HEART-SHAPED HELL

The moment the virus hit, I knew that life would never be the same again. I knew that things were going to change. I just didn’t think they were gonna change this much.

Maybe I was naïve. Maybe years and years of unlimited comforts such as electricity, warmth, and security had made me somewhat soft…

Maybe at first, I didn’t believe the stories that I heard over the airways… Stories of people going absolutely insane and ransacking shops, pillaging goods and fighting each other with weapons.

But as the weeks rolled by, these tales of barbarity were no longer just stories that people told around their loved ones. Now, these stories were unfolding on our very streets. They were happening to our next-door neighbours, and in some cases, to our immediate family.

The surface is no longer safe.

The virus is airborne.

But it’s not your usual virus, causing a cold or temperature… No, this virus is different. This virus affects people in a way that I’ve never seen before.

Sure, you heard stories in the past, before the viral outbreak, of people doing terrible things to one another. They do these things seemingly with no remorse. They’d hurt people, innocent people, for such innocuous reasons.

Before, we used to call these people criminally insane… We used to lock these people up and throw the key away…

But what happens when 90 or so per cent of the population starts to exhibit those same characteristics?

What do you do then?

Do you run? Do you hide?

At first, the government didn’t know what to do. They just assumed that it was people panicking because of the virus. They believed that people would calm down given a little guidance and support from the powers that be.

But no matter how much money they threw at the situation…

No matter how many jobs they tried to save…

No matter how many industries they bailed out…

No matter how many food parcels they sent to the local civic centres, people just continued to be animals.

The behavioural issues were the first officially recognised symptoms by the World Health Organisation. But unfortunately, due to the nature of said symptoms, many scientists and disease experts were quick to point out that what was going on around them was merely the results of mass hysteria.

They just figured that these people were panicking because the world itself was literally burning around them. And that’s just how people behaved when the chips were down.

If you look back on history itself, you’ll notice a trending pattern of people becoming the worst versions of themselves when something catastrophic happens to their very way of life.

But the moment these people started exhibiting other symptoms, symptoms more commonly associated with disease, the scientists and powers that be began to form a clearer picture of what exactly was going on here.

I still remember the news bulletin…

“The B – 726 viral outbreak has officially been recognised as a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation. This disease is unlike anything we have ever witnessed before. Its symptoms are varied, but the main symptom of this disease is psychosis brought on by hallucinations and paranoia that causes the affected individuals to exhibit violent tendencies.

“A stay-at-home order has been issued by the United States government, and a countrywide quarantine lockdown has been initiated. Any persons found outside of their dwellings after 8 o’clock this evening will be subject to prosecution at the highest level of the federal government and shall forego a trial in a court of law on account of the seriousness of this disease.

“Mass detention centres have already been erected in all 50 states. Failure to comply with this new legislation will result in the National Guard taking measures to protect the United States’ greatest interests, be that its people, the infrastructure of the nation, and the economy connected to the running of businesses such as oil refineries, nuclear power stations and water treatment centres.”

After that news bulletin had aired on every single available TV channel, radio station and Internet stream, the mass hysteria, of course, did not stop. In fact, it grew to unprecedented levels until people were rioting on the streets and killing each other left, right and centre. But of course, now, nobody could tell who was infected with the psychosis-inducing disease or whether or not these people were merely snapping under the strain and pressure brought on by this unfathomable news.

In the grand scheme of things, none of it really mattered. The sheer number of people panicking meant that the streets themselves were all too consumed with the raging fire of humanities worst traits.

Selfishness. Greed. Self-preservation.

These were the powers that fuelled the people around us now. This was what people sought to protect, acted upon and fought for.

As for myself and my wife, we decided to hunker down. Our goal was simple, to get away from the madness. To escape to safety. To protect ourselves from the rapidly deteriorating situation around us.

We got into my pickup truck, packed as many supplies into the back as possible, and just drove for miles and miles and miles until we could no longer see or smell the smoke in the distance. The screaming had finally stopped. The violence was no longer around us—just peace and tranquillity.

The pickup truck broke down in some forest around 80 miles north of the nearest city. The supplies in the back of the truck survived the journey. Both myself and my wife were weary. But we knew that we needed to continue on. Finding fuel would be of the utmost importance. But getting a good night's rest before I ventured off searching for a few jerry cans was more critical.

We sat there in the truck. We were both breathing heavily as if we’d just ran a marathon. Truth was, we were just terrified. Terrified of the world around us. Terrified of what people had become. Terrified of what we had coming to us and our future.

“It’s going to be all right, you know that, Lisa… You know that I’ve got this covered?” I said, gently resting my hand on Lisa’s pregnant belly.

I could feel the baby kick. It made me smile. For a moment or two, I momentarily forgot about what was happening to us. What was happening to the world.

I stared at her, smiling, taking in all of her absolute beauty.

Her skin looked immaculate. It seems clichéd, but she was glowing. She never looked so beautiful. The setting sun was cascading orange hues of light across the pickup truck’s dashboard, bouncing off it and putting a spotlight on her momentarily serene face.

For a moment, we were free.

My eyes darted from her face, following the contours of her jaw, down to her neck, and finally rested on the pink heart-shaped locket that I’d given her the moment we had found out that we were having a baby boy.

In that locket was the sonogram scan picture. We had decided not to update it after the first scan. We’d wanted to encapsulate that joyful moment when we’d found out that we were pregnant. We wanted to burn the image deep into our minds so we never forgot the true meaning of love.

Lisa had fallen pregnant 23 weeks before the virus had hit. The scan picture was frozen in a time before the world had decided to get itself into one big damn mess. So every time we looked at it, we were reminded of what life used to be like… And what it could still be like once this was all over.

The sun finally set, and darkness consumed everything around us. The only light now was emanating from the sparkling stars above, a few million light-years away, already dead, but still hanging on to whatever light remained in the heavens.

“It will be morning soon,” she said, smiling at me, gently pressing my hand down onto her stomach.

“Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow, we change the world, just the two of us, side-by-side, ready for whatever comes our way,” I said, leaning over and kissing her.