"To build it took one hundred years; to destroy it one day" (建造花了一百年；毁了一天) ~ Chinese Proverb

Chan Li Yong,

Journal entry: 2045-05—23  (Translated from Cantonese to English)

When will I see my family again? I write this in the hopes it will exonerate me from the sins of my past. Eight years to the day, we've abandoned Earth after killing nearly seventy percent of the world's population upon it.

My government came to our labs for a viable strain of the COVID-19 and enhance it for possible mutation into other deadlier strains. As a scientist, I was fascinated at the possibilities of such a task, but after remembering the hardship endured from the last outbreak, I suddenly grew doubts of keeping them.

The other scientists were excited at the prospects, it was like all memory of the last pandemic never existed. I remember my grandparents dying from it, their village completely wiped out from the sickness, and my mother weeping daily from the loss.

How is it that I should come to be the next one to bring about the end of us all? I created three enhanced strains that targeted, not only the elderly and infirm, but the healthy and immune as well. The soldiers came to my lab and demanded I hand it over to them. I was not prepared to see such reckless abandonment for reason.

I did not want this to be used as a weapon, only for study and further research into cures, mutations and advancement into bioengineering. What a fool I was to think that. To think that my government would not decide to take what they funded for so many years. My refusal to allow them to have it brought consequences to my fellow colleagues.

They were taken away, beaten, imprisoned and tortured until I surrendered the trio of strains to them. I was glad my wife and daughter were in Canada at the time. Her sister there promised me to take care of them while this was happening. But once I found out what the military was doing with the new viral strains, I wanted to instantly flee to that country as well.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

The money and prestige had blinded me to what was going on. I should have been more careful or destroyed the viral trio the minute the government demanded them. Had I known they were going to test it out on over populated cities and villages of our people, I would never have even created these abominations.

They purposely launched it to decrease the burden of China's economy and resource problems. "We need to thin the heard and begin anew", our president said. His big plan was to evacuate and reestablish our home soil onto the moon. Our people would now become isolationists, preserving our culture and beliefs.

They unleashed the new three viruses, which were designated - TDOD-20 (The Dragons Of Death), a global pandemic that afflicted every nation within weeks of release. The contagion could not be quickly quarantined, nor could they anticipate who the carriers would be. It transmitted not only from human to human, but to animal and plant life as well.

What I created was unstoppable. I secretly tried to warn the various worldwide agencies before China sent its infected patient hosts to their major cities. But, I was too late. I wasn't able to say goodbye to my family before the communications went dark, a global blackout occurred within weeks and anarchy ensued everywhere.

My fellow surviving scientists and I were corralled onto one of the rockets preparing to launch us to the base they built on the dark side of the moon. I was scared. We were all scared. The Earth was dying and it was my fault. I have to live with the death of billions, the end of life of the entire planet, and yet, all I really want to know is that my wife and daughter made it off world alive.

Other nations launched into space, taking however many they could that weren't infected. How could they know who was and who wasn't? There's no way to know if any of them survived at all. Our government is keeping us in the dark about any news of it. And now there is less and less ships coming into our new home—Lunar China City.

I was feeling so depressed, so suicidal, that I was given guards to watch me at all times. I was now the star of our people, the hero to the state and the beloved scientist of our leader. He will never allow me to leave, never let me talk to anyone outside the laboratory environment, if I make an attempt to flee—I will be tortured and punished. I know they will not kill me, though. I'm too valuable. And now, they want to create another virus, one that will purge our enemies once and for all.

I do what I must to stay alive. I know my daughter and wife are out there somewhere. They have to be. I will live until I know they have as well. If they have not? Then there's no hope at all and I will finish I what began—and kill all of us that are left.