Personal Thoughts of an Assistant - 2020, the Day of the Attack.

It was an ordinary day; people continued with their daily routines, wars in distant countries, ineffective politics, corruption, television dramas... the same old rhythm for humanity. Like any accident, "Psychosis" came unexpectedly. At first, it was 1 out of every 10,000 experiencing it, and they had the least dangerous of symptoms.

They only had heightened hypersensitivity and migraines. At first, people simply thought it was a mutation of COVID, not that it wasn't alarming, but it wasn't the same to see the numbers as it was to see the population fall ill before your own eyes.

We were desensitized to bad news regarding the epidemic. Quarantine campaigns and political debates continued. Two weeks later, the next wave hit—1 in 1000 succumbed. Worse than the first wave. Even a colleague at work, unintentionally, got affected. He collapsed unconscious on the conveyor belt moving the tube towards the packaging machine. Thanks to my quick reflexes, he didn't get far, just a cut on the face, and that was it. But still, the symptoms hit him hard, as they did to others—excessive lethargy, mental fatigue, and in extreme cases, sudden fainting.

The factory bosses warned that they were going to enforce the strictest security measures possible. We were also required to take a COVID test. The most worrying aspect was that everyone, including the affected colleague, tested negative. The same happened globally. Scientists began to divide from there; some believed that false negatives were possibly occurring due to incorrect methods or a change in the virus. Others argued that the results might be erroneous due to the human factor, providing unreliable data. The only thing both groups agreed on was that the new wave was even worse than the previous one.

Everyone was puzzled. I don't remember the scientific details of the debates and conferences well, but if you had studied biology in high school, you could understand the confusion among scientists. COVID had shifted from targeting older people with relatively minor body issues to affecting the entire population equally and causing severe problems.

People were getting worried again, while all state bodies were engrossed in political games trying to demonstrate who had more control. Work continued for me, but this time with heightened quarantine measures – not leaving home unless absolutely necessary, and having to go everywhere with masks. Even people who used to host parties during quarantine, ignoring protocols, reduced the number of gatherings. The government began to mobilize, preparing awareness campaigns and implementing mandatory working hours. Despite the necessity of quarantine, if there was no production, we would perish sooner if the industry ceased to function.

And that preparation would end up being crucial for what was coming, as canned food and medical resources would be in high demand when the next wave hit. The third wave began a month and a half after the second. However, this one was unlike the others; it struck slowly and steadily. We could only roughly estimate how it happened. It started with a ratio of 1 in every 100 people, and the problem had become a global threat. The symptoms were somehow even worse than before. Instead of experiencing some kind of excessive fatigue like in previous cases, the affected individuals suffered the opposite – hyperactivity, hypersensitivity, perception problems, mental stress, high blood pressure, hallucinations.

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Doctors were baffled at how another even more sudden change was possible. Emergency hospitals were quickly set up. Many of those affected by the first and second waves were isolated at home because they needed rest, and authorities were overwhelmed.

Busy with the patients of the third wave, who were acting like mental health cases, sedatives were used daily to calm people as they came in. Amidst all the chaos, some surprising good news emerged for the doctors: people from the first wave had fully recovered from the symptoms, while those from the second wave were improving massively and could now function almost normally, albeit much more slowly. Unfortunately, just like me, instead of returning to the "normalcy" we had before, these people had to adhere to the new health regulations imposed due to the current global epidemic martial law.

After leaving our respective jobs, we had to go to the nearest healthcare unit to assist doctors in containing patients. Essentially, we were forced to work, and then we had to go to the health center to spend time patrolling the halls, ensuring patients weren't having an attack. In case they were, we had to call the doctors who tried to calm and sedate the patient. In my opinion, this was a terrible idea, as later on, a series of crimes and minor offenses committed by some people were discovered. But considering that the number of patients with mental health issues outnumbered the healthcare team by threefold in our town alone, just thinking about Madrid gave me chills.

Scientists, having learned how the "psychosis" was spreading, successfully predicted that the situation would worsen in 2 months. They were off by a month, but still, they were correct, as the next wave hit suddenly a month later. The few who were no longer hospitalized from the first and second waves had to take over, as the people holding on in the fields, all except a couple in the hospital, literally fell to the ground.

This was the worst wave of all. People who had miraculously recovered from their illness had to take charge of the more subdued patients from the third wave and those from the fourth wave. Again, the reaction to the psychosis was completely different from the previous one. At this point, scientists had no idea what was happening, but according to the prevalent theory, depending on each patient's immune system, each wave suffered different effects based on some as-yet-ununderstood characteristic of the virus.

People from the fourth wave had total body paralysis, along with sudden spasms and a lack of sensitivity in the nerves throughout the body. In the end, thank God, everything returned to normal. Five months later, both the people from the third and fourth waves reintegrated into society. Scientists conducted more studies trying to find the common ground between COVID, psychosis, and everything that happened.

Returning to my job, everything went back to normal until that day, exactly one year after the last wave. One year. On July 20, 2021, my birthday, that day I didn't wake up.

The doctors say it was the coma from the last wave, the wave that caught all the others who had survived the first four waves. They claim it was hallucinations from the illness, that what I saw is not real. But I know what I saw. That day, I witnessed as my soul left my body, my true identity. I know that what I felt as I expanded beyond my body was not a nervous issue. Because I feel it. In my veins, in my mind, and in my soul. Since that day, I am something more.

The doctors can say whatever they want about how the illness affected our minds. But I know that every time I look at myself in the mirror at night with the lights off, there's a small glint in my eyes. I write this journal because I know I'm not crazy. Like many others affected beyond the second wave, I am treated as if I were insane. Other affected individuals from both the fourth and the last waves, people online, agree with me on something - they sense that we are approaching something. It could be the sixth wave? Who knows, but it's clear that something is happening, while scientists argue over trying to explain the how or why of what has happened.