It was everywhere. The tiny spores sprouted off of vines that climbed their way up and around, wrapping everything they touched in a vice grip of impending death. The buildings were covered in their thick veiny tendrils, they snaked their way around street signs and stop lights. Even the sidewalk, its cracks and crevices, lined with the smallest of roots, young spores just beginning to sprout. Walking down the street was the equivalent of walking down a road rigged with land mines at every step. We took to the subways, the sewers, anywhere we could go that the light couldn’t touch. It was the light that grew them, that spread them around and created an inhospitable environment.

Everyone has heard of ‘biological warfare’, but this was something different. A rapid growing botanical virus, spread through inhalation of triggered spores. Everyone thought it was an attack from a foreign government, but once we realized our own military and government was doing nothing to save the population, we knew. This was an attack from our own country. It was a culling.

It first started appearing in poor rural areas, before spreading to more urban environments. It always showed up first in the less affluent areas, before spreading further on to everything around it. Once it started growing, there was nothing you could do to stop it. Anywhere the sun touched, the vines curled their way around apartment buildings, homes, schools, and took hold.

I guess one of the first signs that this was an attack on ourselves was the mass media coverage. Usually, when something extreme on this scale starts happening, the government goes for a full media blackout, as to avoid mass hysteria. It’s much harder to evacuate people and get a handle on the situation when everyone is running around, panicked, trying to do what they feel is best for their own well-being. Helicopter images displayed on the news channels, how rapidly this was spreading. The worst part was when they actually showed the effects of what happens when a spore is triggered.

They warned viewers of the graphic content about to be displayed before they began the video. Security footage outside of a gas station showed a young man approaching one of the vines that had wrapped its way around a gas pump. As he stepped closer, he gently poked at one of the many spores hanging off the vine. Immediately, the spore sprang open, shooting out cloud like mist that enveloped the man’s face. He coughed and sputtered, stumbling backwards, then started to savagely claw at his face. As he did, he began to pull away fistfuls of flesh. He screamed out, a guttural, almost inhuman cry, as he continued itching at his body fervently. As he itched, more and more of his skin peeled off, falling to the ground in thick, pulpy clumps. After he had lost most of the visible skin on his body he dropped to the ground, his body convulsing, before he hacked up some blood, and finally lay still. He was dead. The footage ended.

The showing of this clip is what really incited the panic in everyone. They knew these plants were a threat, but they didn’t realize the extent of how horrible they really were. Before anyone could truly make an effort to save themselves, we had already lost half of our population. People stumbling into plants on accident, were killed. People who hadn’t kept up with the news, unaware, walked into their own deaths. Even those that tried to avoid going outdoors, holing themselves up in their homes, died of starvation, or a bullet to the head. We had lost too many before we realized we had to stay away from the sun.

That’s when we gathered together, in the shadows. Traveling underground, salvaging what we could. Rations only lasted so long before we began to have to poach any animals we could lure to us. A lot of the time it was just rats. If we were in the sewers and subways, they were everywhere, an easy source of meat. This is how we live now, hiding, waiting. We still don’t understand how this happened, even if we do know why. How could the people we put our trust in be so corrupt? We had decided something, the first day we found each other.

This was a targeted attack, which meant those who had developed it, started it, left us to this fate..they are still out there. Hiding, somewhere. Somewhere safe from all the destruction. We are going to hunt them down. It doesn’t matter how long it takes us. We will find them, and when we do, we will bring down our own destruction upon them, just as they saw fit to bring it down on us.