After closing the garage door and getting into the house, I kicked off my shoes and left them strewn on the ground. Mom and Dad were still at the company so the house was dark and empty as usual. The house wasn’t completely pitch black since it was only the afternoon. Deciding that turning the lights on was a waste of my time, I walked up the stairs and entered my room. The heavy backpack slammed onto the ground and I flopped down onto my bed. Staring up at the green camouflage painted on my ceiling, I sighed as I turned my attention to my green backpack stuffed full of homework.
I chewed on a piece of gum while thinking about the Calculus AB problem in front of me. My mind was distracted when I heard the door downstairs open and the voice of Dad. “Valentina, we are home!”
It seemed like it was already five o’clock. My mind turned back to my calculus homework. These problems were really annoying. A few moments later, a knock came on the door and Mom barged in. “Valentina?”
Inside my head, I sighed to myself. Did she have to check on me every time? “What is it, Mom?”
My mother was smiling lightly. “Just making sure you are home. Are you preparing for your AP exams?”
Pouting slightly, I replied. “I am, Mom.”
“Okay sweetie, dinner will be ready at seven.” With that, she exited my room.
After dinner, I slumped onto my desk and gazed towards the twinkling night sky out of the window for a few minutes. Out of the corner of my eye, a meteor came down. And then another one. And then a few more before seemingly hundreds of streaks dotted the sky. A meteor shower. The scene before me captured my eyes. It was just like hundreds of sparkling jewels. I had never recalled seeing one in my life. There had been nobody who had talked about a possible one today. I lazily reached my hand out towards the window as if I wanted to grab one. I wish I was like a meteor. Free to fly wherever I desired.
As I walked down the stairs while clutching my stomach, my body swayed left to right and my vision blurred. It was a Saturday afternoon, a few days after the surprise meteor shower, and I had been reading a book on military strategy when my stomach started to hurt like crazy. Everything was perfectly fine this morning and I even did my routine morning exercises. At first, I ignored the pain since I thought that it would be gone after a bit. It became worse over time. By around four in the afternoon, it got to the point that my stomach couldn’t handle it anymore so I came down the stairs to find my parents. As I entered the living room, the sound of the TV assaulted my ears. My parents sat snugly together on the couch.
<<< “We interrupt this program for breaking news. Just a few minutes ago we received reports of a possible new disease affecting areas in Europe…”
The newscaster paused on the screen to listen to his earpiece before continuing.
“...sorry, we are now receiving reports of it around the world. Symptoms so far include stomach pains, nausea, vomiting of blood, and loss of consciousness. If anyone in…”>>>
I vomited onto the ground. That turned my parents' attention away from the TV.
“Valentina!”
The last thing that filled my vision was my mother rushing to me before everything blacked out.
My eyes burst open and I was greeted with a white ceiling. Turning my head right to left in confusion, I found out that I’m in what seems to be a hospital room. Turning back to my left, I noticed that I’m hooked up to an IV. After looking around more for a bit, the door to my hospital room opened as two people in hazmat suits entered. Hazmat suits? What in god’s name happened? They approached me. My voice came out weak. “...who are you people?”
One of them answered me in a flat tone. “You are currently in a hospital. Do you remember what happened?”
I wracked my brain for that answer. Memories started flooding back. “I think I collapsed… why are y’all wearing hazmat suits? Did I get smallpox or something?”
I heard him mumble something.“...that would have been much more preferable…”
“What?” The last part of what I said was definitely meant to be a light joke but his mumbling answer was concerning.
His face displayed nothing through his hazmat suit and he moved onto a different topic. “If you don’t mind, I will need to take some blood for testing."
It seemed that it wasn’t him asking me for my permission. It was him just telling me his intentions. I winced a bit as I watched him jab me with a syringe. Might as well continue my questions. “...what day is it?
“May 20th, 2019.”
I blinked. The day I collapsed was April 7th. I did some estimations in my mind. That was definitely somewhere more than a month. My semi-relaxed and groggy mood dropped as I came to that realization. “Where are my parents?” My words came out as if I was demanding something.
Still taking the blood out of me, he answered in a soft tone. “Calm down. They are doing fine but aren’t allowed to visit you yet.”
“Why?” My voice sounded accusatory.
“Listen, Ms.Vincent, you are still recovering. Just focus on recovering for now and asking later.” He said this as he turned around and walked out of the room with the other person. He finished taking out the blood before I had noticed.
For the next two days, people constantly came into my room with hazmat suits as if they feared something. They mostly came in to ask about how I felt, to take care of me, and to get blood samples. Whenever I asked about what had happened, they didn't seem to talk much about it. On the third day, a person finally came into the room without a hazmat suit. It seemed to be the same person who had taken blood from me when I woke up. Without his hazmat suit, he had white clothing that indicated that he was a doctor. Instead of being expressionless as he was on that day, he smiled a bit. “How are you doing today, Ms.Vincent?”
