Confessions of the Armageddon

*Tape starts with a click. A man’s voice, full of awe and fatigue but void of hope comes on.*

I can’t believe this old thing still works. Who’d have thought that in this era of wireless transmission and technological advances that the last recounting of the grandest country in the world would be recorded on an outdated cassette. Huh…

*The man pauses thoughtfully.*

Well, in any event, I have to record what happened...because I have to hope that the next people to find this will avoid our mistakes. ‘Cuz at the end of it all, that’s what they were; an obnoxiously long list of grand mistakes as ancient as the human race itself. Mistakes rooted in hatred, vengeance, and all those horrid things they tell you to avoid in school…

*There’s a pause in the tape, where you hear the steady inhale of a man taking a drag on a cigarette, and then the steady exhale afterwards followed by a short cough. After another moment, the man begins talking again.*

It’s a good thing I gave these up...I just figure it's the end of the world, so who really gives a shit anymore?

Anyway, about our mistakes...it all started with a terrorist group that called themselves The Red Hand. Stupid fuckin’ name if you ask me; like they thought they were some video game bad guys or something. I don’t know. Anyway, this terrorist group was really good at staying underground and staying off the radar. We didn’t know how many of them there were or where they really operated out of or anything. Hell, we didn’t even know what they really wanted. We just knew that they were working on something big.

Eventually we found out what it was, but it was too late to stop it. They set off bombs in every capital of every state and of course, in Washington DC. The bombs weren’t regular ordinance though; they were a dispersal device for a cutting edge biological agent that was unlike anything the world has ever seen. It devastated the world. With a contamination rate of 95%, the hazardous biological agent would hijack the person’s immune system and make it attack itself. The assholes found a way to give normally healthy people a fuckin autoimmune disease. Seriously, can you imagine anything worse than your body basically committing suicide and NOT being able to do anything about it? And the damn thing was sneaky. The infected were asymptomatic and contagious for as long as two weeks; then all of sudden the body started killing itself and people were dropping dead within 48 hours.

*The speaker takes another long drag, and you hear a rapid tapping while he exhales. It almost sounds like he’s shaking. His voice breaks as he continues on.*

They’re fuckin monsters...I hope they died in some kind of painful manner. That’s probably petty of me, but like I said, end of the world. Who really cares if I’m petty.

*The speaker’s voice breaks, and you hear him struggle to take another drag of the cigarette. He coughs violently for several more minutes, then there’s only the scratch of the recording. Finally he continues.*

The worst part was what happened afterwards. Whatever this thing is, it was made in hell. Once the normal body functions stopped sending neural responses to the brain, the hazardous biological agent would bind to the central nervous system, and somehow it kept the body functioning. Mostly it was rudimentary motor skills, but it was paired with the biological agent’s survival instinct; meaning that it needed to obtain nutrients. And the most abundant source of food for them is...well, you know. For those that were attacked by these risen and survived...well, they were contaminated, so you can guess what happened to them. Yea, the fuckin’ terrorists with a stupid name turned the great United States of America, and the other major powers of the world for that matter, into a damn Armageddon b-movie.

*The speaker gives a heavy sigh before he moves on.*

So that was mistake numero uno, and I really wish I could tell you that was the end of it. But of course it’s not.

One of the survivors of the initial attacks, a guy or girl I don’t really know which, who was part of that 5% that were immune to the hazardous biological agent, just so happened to be an American class-a hacker who was part psychopath and all Islamophobe. In response to the Red Hand declaring victory over the, quote, Great Western Civilizations and their allies, he/she hacked into the national defense systems of these nations and got all of their launch sequences. For everything. Then, they launched just enough missiles to turn the Middle East into a crater.

Between the nuclear and the biological attacks, the global community completely shut down. Countries like America, The UK, France, Canada, China, and Russia are wastelands swarming with dead and places like the Middle East are radioactive wastelands. Without the international community, places like Africa and Mexico have become havens for warlords and cartels and other countries like Japan have completely sealed themselves off.

Basically, it’s all shit.

The people who really got it the worse though are people like the ones listening to this recording. Like you. You, who have to find some way to survive in these decapitated countries. With no outside help and chaos within its borders, people like you have inherited an unimaginable and unfair struggle. One where the oldest enemies of mankind like weather, disease, and starvation, are able to have free rein and kill anyone they like. They’ve actually claimed more lives this past year than they have in decades.

Like I said, a grand bullshit list of mistakes.

For whoever hears this....if anyone hears this, first off, I’m sorry you’re stuck in this hell, and the best of luck to you. Now if you didn’t get stuck in this shit show for some reason, know that you’re among the luckiest people in the world. Whichever you are, just make sure you don’t make the same mistakes. Don’t let hatred and fear and ignorance and anger drive your actions. They’re the real horsemen of the apocalypse, I wish we woulda seen that sooner. Just be better than us.

And don’t smoke these damn things, they’re fuckin’ gross.

*Tape ends with a click*