The Bite- 703 words cw: pandemic but werewolves! No one is quite sure when it started or why. It just happened. Ghost towns spread across the country, the residents all abandoned or slaughtered in the panic. The government tried quarantines and military action, but nothing stopped it from spreading. We tried spraying pesticides, but even that didn’t have an effect. As researchers, we thought of everything that could contain any sort of pathogen, but nothing was successful. The only thing we could do was wait for night to come to begin our lives. It’s only at night that we are truly safe. It starts with a single bite in broad daylight. It doesn’t matter what bites you. In the beginning, we assumed it was a dog or other carnivore, but it may have been insects or other people. The specific source was never identified, but from experience, it always starts with a bite. When we were first notified of the new contagion, we assumed it was something viral, but what it was was something fantastic that we had never imagined we would ever see. From the bite, a toxin spreads creating an itchy rash. The more the subject scratched, the faster the rash spread. We tried treating subjects with various remedies to quell the scratching, but nothing proved effective. We wondered if it was more of a psychological symptom. By the time the rash has spread throughout the body, the subject has torn through their skin leaving long lacerations in their arms and legs. Subjects were sutured up and bandaged and restraints were applied until their wounds had healed. But an interesting thing occurred if they were subjected to sunlight. The progression of the disease had caused the iron in the blood to become more electro-magnetized and when their lacerations were exposed to sunlight, the blood would jut out of their skin in large spikes resembling fur. As the blood coagulated, the iron would build and build and the subjects would be coated in the crusted “hair”. Subjects then develop a taste for rare meat. Supermarkets would sell out in a couple of days while people tended to their blood lust. At first we thought it was just a craving for meat in general until several subjects were caught licking up blood in butcher shops and slaughter houses. Everything was fine until there was no more blood to satisfy their hunger. They started biting people, eating them to quell their thirst. The death count soared. The bodies of those who were attacked were collected and thrown into mass graves where their corpses were burned, hoping to prevent any insects or wild game from potentially taking in the pathogen and spreading it further. The few who were unlucky enough to escape developed rashes around their bites. If they were lucky, the military would quarantine them before their neighbors found out. The forces were soon spread too thin. In the country, farmers would shoot anything that came within a hundred feet of their property. Suburbs started witch hunts and killed anyone with any sort of bite, scratch, or rash. Dozens with skin conditions were slaughtered, whether they were bitten or not. Those with eczema had no choice but to hide until they could escape, but most were still unsuccessful. In the cities, hospitals were turned over by angry citizens who wanted the nightmare to be stopped, unaware they had become the new nightmare. The military pulled away from their quarantines and went to deal with the citizen revolts. It wasn’t long before the creatures in the quarantine escaped. We focused our efforts on trying to find a cure. The subjects that were never exposed to sunlight had retained their mental composure, never developing the blood lust. It was then we realized the sun was the catalyst. Before we could continue our research, a brigade of citizens broke into the lab and destroyed everything. We fled into the night finding several creatures sleeping peacefully. That’s when the idea arose. If we could get to a broadcast station, we could inform the public. We’re still not sure how it started, but we continue our research into finding a cure. Our research starts once night falls because it’s only at night that we are truly safe.
