2-27-23

Sophomore English

A World Torn: Final version (for class)

“North Bridge Ave.” a peaceful name, certainly one you wouldn’t expect to be the centerpiece for destruction, yet alarms now echo around as gunfire blasts through the small street. Guards throwing volleys of bullets at rioters as they attempt to fight back against their heinous oppressors. After mere minutes their quarrel ends with the rebels, neutralized and life returns to normal in the North Bridge Quarantine zone. 

Life wasn’t always so hostile, as a matter of fact just a fortnight ago on the twentieth of February all was calm, there were no soldiers, barricades, or death, just the hustle and bustle of a normal city, there wasn’t even any crime that day. However just a day later the first reports of a virus well known as “The Tourist’s Flu” began to appear, and within that same day ten other tests came back positive. It was deemed necessary to seal North Bridge from the rest of the world, their only way of escape through guarded barricades patrolled by the National Guard. 

As days turned to weeks the quarantine refused to go down as cases continued to soar, leading to their hospitals and morgue to overflow with patients infected by this strange new disease. North Bridge may have been the first quarantine zone but it wasn’t the last as they began popping up in many major cities, their effects only negative. Eventually the internet would turn off one day and never turn back on, something unthinkable for most and for a reason no one knows.

Inside of the North Bridge QZ there is something unlike many of the others, a once abandoned pharmacy. Tossed over gurney's lie against the wall, rows of makeshift bedding cover where there were once shelves and said shelves are now all leaning against the back wall. Set up during the creation of the zone, this pharmacy is now a triage zone smelling of strong iron and stained in red, operated by the only remaining medically certified person still alive inside the zone. This man is one of great sophistication and wisdom, and he serves the zone honorably. When National Guard patrols leave the zone to secure supplies from an unknown world sometimes they come back with scratches or holes that weren’t there before, and Eric Sharpe takes no problem in restoring them back to normal. The same cannot be said for those infected with A-RPV, or the scientific name for Tourist’s Flu, which Eric investigates when not working tirelessly to save the lives of those within the zone. Appropriately named, the A-RPV stands for the American Respiratory Pallor Virus, which has caused this great collapse within society.  

The once cluttered and abandoned pharmacy is now organized and guarded, while not the prettiest, compared to nothing it is perfect for Eric, and he works to keep it orderly.

Eric sweats profusely, bags under his eyes and some tourniquet and gauze in hand as he works to save the life of a guard who got hit by a stray shot from the rebels, this was not the first time something like this has happened and definitely not recently as more and more cases have turned positive. His shining blue gloves become stained in dark red as he sighs through his mask, the monotone beep of the heart monitor blaring, signaling defeat, carefully ripping them off and throwing them in a bin just behind him. Death has become a common theme to Eric, but failure never has been, even then they seem interwoven within his mind and he retreats to sit quietly on his chair, reading reports and A-RPV test results. All that can be heard in the clinic is the muffled voices of those outside, waiting for results to their tests, Eric couldn’t help but grow saddened as he read the results,

Shianna Lewis - Positive, 

Margaret Davis - Negative

Liam Davis - Positive,

Cassidy Sharpe - Negative

Positive, Positive, Negative, Positive……

After thinking to himself for a few moments he eventually is able to stand up, putting on a stronger mask and replacing the old blood stained gloves, walking out the pharmacy door and pinning the list to the notice board. Crying and coughing is heard all around him as he goes back inside and washes as much of himself as he can, once again replacing his protective equipment before going back to his studies.

              Night came slowly, but as Eric put the finishing touches on his reports and double checked his supplies he closed up shop for the day, locking the door behind himself and walking to the house next door. 

           The warm feeling of his own home gave Eric enough calmness to relax as he looked around, finding a woman, the same one he married before society collapsed, asleep on the couch and a book on the table next to her. He sits down carefully next to her and puts a blanket over her before his eyes become too heavy to hold up and his vision darkens, drifting off to sleep.

