On 16th of September, 2033, a rare so called anomaly occurred in the University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria, it was like the talk of the world that year. Plutonium-239 was discovered in large amounts a few hundred feet under the faculty of Arts building, it was supposed to be impossible as pu-239 was created from nuclear fission of u-235 or transmutation of u-238 but it happened anyways. The ground was being drilled at the time in search for underground water when the discovery was made; which caused a panic in the country. A week and five days after the discovery, the university was shut down so that the plutonium can be examined properly and to reduce radiation related infections, since plutonium-239 is a compound element created from fission, the discovery led scientists to believe uranium-235, u-238, u-239 and u-240 were also under the ground; which was also alarming as they were not very common naturally occurring elements. They were wrong. There was an abnormal nuclear explosion a few days after the scientists arrived and afterwards a partial meltdown of the plutonium occurred. Thanks to an incredible rainstorm that day, most of the fire from the explosion was put out and the superheated plutonium or what was left of it cooled down rapidly and surprisingly. Luckily there happened to be sedimentary rock formations under the plutonium that acted as a core catcher and prevented a full meltdown to the underground water. The whole of the state was evacuated hastily, unfortunately, the people in and around the university were lost to the explosion and heavy radiations, and around the city, acute radiation syndrome and radiation related illnesses claimed a few hundred lives. Although the high radiations subsided after a couple of weeks and only up to 1.9 roentgens per hour was measured in the city and up to 200 roentgens in the university. This was also a very surprising fact as plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years. The accident was placed on an entirely different level from the nuclear disaster in Japan in 2012 mostly because it was more of a Hiroshima like event combined with a Chernobyl like event. The plutonium was not nuclear fuel and apparently was not military so everyone couldn't help but wonder what happened inside the ground that day. That was the first plague.

You may be wondering who I am, forgive my behaviour. My name is Roselyn McCarthy Olowo, I was born in Benin City in 2005 and at the time of the accident, I was conducting a field study on biomechanics in my home town in Akodo, Lagos, I'm pretty sure none of my family survived the explosion, they lived in the schools senior staff quarters, opposite the staff club, a really sad experience I've had to deal with for a long time now. Sixteen months after the meltdown, the rest of the city was declared radioactive, and uninhabitable for a minimum of 100 years even though the radiations outside the compound was almost completely livable, inside the compound, it was quite high and so a nuclear containment super-structure was built around the ruins of the original discovery site to prevent more radiation from leaking out and it was supposed to last for a period of 100 years, it didn't, it collapsed in on itself sometime after and no one knew why at the time it did.

Some more scientists were sent to the containment site which was referred to as the red wastelands with protective gear to examine the condition of the site and why the containment structure collapsed, they made a devastating discovery, the plutonium was formed form seismic activities that occurred and was still occurring under the African tectonic plates in the Nigeria bay area, somehow the seismic occurrences caused an unnatural nuclear decay of u-238 and its end product was pu-239. An increased density in the air allowed the plutonium to reach its critical mass, firing neutrons and allowing for a fission chain reaction which was then ignited by a spark in the water pumps' wiring system, releasing a Shockwave that compressed the inner plutonium and led to its massive explosion; the accident was tagged the UNIBEN nuclear disaster of 33 and the ruins of the school was known as the University of hell or the devils playground. The fallout of the nuclear decay was the formation of a new element called Relilium-X (unknown element), an airborne particle based metallic chemical element. A lot is not known about its chemical structure or why it formed at all as it normally shouldn't be the end result of plutonium decay; scientists attribute it to the special conditions upon which the accident happened. And till this day, nobody knows much about it because all the scientists that were in contact with it became something else, something different...That was the second plague.

The third plague came a few weeks after that, a new infection Called 'The Relilium infection' broke out, often dubbed the second black plague or Satan's coming or anything that signified death in general. Anyone exposed to Relilium turned into something else, at the time they were called 'the horde' but after the global outbreak, they were called the 'Draugrs', people became violent ruthless beings driven by Anger and hate, significantly strong and very difficult to put down. Once ingested or contacted through blood, body fluid or intense physical contact, Relilium targeted the Amygdala and frontal lobes of the brain, and other key parts that controls anger and hatred, shutting the person's conscience, most of the consciousness and the ability to feel pain off. The incubation period of the infection was around 6 to 9 hours and that's all we could learn about the element's infection, it was unlike normal radiation and because we couldn't risk getting so close to it, we couldn't study it deeply. Humanity was pushed to the edge and fear spread throughout the world. Shelters were built and we began living in SUPER-DOMES, large cities built on former major cities as strongholds safe from draugrs and relilium, and the only few hundreds of millions of people left of humanity have been struggling to survive, to live with the new reality. It's been 2 years since that time…

DYSTOPIA