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"Absolute Zero"

Losing your teenage life in a blink of an eye. Ohara struggles with lost, grief and a huge decision that can change her world as she knows it. By : Tanekia S. Waters

By Tanekia Shanice WatersPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
"Absolute Zero"
Photo by John Noonan on Unsplash

Dear Diary,

My Life wasn’t always this chaotic, you know. Before the emergency alerts came in and before the virus got here I was a normal teenager. A prized student at a good school, decent home and parents who loved me. Plenty of friends who looked up to me, a bright future even I couldn’t imagine. But it can all be taken away from you within a blink of an eye. Hi, my name is Ohara Holomon. And I am one of the few survivors of the virus H296 aka “Absolute Zero”. It hits you within minutes, attacking your nervous system and leaves you fully vulnerable before finally taking all of you for itself. Sort of like a football field sized volcano erupting in the middle of New York City. A complete wipeout without any notice at all. Starts out differently for everyone, some may experience a cough, severe fatigue, and maybe a bloody nose. Others are paralyzed instantly and all motor skills are dysfunctional. But the ending results always seem to be the same. Consumed and lifeless. Many people ignored their symptoms until it became too late. My mother worked on the frontlines of it all. Senior MD biochemist at the local hospital. She gave all she had to try and help find a way to stop “Absolute Zero”. All her attempts made a difference but only for a small quantity of time. Dampening the inevitable long enough for a last farewell. Four months in and countless lives lost. With all of her attempts and research my mother was finally able to complete a Serum that counteracted virus H296. It puts the virus cells of H296 on pause long enough for your fighting cells to attack the problem properly. However before she was able to share her research with the world she too was consumed by H296. All her research now lies within the flash drive inside this heart-shaped locket I wear around my neck everyday to remind me this fight still isn’t over. My mother’s last words were “ Only within the right hands can the truth be safe”. At that moment I had no clue what she meant by that. On the other hand, I’ve learned to conquer things I couldn’t conceptualize. If I allow this research to get in the wrong hands the world itself could go completely extinct. If I get the research into the right hands the world can be restored, and life as we know it can be on the rise for the better. Myself and the others keep isolated within our own environment so H296 isn’t contracted. Despite the fact that we still have no idea how this H296 comes about. But like many others we have our theories. Airborne? Science? Mother nature? Or maybe we are just being punished for all of our bad sins. Questions and statements none of us are able to answer. I’m determined to get my mother’s research in the right hands. Nevertheless I’m also worried that the right hands may not be the right hands to trust completely. Who can you trust when the world no longer has the laws and peace you once knew? Who can you trust with the last hope humanity has? “Absolute Zero” has taken too many lives that crossed its path already, too many families have been destroyed by something we didn’t have the materials to fight. Now we have everything we need to build a better future to learn to become better people. I have a second chance to continue what my mother fought for and I sure won’t waste it. Would You?

Sci Fi

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