Prologue
PROLOGUE
It used to be so simple and peaceful. But none of us thought of it in such optimistic terms. We took it for granted. Driving to our dismal jobs, bitching about the traffic since it was the worst of life we’d ever had to endure, drinking our five-dollar coffees with extra whip and make it quick… You know the grind. There are still traces of it littering the highways. Smashed up cars and corpses; ribbons of smoke waltzing with the snowflakes; broken glass like glitter on the asphalt. Wreckage stretched into the distance, the darkness – forever.
Elliot Bay is now a necropolis, a place where tankers and cruise ships came to die. Floating out there now, unmanned, drifting listlessly into the reefs. In the other direction is I-5, congested with the evidence of our recent demise, like plaque taken refuge inside the arteries of the sick. And somewhere nearby is the toppled form of the Space Needle, a reminder of how quickly our world has taken a nosedive from oblivious trust-
-into a few billion shallow graves.
It began like most pandemics – with copious denial. A public blindly nodding along with a media content to fool them. To control them, to use them. There were news reports telling us it was a resilient strain of the flu. A bug that spread to all corners of the earth in a matter of weeks. Nothing to worry about. And I was just as sightless.
On that very rare cold and sunny day when it began…
