Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4 - 7 2018 | Page 34

06/08/151 3 10:05 of driving
Covered distance of current day ≈ 178 miles
922 miles from outpost city: New Mongolia
863 miles to outpost city: New Tajikistan
Terrain = Rugged and Sandy The day was cut short, allowing
Adar more rest.
07/08/151 4 11:19 of driving
Covered distance of current day ≈ 324 miles
1246 miles from outpost city: New Mongolia
539 miles to outpost city: New Tajikistan
Terrain = Sloped and mountainous Leaving the Gobi desert, we enter
the flaming mountains.
~
Chapter 2 — Apocalypse: Isaac Solomon
Time melted into an agonizing obstacle, the Gobi desert stretched across over a thousand miles, and it
seemed the landscape of monstrous sand dunes would simply stretch onwards to the edge of the world. It
was by nightfall that we left the Gobi desert, into a mountainous region known as the flaming mountains.
Reading became my salvation.
I like to imagine this adventure as a saga scripting the journey of our companionship, similar to that
of “Journey to the West” - a popular novel written around 700 years ago that lasted through different eras,
with copies surviving the apocalypse in year 2052AC and making it into the world of today. The tale depicts
the epic adventure of a fellowship comprised of a monk, a monkey king, a talking pig and a resilient friar, to
a mystical place called Nalanda, into the Western Paradise of heaven. Coincidently, Nalanda is located near
the outpost city of New Tajikistan today.
Might we be too late to help out the outpost city of New Tajikistan? Nothing is certain.
No sources had exact corroboration with one another, but one thing was clear: the infrastructure of
humanity met its end in the year of 2052 AC, just when society was at its golden age of prosperity, and
machines and artificial intelligence served all basic human needs. Lax was humanity, until the coming of the
apocalypse.
Early Spring 2052 AC: A virus scientists were testing to genetically enhance the human body
leaked through a slip-up and spread like wildfire into the world.
The virus infected the world population in mere days, altering the DNA of all infected hosts,
whether the mutations be drastic or minuscule. The transmutation virus soon modified the human’s bodily
functions, in many cases, death was the result. Yet in some cases, the mutation changed a set of vital
functions that triggered predatory instincts hidden within the human brain.
Enhanced predator-like humans were on the loose. Those infected humans became hypervores
suffering from constant hunger, of which only marrow adipose tissue from bone marrow can resolve. The
virus infected hosts and evolved, jumping the species barrier, resulting in the mutation of animals, slowly
imposing unnatural impacts onto the hosts. Mass extinction took place over the course of weeks, with only
the most resistant species surviving the virus, adapting to reject the delving effects of the virus. The only
saving grace was how not all humans had a high affinity for the virus, most survivors suffering almost no
mutations from the virus.
From the 9.7 billion humans that populated the earth, only a struggling 20 thousand survived
without facing drastic mutations or death. Over the years 5 factions sprouted from the surviving human
population, forming 5 major outpost cities over the globe. Miraculously, the initial apocalypse was halted,
with the virus eventually neutralized itself to become docile. With the help of medication and drugs, the
virus can be entirely rooted, keeping the host virus-free.
But that was 150 years ago.
A week ago, we received disturbing reports from the city New Tajikistan, stating several rangers
have been found to contain an active virus causing aggressive transmutation to the metabolisms of the
rangers: they needed urgent assistance.
This was the deliverance I have been waiting for - to fulfill a role destiny had for me. I believe in
legacy, and to build an immortal legacy for myself shall I need to serve all of mankind, to ensure the
continuation of humanity. I see it as my duty to free humanity from the chains of the apocalypse. The t