Heartbeats

Chapter 3: Heart of fire. Heart of ice.

A war broke out. Countries, cultures, religions, and men clashed. The world was divided with its destroyed lands, dark skies and burning seas. Humanity suffered terribly through numerous fighting, hunger and death.

Hate and revenge piled up one after the other. An eye for an eye, until no one knew who started this and what they were fighting for.

Everyone were swept away with the fervor of war. People were like flowers in the field trampled upon and were just forgotten as the earth ate their existence. Children lived and died without even knowing what clear blue skies looked like. Families were torn apart and loved ones were left behind, but no matter how they all begged and cried the fighting ensued.

It took the leaders of the world ten years of passionate bloodshed before they resolved to peace.

With a dagger behind their smiles and a gun behind every handshake, peace finally embraced the world. From the rubble of warfare, the people tried to stand up and build their lives once more.

However, the false calm of peace did not last very long.

Another war broke out. The deadliest humanity had ever seen and yet there were no explosions, there were no gunshots, there were no fires... there was only death.

Countries fought each other silently by creating biological weapons. It travelled by air with mysterious planes passing through the sky. It travelled by water from contamination from unknown sources. It travelled by land with crops carrying deadly diseases as they were harvested.

The angels of death came down upon the earth to destroy and to punish what was left of mankind.

Each side had a different set of death to unleash. It scattered all around the world; first to the major cities, next to the suburban and provinces, until it reached the smallest tips of the branches of society.

It only lasted for two years and a half but the death count were as severe as the last one. In the end, only twenty percent of the population remained alive, though not everyone was unscathed but at least they were living.

The new leaders of the world made a treaty and vowed never to commit such a mistake again. This time it was genuine and they were honestly trying their best for a better world. However it was too late, for the repercussions of this war could not be erased anymore.

The weapons they unleashed were more than they could handle. The viruses evolved in a way that it manifested differently with each individual. Some died due to organ failure, some developed abnormalities, some had cancer, and some rotted from the inside. There were so many unique cases with varying symptoms and causes that at the end of the day the doctors were not sure how to treat them at all.

The animals were also infected with the virus and most of them mutated into a completely different creature. The quiet herbivores turned carnivorous and rabid, while predators grew twice in size and became more aggressive than before.

One could not trust anyone or anything anymore. Air, water and land became disease carriers, animals were out to kill you and even your own body had failed you.

The world turned into a deadly place.

Be that as it may, humans were very resilient. They searched for places where they could trust their surroundings. Soon they established the first ever "Community", a domed area big enough to be considered a country, where they gathered doctors and scientists who shared the same cause to help mankind. The people who governed the Community were a Council made up of these doctors and specialists of different fields. They made sure that the survivors inside their protection were safe and healthy. Slowly the population inside the Community grew as it accepted more and more people through mass evacuations.