March 16th 2018. That day a was a normal Friday for me.
There was a city. It was called Shanghai. In the belly of that dragon thrived its twisted and winding intestines; the curved series of maze-like roads that twisted and wound, churned and throbbed. Humans it consumed and refuse it spat out. Between the thousands and thousands of crumbling, rust-painted cheap concrete buildings, children like me festered the rot-filled alleyways piled to the brim with garbage, shimmering bronze under the cracked streetlights like shit-smeared gold for filthy vermin to plunder. I lived in that refuse, like a tiny cancerous welt in the stomach of a whale, undoubtedly harmful but ultimately negligible.
I awoke in the early morning, the stench of piss filling my nose, as thin rays of lights peered through the sewer grating. In a narrow alleyway I found my home; a loose set of bricks allowed me to enter an abandoned part of the sewage system, wherein I built myself a cozy hut of cardboard and torn rags. A tear shed as I yawned, stretching my arms in the chilly autumn morning, blinking rapidly to clear my eyes from the rank dust that always covered me in the mornings. I peered through the grates and saw the cracked brick wall opposite. The same kind of wall I'd stared at all my life, the kind of wall I'd find in my way for the rest of my existence.
Shuffling through my pack, I found an expired tube of grape-flavored conjac jelly and a half-empty bottle of water. I gulped both of them down and rinsed my mouth with cheap mouthwash, nearly vomiting when it unexpectedly shot up my nostrils and burned. I took a moment to stretch – this was one of the very few good habits I maintained – and reached for my trusty bagpack. Next I grabbed my shoes, which smelled nice and warm, full of fungal musk which I had learned to tolerate. Peering out my little grate I made sure no prying eyes cast upon my only sanctuary, and slowly pushed the loose bricks away until I barely managed to squeeze myself into freedom.
This was a normal friday for me.
Little did I know about the significance of that friday. Historians argue to this day when the apocalypse is said to have begun; there was no clear starting pistol drawn for this race, unlike the bullet that pierced Franz Ferdinand, ringing its way throughout our collective memory. If you ask the Americans, they will say that it was March 21th, if you ask Europeans, the answer will be more unclear. Yet if you ask me, and others from Shanghai, we will tell you that it was the 16th of March. I didn't know it back then, but I would never forget that day.
I write this as a memoir, not that I may be unforgotten but so that the events that transpired stay immortal. I didn't know anything back then. The news was the least of my concern; scribblings on that papers didn't affect where I lived and slept, whether I could feed or drink, nor whether I managed to stay alive to see another morning. I couldn't have given less of a shit about if some celebrity shot a nude scene in some half-baked American flick, or if some country or the other got themselves bombed. I didn't care one bit about anything outside of my world, and mine was the world that thrived beyond that tiny little sewer grate, the one where only the smallest beams of lights would ever shine through.
So I didn't know about the discovery of the LYS-SA18 variant. I did not know about its spread to all reaches of the world, nor did I understand the significance of its resistance to traditional rabies vaccinations and antibodies.
And I certainly did not know of the official government decree to quarantine all infected individuals starting that day.
I snuck out my little hidey-hole and crawled my way through the city streets. It must've been about six, maybe seven, as I barely saw the glimmers of the morning sun, rising majestically in a place I could not see, obscured by layers and layers of ivory-white towers stretching out into the heavens, covering my view. Already then the busy merchants of the industrial district began their work, the aunties slowly boiling cheap scraps of meat for half-decent bowls of soup, and the uncles working off their morning hangovers as they headed to their usual workplace. I, too, headed for my usual haunt, which was a small wet-market located about fifteen blocks away from my home.
There were some rules to follow in the streets. Groups provided safety and comfort, but came with the cost of loyalty. I had worked with groups before and learned much about regret. For people of my ilk and caliber, working solo was the preferable option; it came with its own series of risks, but the flexibility and freedom was something I always cherished. The greatest penalty, however, came with the formation of territories. Unseen gangs worked underneath the surface of every corner and street, and those pissing on their poles knew to be careful, lest they find themselves beaten and mutilated. For example, I lived close to Chilun street, where Lu's crew worked. They knew my face, and would not hesitate to carve it out if they saw me pickpocketing on their part of town. The big wet market three miles from my home, where the tourists often circled, provided the highest rewards if the right gullible yellow-hair left his pocket unattended; but if I got caught stealing there, Xue's gang would beat me to death. The usual tourist districts also had police patrols, and they were not fucking around where the city was shiniest.
The wet market I frequented was worked by smaller groups. None were too powerful. Nobody there could claim full authority; most I'd have to deal with was a minor scuffle. The yield wasn't the best, but it was always enough to feed. Besides, an auntie there ran an auspicious wonton soup joint – and perhaps this is nostalgia clouding my memories, but even to this day, having eaten some of the finest cuisine the patchwork, reconstructed world has to offer – that wonton soup was without a doubt the greatest under the dust-stained heavens.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
I am nostalgic about this time, a little bit. I didn't think I'd ever learn to see my world in a different light. It was miserable living that life, not that I knew. When you've always been nothing but that, you wouldn't think there's a better thing to be out there. I've seen much and learned more, lived long and lived differently. But I miss that life just a little bit.
