"I want to hear the story about the old man again," an overtired five-year-old Tristan demanded of his father. It was bedtime and he hated bedtime, but his father always had the best stories.

     "The old man again, eh?" Tylen sighed to himself, looking up at the setting Sun, Alpha Orionis. "Tristan, you know your mother will be home soon and she doesn't like it when I tell you stories about him." 

     "Please Daddy" Tristan begged. "I want to hear how he saved you and Mommy again"

Tylen absent-mindedly rubbed his son's head, ruffling his hair, "Okay Tristan. I'll tell you a story about him but it won't be that story. How about I tell you his story from the beginning. A little bit every night, instead of just the one story about how he saved your mother?" 

"He saved you too" Tristan mumbled, somewhat mollified by his father's partial acquiescence. "Ouch!" The boy exclaimed in response to his father flicking his nose.

"He wasn't the old man in this story, do you remember his name?"

"Owen!" The five-year-old practically yelled.

"Yes, Owen. Did you know he had a wife and children?"

"Yes! Mommy says we're related but he's never invited to family trips" The boy pouted at the last part of his statement.

"Yes, well, you're distantly related to him. He's over 200 years old. It would be awkward to have an ancestor show up to someone's birthday party looking younger than everyone but the children, would it not?" Tylen had resumed ruffling Tristan's hair, seemingly amused by his son's antics.

"In any case, he didn't raise his children, he left them with his family while he went off to fight in the Extinction War."

========================================

Owen looked at the scars on the land where his house had once stood. It had been fifty years since the virus killed 70% of earth's mammalian population. It was a terrible pandemic. It didn't differentiate species. It would infect any mammal it came into contact with and severely mutate DNA structures or completely destroy the RNA in the cells, making it impossible for life to continue. The ones who didn't succumb to the disease ended up with all kinds of mutations. Some people ended up able to breathe underwater, some ended up with increased strength. Some had some of the densest bones on the planet after the infection, but didn't gain the required muscle other soft tissue enhancement required to move. 

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Owen survived the disease as well. The disease that took his wife in a matter of days. The disease that left him with two children that looked so much like her. He couldn't raise them. He didn't know if it made him a bad person or not, it probably did but he just couldn't do it. Every time he held them, he was reminded of her absence and he was torn between unconditional love and total resentment towards his own children. 

He had tried though. He provided for them for the first few months. When the world was in full panic mode and the governments were collapsing, he cared for them. He had made preparations with his family in advance. They had thought WWIII was going to break out and came up with detailed evacuation plans and had prepared supplies. Owen's brother was a paramedic, his dad was a crusty old Navy Veteran and Owen himself had enlisted in the Marines right out of Highschool. They could handle something as simple as looters and rioters. So when shit hit the fan, Owen loaded his family, including his in-laws, up and trucked out to Wyoming. 

The trip had been rough and they ran out of fuel on the way. No one accounted having to avoid roaming patrols of the National Guard, so when they were forced to take overland routes off road, they burned more fuel than anticipated. Owen didn't enjoy stealing things, especially by force but he did what he had to do for his family. 

They ended up in a Convoy through Utah with some like minded people and that's where the disease struck. It infected his whole family. His father lasted half a day, but his mother made it. His kids made it as well as his brother and his entire family. His wife had fought for two days for she passed away.

Owen had made sure the surviving members of his family and the rest of the caravan made it to Wyoming, and he had helped them set up a self sufficient settlement but he struggled with his kids. He stayed away from them because he wasn't sure he could keep a lid on his temper. It wasn't their fault but they deserved better. They deserved better because they were of her and she wasn't here anymore and he was broken. He had tried to take the coward's way once they made it to their safe haven but that's when he realized what the disease had done to him.

He tried to eat a 200 grain bullet. The pain was intense but to his horror, he healed. It left a scar but it healed, almost instantly. And so Owen continued. Working with his brother and the other adults in the settlement to build it up, reinforce it, and hide it from trouble.

After a few months of monitoring the emergency frequencies on the radio, they learned the federal government had collapsed, but that was more confirmation than actual news. They also learned that almost every government on the planet had collapsed and the remaining world leaders banded together to form a unified government. They also learned that the virus was engineered to attack every mammal species on the planet. 

Reports became more and more frequent as the new Human Government consolidated itself and then reports of the AoC'tlians came. A new deadly virus at the same time as an alien invasion? Reports of ground troops and small arms engagement first started in Europe, then the East Coast, sweeping west. 

This was horrifying news for the survivors of the disease. First, they narrowly survived a viral plague only to be attacked by a civilization so advanced they could cross the stars. To a newly minted immortal with a bone to pick, however, well, there was finally an outlet for his aggression.