possible actions. One was of a climber helping the other one by pushing the climber up the hill. While the other demonstration showed the climber inhibiting the other climber's progress by pushing that figure down the hill.

The babies were then given a choice to show their preference by pointing to the puppet whose actions they favored more. They were given a choice of helping the climber or hindering the climber. The experiment concluded that babies were more eager to help the climber rather than push the climber down. Perhaps this was only a rough depiction of a complex issue, only scraping the tip of the iceberg, as some scholars refused to accept the weak conclusion to such a simple experiment. However, the question that it did raise was if babies were born good, then at what point in their lives did things go wrong?

At what point did corruption, greed and selfishness take over?

At what point did they prefer the evil course to the good?

It took two weeks before democracy turned into the full-fledged anarchy Edward had predicted. Something Bella had learnt was to not question the insightful words of a philosopher. Well, a philosophy professor. The four figures huddled around a small fire that was lit not by caveman tactics, but rather a modern-day firelighter.

They still needed to light a flame during the night, due to the fact that some nights were indeed very cold. Nevertheless, they acknowledged that it was a risk to take. The light could possibly attract any Skeletals nearby but the prevention of anyone in the group getting sick was prioritized more. Moreover, they were not super-humans. They needed light to be able to see any approaching Skeletals. It was unfortunate that they couldn't see in the pitch darkness of the forest at night. Bella thought it was all very paradoxical. However, it wasn't long before the food was being eaten at a steady pace but the water was getting low.

Two days later, the group unanimously decided to change their location. Edward ended up driving the car closer to Lake Wenatchee where the four people then set up camp. There, they were able to have a reasonably, clean water source, alongside the canned food brought along with them. The map of the national park that Edward had managed to snatch was indeed handy.

They listened as radio stations broadcasted the uprisings in each county, town and city. This occurred before they had traveled to be closer to the lake, making the signal of Alice's companion emergency radio much weaker.

It would've been strange to even think of reasons for someone having an emergency radio, but Alice's frequent hiking meant that she usually carried such things. It used solar power and had a built-in LED torch. It was the perfect hiking tool. Too bad there wasn't any reception in some parts of the forest.

Occasionally, two people out of the 'awesome foursome' would stand nearer to the roads during daytime to get the latest updates via radio. The requirement for two people was to guarantee safety. Usually it'd be Alice and Jasper or Bella and Edward. Both pairs had a few weapons with them for additional protection. It wasn't too much of a hassle despite the fact that it took roughly two or more hours to hike their way out of the bushland.

They considered it to be their daily exercise and a way to maintain their sanity in the midst of all the chaos. It also made up for the times when Bella and Edward were too busy to hit the gym. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that their careers weren't the most important things to them anymore.

U.S Hwy 2 NW, it read on the map. By standing near the highway, the signal was better than standing near the lake due to the mountain peaks in the area. After listening to the radio for as long as they could, the two designated messengers would then retreat their footsteps back to camp. Sometimes, by standing near the roads, it made them feel normal again, as if they were taking a toilet break in the middle of their road-trip. It reminded them of their old civilization. The radio ensured that they still touched base with what the rest of the human population was up to.

That was also how they found out that it took merely a fortnight before all hell broke loose.

"I've heard that isolation can make you go crazy," Jasper said, one night as they sat by the small flame. They huddled closely so that the brightness of the flame would not catch the attention of any possible Skeletals nearby.

If what Dr Margaret Todd had said was correct, it would mean that they needed to be diurnal human beings. They needed to keep that routine going on. Jasper, Alice, Edward and Bella would need to start sleeping in the daytime and stay alert at night to keep their guards up. That was exactly what they'd been experimenting with. It was a rough pattern to get used to but they managed, given that they had paranoia clawing their backs and fear dancing in their eyes.

Four shadows wavered behind the four sitting figures.

"But we're not alone, as long as we have each other, we'll be okay," Edward said, rubbing his hands together.

It was fall, meaning that it wasn't all that hot but also not that cold either. Due to the fact that they were still near Seattle, it definitely didn't mean Los Angeles weather. The sun made an appearance behind a veil of clouds, mostly. The trees in the forest offered no warmth, instead, they just watched the four people attempting to survive.

There was nobody around. Not one of the four people had bumped into anyone or anything- not even a Skeletal. It really felt like an apocalypse then and there. It was like they were the last four people on the planet. But then again, who would've thought running into a dark, national forest to be a good idea when Skeletals were on the loose.

Alice was in charge of counting the days since they had fled into the forest, so that they could keep a track of what the date was.

"We're lucky it's still fall," Edward said. "Soon, it'll be winter and we'd better start thinking of what to do."

"It's Halloween next week," Alice chirped. If this was a regular day, Alice would be dishing out ideas on what costumes to wear. But this year was different. Very different.

"Good to know," Bella muttered. It was cold during the night. She was thankful for the random clothes Edward had brought along in his car when they'd escaped. Edward didn't mention it to her immediately when she had been waking up from her consequential coma after the ordeal at her apartment, but due to the fact that he was over at Bella's and Jasper was over at Alice's, it meant that the men didn't have any additional clothes apart from the ones that they were wearing.

They had grabbed pants and jackets from Walmart, narrowly avoiding a certain Skeletal from biting off Jasper's head. Along with the pants, they had also grabbed two pathetic tents that looked nothing like the product packaging of the item. Marketing, Edward had thought with a scowl on his face.

Alice had locked all the doors in the car while she waited anxiously for their return. She was the designated driver, ready to push on the gas pedal if an emergency getaway was needed. This all happened while Bella was unconscious. She really did wish she hadn't missed all of it.

For now, all four friends were quite comfortably warm. The fire most definitely helped. Jasper looked at the stash of food in the trunk of Edward's car. It was diminishing with every passing day.

"What are we going to do when all that runs out?" he asked.

None of the other three people had an answer to his question. They didn't know where else to go. Last time they checked, the nation was descending into a social upheaval. The president had made one last announcement on his podium in front of the famous logo of the White House, before he too had to go into hiding, along with all the senators and politicians. Well, at least that was what they had learnt through the radio.

The world was a disaster. It was bizarre to even think that radio stations still broadcasted what was going on. People were fighting for their lives. Fighting against the Skeletals and fighting for their basic human needs. It was interesting how a month ago, most people were still ignorant to the things that had been happening around them; Bella was guilty of that. The ones that had been shaken by the sightings were told by others to 'get real' and get their heads out of fantasy books and television shows. A month ago, electronic gadgets were used by tech-savvy teenagers who thought they couldn't survive without internet connection for a day.

Now everyone needed food, water and shelter.

Bella recalled learning about the 'Maslow's hierarchy of needs' when she had been studying psychology in college. Currently, the human population was climbing down that triangle. The pyramid of basic needs. They were at the top once, in the stage of self-actualisation whereby a lack of prejudice and creativity was rewarded. They were now advancing past the section of self-esteem where people desired the respect of others. That wasn't important anymore.

Humanity had descended back into its primeval form. People sought to be the alpha male. The lion of the pride. The tyrannical ruler. People wanted power and resources. It was life or death.

Thank goodness they were stranded in a forest.

So I guess they've kicked into survival mode now. More will be revealed soon. Who knows about their luck...

Love, perpetually.