           Loud knocking cracks jolt both husband and wife awake, a gruff voice yells outside, “MEDIC!”. Shaking himself awake Eric gives a hug to his wife “I’ll be home early tonight, be safe Cassidy.” Gloves and mask are quickly put on and Eric is back by the door, as it squeaks open he sees a poor sight, a man has taken his shirt off to reveal boils, his face pale with tears falling down and onto the concrete floor. A guard appears behind him, a cold steel rifle in his hands as he uncomfortably shifts on his feet, a gas mask obscuring his face. Eric dismisses the guard and looks at the infected, a sour expression shared between the two.

             Eventually the tension is pierced “There is nothing I can do but make you comfortable. I’ll need your name, follow me.” 

              The empty triage center still smells of strong iron even early the next morning and the sound doesn’t go away even after he dishes out a few of the remaining medications to those who are infected. Morning chores are eventually done, leaving the whole room smelling of headache inducing chemicals which are luckily hard to smell through Eric’s mask. 

             After chores are completed Eric pulls out a binder at his desk, the label stating A-RPV Research, Upon opening the binder hundreds of pages fall to the side, most notes in his medical chicken scratch, things printed before tech failure or typed reports. 

             The reports bother him, especially one from the idiotic Captain of the QZ. His promotion was just as suspicious as his leadership is yet it seems no one raises an eye to his foolishness, unfortunate. Either way at least the supplies he previously promised were provided, besides the much needed antivirals but the Captain can’t comprehend what importance those might have in stopping a…. Virus….. Regardless, as he looks over the data and files he notices one of importance that squad Alpha was said to have come across in pursuit of Bravo, a page from what must have been a response research group. It proposes that some groups may have known of the disease’s spread and the ineffectiveness of a QZ, however advised they create them anyway. 

Upon further inspection Eric fails to notice anything of note, so once again he begins writing to the Captain, hopeful that maybe this time he will actually do what is requested.

Captain Lehnhausen,

I write to you once more to express my concern over the disease. My patients need antivirals to even have a chance at survival, I also am running low on gauze, and tourniquets. I used many yesterday following the skirmish with rebels and I also have been out of coban for many weeks but that is not of much priority. Sickness rates are also increasing greatly, I got about ten positives yesterday and at that rate the quarantine zone won’t survive for longer than a few more weeks. I hope you understand the need for all this. I also have had no luck at finding a cure or consumable to support the immune system against Tourist’s from the reports your men have scavenged, perhaps they can continue searching for things of note on their patrols as it will be vital to the continuation of the zone. 

With Much Importance,

Medic Sharpe

After finishing his letter he folds it nicely and opens the pharmacy door to go out onto the street, the sudden light blinds him temporarily before he walks over towards the Officer’s luxury lodging and sits his letter in the mailbox. The street became oddly quiet, eerily so as Eric grew suspicious, turning around and looking for anything of note. No one was around, not a soul was on the main street of the Qz, something wasn’t right. However before any more thinking could occur an ear piercing shockwave concussed Eric, a hot heatwave and fireball escape a building just ahead of him on the road, the glass shooting out like the beads of a shotgun blast. The fireball engulfed a majority of the building in front of him as he attempted to look, the blast having knocked him onto the floor. As his vision cleared and he regained full consciousness he realized, that wasn’t a random building, that was the guardhouse. 

Further past the building about a dozen people began approaching holding rifles, as he focused on them he realized they didn’t bear the markings of the National Guard and that those people were not friendly, they were rebels. Just behind him a squad of men bust out the door of Captain Lehnhausen’s residence, they quickly go into their defensive positions, take aim, and open fire at the rebels. Eric covers his face, trying to shrink into something invisible, he attempts to crawl, however ends up rolling into cover while unholstering a hidden pistol from his back. 

“They bombed the guardhouse Captain, we won’t be getting reinforced!” A guard screamed out, trying to speak over the ear piercing gunfire. 

The Captain struggles to speak over the endless gunfire, “Keep firing! Eric, help us out here!”

Eric looks around for a few seconds before noticing the glare of metal under a few pieces of rubble just behind them, the glare is a rifle and he struggles to gain the motivation to pick it up. The soldiers aren’t honorable, they have done their evil just as the rebels have and there is no reason he should be threatened to pick a side or even involve himself. Either way he knows that if he should not help the soldiers and they survive, he and his wife will not. Eric cocks the pistol in his hand, his arm shakes as he ejects the magazine and checks to see the remaining ammunition, his face glares brightly with sweat, even over the dust as he takes aim at the rebels, and as he fires off a few rounds just as many rebels fall to the street. 

