February 1, 2026
The world was quiet.
A silence had fallen over New York City, but it was not the peaceful kind. It was the suffocating stillness that comes after destruction. The streets were eerily empty, devoid of the usual crowds of people, cars, and the familiar hum of life. Skyscrapers, once teeming with human activity, now stood like sentinels over a city reduced to a shell of its former self. The viral vector had been released weeks ago, and though it had worked in halting Virobacterium cataclysmica prionis, the cost was clear to all who remained: the reset had left humanity teetering on the brink of extinction.
Dr. Lucy Morris sat alone in the makeshift headquarters in what had once been a bustling research center. The monitors flickered with streams of data, most of it grim. The reset had saved lives, but it had also left them weak—vulnerable to anything and everything. She glanced at the global death tolls, the numbers of secondary infections sweeping through the population like wildfire. Even the common cold was now a deadly threat to the world's remaining survivors.
Hale had disappeared shortly after the reset, retreating to a private bunker outside the city. Lucy hadn't heard from him in days, though part of her didn't want to. She knew what he had done, what they had done together. His silence was probably his way of coping with the guilt that now weighed on both of them. But Lucy had no such luxury—there was still work to be done, and people still needed answers.
Her mind wandered to the thousands of infected patients who had survived Virobacterium cataclysmica prionis only to find themselves vulnerable to the next wave of illness. The human body, stripped of its immune defenses, was no longer able to fight even the most basic infections. Entire populations were bedridden, clinging to life.
The data showed isolated regions where survivors had formed small communities, barricaded from the outside world, trying to prevent any new pathogens from reaching them. The rest of the world, though, wasn't so lucky. Countries that had once prided themselves on their advanced healthcare systems had collapsed under the weight of secondary infections. There were no more vaccines, no more antibiotics, no more antiviral treatments to save them. Hospitals were overrun with the dying, their staff infected and bedridden alongside their patients.
It wasn't just illness they had to worry about. Food supplies were running out. With most of the population too weak to work, production had ground to a halt. The global economy had collapsed within weeks, and now, what was left of society was scrabbling to survive. Looting was rampant. In the few functioning cities, chaos reigned as people fought for dwindling resources. There were even rumors of cannibalism in some places, though Lucy hoped those were just that—rumors.
Lucy leaned back in her chair, her eyes heavy with exhaustion. She had barely slept since the reset, her mind constantly racing with thoughts of what they could have done differently. She had known this would be a gamble, but the scale of the devastation was beyond anything she had imagined.
"How many more?" she whispered to herself, staring at the figures on the screen. The numbers blurred together, but the trend was unmistakable—humanity was dying.
The door behind her creaked open, and Lucy glanced up to see one of her remaining colleagues, Dr. James Carlisle, step into the room. His face was pale and gaunt, a stark reminder of the toll this crisis had taken on everyone.
"They've stopped sending updates from London," James said, his voice hoarse. "I think… I think it's gone."
Lucy closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. Another city lost. "How long do you think we have left?" she asked.
James hesitated, shifting his weight uncomfortably. "Maybe a few more weeks. Maybe less. It depends on whether the secondary infections keep spreading. We're seeing entire towns wiped out within days now. And without any way to distribute treatment..."
He didn't need to finish the sentence. Lucy knew what he meant. There was no way to stop it. The viral vector had worked, but it had also crippled them. The irony was not lost on her—Virobacterium cataclysmica prionis had been neutralized, but now, even the simplest infections were doing what the virus had failed to do: wiping out the human race.
"Any word from Hale?" Lucy asked, though she already knew the answer.
James shook his head. "Not since last week. He might be dead, for all we know. Or he's hiding out somewhere, waiting for this all to blow over."
Lucy scoffed. "Blow over? There's nothing left to blow over, James. This is it."
James sighed and sank into a chair beside her. "We tried, Lucy. We really did. But... maybe this was always going to be the end."
Lucy didn't respond. She couldn't. There was no point in trying to argue when everything they had done had only delayed the inevitable.
February 10, 2026
The remaining survivors in New York City had gathered in pockets around the city, living in cramped, makeshift shelters and abandoned buildings. The streets had become a wasteland of debris and broken lives. Every day, more people fell sick, and every day, fewer recovered. The reset had bought them time, but it was running out faster than they could manage.
Lucy walked through what was left of Central Park, now a sprawling camp for the sick and the dying. The once green fields were now covered in tents and makeshift shelters, people huddling together for warmth as the winter winds swept through the city. She could see the fear in their eyes—the knowledge that there was no escape from this.
She had spent the last few days distributing what little medical supplies they had left, but it wasn't enough. Nothing would be enough. The survivors were too weak, their immune systems too damaged to fight off even the most minor illnesses. The prions had done their job well, stripping humanity of its last defense.
As she made her way through the camp, Lucy's thoughts drifted back to Hale. She hadn't heard from him since the reset, and part of her was glad for it. She wasn't sure what she would say to him if they did speak. He had been the architect of this nightmare, but she had been complicit. They had both believed they were saving the world, and now, all they had done was prolong its suffering.
She stopped in front of one of the tents, peering inside. A family lay huddled together on a pile of blankets, their faces gaunt and pale. The mother looked up at Lucy, her eyes pleading for help that Lucy couldn't give. The child, no more than five years old, was coughing weakly, her tiny body shaking with the effort.
Lucy knelt beside the mother, her voice soft. "How long has she been like this?"
"Two days," the woman whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "She's getting worse. I… I don't know what to do."
Lucy placed a hand on the mother's shoulder, though the gesture felt hollow. "We'll do what we can," she said, knowing it wasn't enough.
The truth was, there wasn't much left they could do. The world was dying, and there was no stopping it. Virobacterium cataclysmica prionis had been defeated, but humanity had lost the war.
February 28, 2026
The end had come quietly.
One by one, the cities of the world fell silent. The lights went out, the streets emptied, and the final breaths of humanity were taken in solitude. The last survivors, those who had clung to hope for as long as they could, had finally succumbed to the infections that ravaged their bodies.
In New York City, Lucy Morris stood alone in the lab that had once been the center of the world's fight against the virus. Now, it was nothing more than a tomb, a reminder of the battle they had lost. The monitors flickered, showing static where there had once been life. The data streams had gone dark.
The world was quiet.