It was miserable, but it was home.
The only thing I noticed that day was the unusual amount of police patrols. I saw a bunch of cops walking around all over the place; and they wore masks. That wasn't too unusual, given the quality of the air in the industrial parts of town, but it was a little odd. When you live off scraps, you learn to sharpen your eyes and instincts, and something told me that things were a little off. Back then, I figured that some important event must be happening nearby.
I arrived at the wet market at around eight in the morning.
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Lunchtime came and I still hadn't found anything. The usual targets were people coming up from the lesser provinces; those never knew the dangers of the big city well. Their pockets were poor, but I was poorer still. Otherwise, I often sought little jobs I could do, but that day was a bust for that as well. Only past roughly one was I able to scrounge up some coins from an unattended purse, but there was scarcely little to call a bounty that day.
I still decided to grab myself a quick lunch at a small corner stall. A bowl of soup and noodles. The soup a little too light, the noodles a little too thin. But god, was it delicious.
I was watching TV, which was one of the many luxuries afforded when paying for one's meal. The auntie had it turned to the midday news, and I watched with interest as I slowly savored my meal. The auntie who ran the stall spoke with one of the customers, another older woman, as they chattered about the the latest news bulletin; the LYS-SA18 strain.
Little was known about LYS-SA18 at the time. To give you a small (and most likely inaccurate) timeline of events, at this time, the international community had only just found out about this variant, originating from the South American continent, hence the designation SA, only about three weeks ago. Coincidentally it was a scientist in Shanghai who had discovered the variant in a pair of young travelers who came by due to a myriad of mysterious symptoms.
What was interesting was that they had last traveled three weeks ago, to Switzerland. A location where the Lyssavirus – and thus Rabies – was considered eradicated. A series of follow-ups later, it was determined that the source of the infection likely came from a South American couple hailing from Chile they had met up with. Indeed, there was a large volume of odd infections happening in South America at the time, and after only a few more days, it was determined to be due to the LYS-SA18 strain.
We know this now simply as the "Zombie Strain" in colloquial terms. People born during or after the fall of society however don't understand the peculiarities of the virus that made its incredible spread possible. Using Dr. Xuefeng and Dr. Hoover's report from the 2026 study on the now most common LYS-EP19 strain, we can see that the average time to mutation for an infected host is said to be roughly five minutes (pp. 147-148). The loss of consciousness occurs considerably earlier; at about three minutes. The infected host also begins shedding the colloquially termed "zombie pheromone", LYSAATT3, at only five minutes in (pp. 155-157).
I will get more into this later, but essentially, you need to understand that at this point the virus did not pose the same degree of danger. It was alarming in the sense that the deadly rabies virus had began to spread, but at the same time, the current strain of LYS-SA18 seemed to be affected by the Lyssavirus antibodies most hospitals stocked already. There were also no known public deaths yet, and with multiple carriers of the disease entering their first month of infection without the classic tell-tale signs of hydrophobia and aggression of rabies, it was thought of as a public health concern but not a necessity to shut down anything yet.
Of course, we know now that there likely were first cases of zombies emerging days before this point.
For now, public safety advisories were set up everywhere, as most of the world had found that they harbored at least some carriers of the virus. The same was for China, and China's response to the disease was probably very fitting, given that nobody had experienced a disease like this yet. The piece of news we were watching declared the prompt quarantine of all infected individuals of LYS-SA18. We were also told of the infection vectors of LYS-SA18, which was mostly saliva.
LYS-SA18 was not some fairytale virus like many depicted in movies. It had clear transmission vectors and preferred habitats. It was mostly found in blood and saliva, but the concentration in blood was usually not high enough to cause infection, even when transfused or ingested. This is due to the preferred pH of the virus being closer to the average salivary pH, at roughly 6.5. It also thrived in reproductive fluids, despite them being a little more basic than saliva, as the concentration of the virus was high in the nearby lymph nodes. At this point in the media, therefore, the caution was to avoid sharing utensils and food with infected persons, and to avoid intercourse with persons of unconfirmed status (Alvarez-Gonzalez, pp. 189-209).
The aunties were discussing the virus, as many children in their kids' schools had become confirmed carriers of the virus. They chatted about it as if they were discussing the results of the recent beauty pageant, with sincerity, but mostly gossiping.
I didn't pay it much mind either. I just shrugged and figured that's why there were so many cops around.
After paying for my lunch, I snuck out of the wet market. At this point I'd kind of given up on making a buck for the day. I figured I could dive some dumpsters to find myself a scrumptious meal for the evening instead. The restaurants nearby made some excellent dumplings, and the best thing about dumplings was that they always made a little more than they could sell. I was craving a half-eaten, day-old, soggy shrimp dim sum myself.
Before that, I headed to the park. I always went there to fill my water bottles and to wash my hair. This was roughly three PM, and the day had only started.
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Works Referenced in this Chapter:
Alvarez-Gonzalez, José. Sucker Punch: An Analysis of Public Health Policies Enacted as a Result of the LYS-SA18 Strain. The New World Institute for Infectious Diseases, 2028.
Xuefeng, Liu and Adams Hoover. Characterization of the Average Infected Host of the Lyssavirus Epsilon-19 Strain. The World Health Organisation, 2026.