A certain rifle’s thunder catches Eric’s attention out of all as out of it comes a wailing bullet, the round going straight into the captain and he falls down. Blood spurts violently out of the captain's wound and fills the surrounding area with an aroma of iron as Eric checks his pockets, finding a tourniquet and quickly applying it to the man before packing his wound. Painful cries come from the Captain as the soldiers continue their firing, one checks his magazine in Eric’s peripheral vision.

“I’m dry, we need to retreat!”

Eric injected the captain with painkillers and went supine on his back aiming down his sights, waiting for the rebels to advance. Beyond the cover sounds of running and cries for a medic are heard but they eventually fall silent, only sounds of the pain from Lehnhausen and the hyperventilating are left as a shadow approaches, the guard pulls out his pistol and a knife, aiming while his empty rifle lay between him and Eric. 

A loud gunshot sounds off from the guard's pistol, it signals the death of a rebel as a slumping sound is heard as well as a metallic clank as his weapon falls to the floor. Two more shots go off and more thuds are heard, the Captain now passed out from the pain as Eric continues to aim, his hands shaking as he tries to calm himself. After another gunshot goes off Eric hears a thud to his left, and the shadow doesn’t stop advancing through the defenses, this time a rebel bursts through the defenses, charging in after noticing the dead guard, he turns and aims his rifle at Eric however as a shot rings out he falls to the ground, unable to kill the medic.

All falls silent once more in the QZ, there is no further cries or wails and Eric shifts to prone, slowly moving towards the guard as he checks him for a pulse, after hearing nothing he returns to the Captain and after viewing his wounds he covers him with a jacket looted off the perished and grabs the guard’s equipment, running to his home with his newly secured rifle raised. 

He bursts open the door, locking it tightly behind him as he lowers his rifle and looks to the couch to see a… Distraught, his wife holds within her hands a test for A-RPV, it reads positive. With a tear forming in his eye he goes to approach her.

“No, Eric. Don’t…. We couldn’t have lasted forever, this is the end of the line for me.”

“But I can find a cure, I have a few stashed antibiotics it doesn’t have to be-”

“Just stop, go on. The QZ is over, so am I but you aren’t. You can have a full life outside of this zone.” 

Darkness filled his face, upon his eyes now glowed with a bright fire that can’t be extinguished even by the now flowing tears on his face. A blanket of silence fell on them and Eric nodded a sorrowful nod just as his Elise did. They exchanged their goodbyes quietly and Eric walked out of the house onto the cold concrete, rain now fell onto it, dotting Eric as well and mixing with the tears on his face. He medic now trudged along the street towards his pharmacy, his jumpsuit stained red and with a rifle in his hand and a backpack on his shoulders. He couldn’t think of the road ahead, only of his wife, Elise didn’t deserve that way out. He opened the door to his pharmacy and walked in, taking the research, spare equipment, and reports. 

Once he got to the hastily made National Guard gate he fumbled through his pockets looking for the keycard, finding it and inserting it into the reader with a robotic beep as the light turns green and a high pitched hum sounds. Outside of the zone he begins to look around at the charred remains, buildings look scorched just as the ground does and rubble from the houses collapsing fills the streets making it hard to move forward. 

Eventually the rain goes away as well as the dark clouds which carried it in. All is quiet but the wind’s whispers throughout the destroyed city. All is calm around Eric yet his face remains one of despair. He finds lodging in an abandoned building, sitting against the wall and covering himself with a shock blanket from his equipment backpack. Eventually his lack of sleep overcomes his anger and he drifts asleep.

       He jolts awake to a wet lick against his face and a low gruff shout from afar.

“Delialah has something!” Eric struggles to grab his pistol from its holster in the bag, shooing the dog to the side with his other arm. Before Eric could manage to unholster his weapon an older grey haired man in an old rain jacket aims his revolver at him,

“Leave your hands by your side, you’re not gonna be able to listen to me with a 44 in your chest. We just so happen to need a medic and your getup looks pretty medic to me.” Eric smiled, looking down at himself to see the dirtied jumpsuit still holding up.