I just grumbled to his question. I wasn’t particularly happy being isolated here for three days. “Much better than when I woke up. You don’t seem to be wearing a hazmat suit. More importantly, when will I get to see my parents?”
“It’s been deemed safe.”
I raised my eyebrows in disappreciation. “Safe from what? You people never explained to me what exact illness I got.”
“We didn’t tell you since we wanted you to focus on recovering.”
Really? That was their excuse? This better not be some weird government experiment. My brows furrowed. “Then can you tell me now?”
The doctor sighed and looked down. A few seconds passed before he looked up and replied. “Well, we don’t know what exactly you got.”
It processed in my mind for a second before my voice came out in surprise. “What do you mean you don’t know exactly?”
He stared at me as he slowly started to talk. His voice was almost like a whisper. “Well… we are in the grips of a pandemic because of this new disease called Instant Hemorrhagic Disease. The point is that we don’t know what it is exactly. It couldn’t be deemed as a virus or bacteria. It could be some type of unknown microorganism. It could be a bioweapon. What we do know is that it all of a sudden appeared around the world at the same time. The most mysterious part was that it also came in waves… ”
He paused for a bit while staring at me. Honestly, he seemed a bit creepy.
“...Ms.Vincent, you are extremely… no … absurdly lucky. You were in what we categorized as the first wave. If you were not accounted for in the United States, the first wave had a 100% mortality rate.”
My eyes shot up. A 100% mortality rate... was that even possible? “What?!”
I was pretty sure he shouldn’t be telling me this. Well, I did kind of demand it fiercely just a few seconds ago... his quiet voice cut off my thoughts as he continued.
“The symptoms are always the same. First sudden stomach pains and nausea. Then sudden vomiting of blood with loss of consciousness. Next, somewhere within 24 hours, the infected will experience instant and extreme hemorrhaging. By the end, there will be a multiorgan failure and always death. You however experienced only some spontaneous hemorrhaging and we were able to keep you alive. We tried to find out why you had survived when thousands of others didn’t but not knowing exactly what this illness is, rendered anything we learned from your blood samples as useless.”
I just sat there and stared at him as my brain wrapped around words. His face was expressionless again but there seemed to be a tint of sadness on it.
“Your parents will be here soon. You are getting discharged today.”
He exited as I continued to try to fit what he just told me into my brain.
I swished my head towards the door when I heard it creak.
“Mom! Dad!” I shouted with a massive smile on my face as they entered the room. My mom instantly ran to hug me with tears streaming down her eyes. It was hard not seeing them for multiple days. It was even harder knowing that I hadn’t actually seen them for more than a month.
“Oh, Valentina! We were so worried.” Tears were still streaming down.
Dad watched at first with a smile on his face but also came in for a family hug.
We exited the hospital. While getting out of my hospital room, Mom and Dad had warned me not to be surprised at the situation outside. The hospital seemed quite busy but that should be normal for a hospital. I didn’t go to one that much. With the outside world in front of me, I understood why they had warned me. A couple of humvees were parked outside of the hospital. Some of them even had .50 cals on them. It seemed almost as if martial law was declared. This was confirmed on the car drive home as I saw humvees and soldiers everywhere on the streets.
Instant Hemorrhagic Disease or IHD had come in four waves. When I was out of my coma, it was in its third wave. The first wave had a 99% mortality rate and lasted six days. The disease popped up randomly around the world and hundreds of thousands of people died. In almost every country, there were cases. By the second day in the United States, all states had declared states of emergencies and activated quarantine. New cases continued to rise throughout these six days. People just collapsed. At the end of the first wave, around 20,000 died in the United States. After that, two days of calm seemed to set in. It seemed to have come as quickly as it left. However, on the ninth day, the second wave began. It lasted 17 days. Cases spiked everywhere. The only good thing was that the mortality rate was only around 60%. At this point, the national guards of many states were activated to keep order as people were starting to panic and loot. In the US alone, around 100,000 died in the second wave. Hospitals became worried about the possibility of being overwhelmed. The third wave started a day after the second wave. It lasted about a month. The mortality rate dropped to 40%. In the third wave, the US government declared martial law over the entire country for the first time in US history in order to keep things under control. Around 150,000 died in the third wave in the US. The last wave lasted another month. Luckily. this time no one died. Infected in the fourth wave only experienced stomach pains and nausea. The actual number of people sick in the fourth wave was unknown but it was definitely around a couple million. In the end, it seemingly disappeared and scientists were inconclusive as to what the disease even was.
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