A Brief History of the World
It’s been sixty-two years since the virus hit, it was called Influenza-39 a genetically modified version of the 1918 Spanish Flu. It was meant to be a weapon for the enemy. At the virus started out like any flu a higher fever or the opposite chills, a cough maybe a runny or stuffy nose, headaches and body aches. Only this flu was worse the people who got the fever would overheat and die in hours or they would get chill shaking much that their hearts couldn’t keep up again death in hours. Those were the quick ways the worst death was the drowning. A built-up of fluids in the lung you drown in your own fluids that would take days.
At first it did what it was supposed to do they called it the Arabic Flu because it only seem to effect that ethic group. It was fast to in seven months half population of Syria died. The Arabic flu as it was called spread throughout the region fast and hard killing without mercy mothers carried their dying children begging for a cure. Of course there was a cure, or so they thought. Peace came not with the signing of a treaty but with the injection of a needle.
My grandmother was born in a time of peace for five years the earth was at peace what no one knew was virus that killed so free didn’t want peace it wanted more. The new outbreak came from France, a group of refugees got sick they were quarantined and blood samples were taken. A new cure was made nine months later given to the world’s Arabic population. By then it was too late the virus mutated now anyone could be at risk. The first non-Arabic patient was found dead in London five weeks after quarantine was lifted.
After that it only took a few people on few planes the peace was over and the new war began in April of 2021. This war ended seventeen months later when the world fell into chaos. Mother’s feared the cough of their child and brother turned against brother. As the city’s fell people fled some to the rural farmlands while others went to the sea.
There were six ships part of an experiment to see if people could live on the open ocean for extended periods of time. The ships were built before the plague started they were self-sustaining in theory at least. With a limit of only hold three thousand people only the immune where allowed on. My Gran was the only immune the only one in her family, her parents left on dryland. She was seven she bored the ship called Trygg Havn, Norwegian for Safe Haven.
The plan was simple to wait all viruses burn out eventually people were immune or their bodies finally devolved a residence to it. Arabic-flu did burn out four years later in the winter of 2026. An estimated 67% of the Earth’s population died that about five billion people. The eighteen thousand people that went to the sea never returned to land. After the burnout a re-landing party did go ashore in 2027 they came back to report that the Dry Landers had become savage barely surviving on the scraps of a decayed civilization.
My grandmother was 19 in 2035 when she married my grandfather, an engineer. They had two children the limit was only two children population has to be controlled. My father, Hale was born in 2037 and my Aunt Mary joined completed the family in 2039. My father became a doctor and met my mother a teacher in 2060. Three years later I came along with my twin sister.
The year is now 2083 I am twenty years old my name is Delia Wicks, an engineer like my Pops while Diana my twin is a doctor. We are part of the 2nd generation to be born at sea. Our ship the Trygg Havn, we call it Trig now it is part of the United Atlantic Colonies, the UAC. Each ship is 1.8 miles long and 280ft high all are self-sustaining.
