This story is aimed at the Royal Road 55555  words challenge, but will continue even after the event ends.

1 YEAR AFTER THE OUTBREAK:

The Capital City finally came into sight as we climbed over the last obstacle. Our troop, consisting of the last fifteen surviving bipeds, was hungry and tired. We had trekked through the last ten miles within only a day. I still had enough food and water. Our great luck had been the sculptor, whose awls had done wonders. In the eight months we had survived together, we had carved over a hundred pairs of “sabot shoes” and flat slippers. In fact, they were improperly called so, because they were nothing but pieces of tree trunks tied to the foot with woven lime tree bark rope. They were, however, much more comfortable and efficient than going on bare soles. The wooden clogs were much heavier and less practical over long distances, but the knockoff boots and sneakers that most of us had owned at the beginning of our journey, had long broken down into pieces. Each biped had two or three pairs of differently unassorted stockings standing on their feet. In fact, they were just rags that you might call socks. The cold wind of December was ravaging our whole group. Everyone was coughing and their noses were clogged, but nobody said a word. The pharmacist's suitcases had done wonders. The last chamomile and mint flowers had been boiled two days ago. The colonel and the architect were, despite their age, the so-called “tea masters” who carried the heavy tea pots. The youngest of us helped the weakest to keep up. The math teacher, who had gotten his right leg amputated over three months ago, was being rolled along on a medical stretcher by the two of the students. We had taken the thing from a burnt-down and abandoned ambulance that we had encountered on the outskirts of the last city we had gone through on our way back. The magnifying glasses of the Math teacher, a great collector of lepidoptera, had been very useful to us for lighting campfires. A month ago, the sculptor had carved a lime-wood prosthesis leg for the Math teacher, a prosthesis that now seemed to be of no great use. My daughter and doctor's daughters marched with more aplomb than veterans from the foreign legion. From the backpack of my daughter, the two heads of the “cat-knight” Othello and the “tiny barker” Obelix could be seen poking out. The two furries didn't say anything. The life from the last nine months had made them into the very best of friends to the whole group. They had escaped so many times the fate of being turned into roast meat by the hordes of hungry bipeds. The doctor was right. As long as the two furries will stay alive, then we will survive. They had become the lucky mascots of the last surviving group of bipeds in the area, and probably in the country. The killer virus had ravaged the land. During the last few days, we had encountered tens of thousands of bipedal bodies and animals on our way. The animals that had not been killed by the virus, had been slaughtered by hungry bipeds instead. I had taken from the nearby abandoned houses that we passed only what I thought might be useful. We stopped at a huge villa on the outskirts that had almost been left untouched by the bipedal locust swarm that had driven away from the city by the second wave of the plague produced by the mutant virus. In the middle of the living room, there was a huge concert piano. The priest sat down at the piano and began to play the Sonata of the Moon. We all sat on the carpet in the living room to draw our breath. The judge, the architect, the geologist and the two mechanics removed the provisions from the backpacks. The Colonel took out from his backpack the last two bottles of moonshine, which began to circulate from hand to hand. The two students had found in the adjacent shed some fire logs, which they had begun to smash appart with their axes. In a few minutes, they had lit up the fireplace. My daughter, the surgeon's three daughters and the old chubby EMT medic lady, the mother of my unfilial fatass of a disciple, took the "pots" and started making tea. Strangely, the manor grounds we were currently stopping at had even possesed a stable, which was now inhibited by the leftover corpses of the unfortunate equines and mules that used to reside within. Move the two donkeys on the piano, and it would have been just like in “An Andalusian Dog” of Luis Buñuel. Surrealism would blend with reality. The old well in the courtyard of the villa had not dried up, and the water inside seemed acceptable at first sight. The world had gotten rid of the killer virus by killing anyone infected along with it, so the rest didn't matter anymore. And even so, the water would get boiled anyway, to remove any residual bacteria. The manor had been the first “intact” building that we had encountered on our way back. The amazing thing is that inside, we had not found any residual human bodies. Otherwise, all of the buildings that we had encountered on our way to the city had been just smoking ruins, full of corpses. But now, there were only ten miles left until we could enter the capital proper, and we were tired. The geologist's maps and calculations didn't lie to us. We had chosen secondary roads, which would prevent us from meeting with other hordes of desperate and hungry bipeds that might have left the cities to avoid the plague outburst caused by the virus. It is very likely that the last of the other bipeds had died long ago, because while traveling on our way to get where we were at the moment, we had crossed many mountains and planes but we had yet, for over two weeks, to encounter any other human being that was still standing.

All the things that I had learned about humanity and about humanism had lost all of their value. The bipeds, at least those who had survived the first and the second wave of mutant virus deaths, had become only ferocious beasts. The struggle for survival had killed their weaker peers. And everything for what? Just to survive a few more days, weeks or months? These months had proven to me that the human species was by far more brutal than any other creature on earth. Faced with unimaginable challenges, the human species had shown its cruelty and abusiveness once again. All the philosophers and scholars of humanity now meant nothing. Humanity had to be reset. In fact, the reset was still “currently undergoing”, but I was wondering who would be left standing by the end of it all. We only had fifteen people left. I doubt others would have survived as well as us, confused, sick and unprepared as they had been. From the latest news I had been gathering on the radio during early June, it seemed that the situation had been just as desperate all over the world. I was hoping that at least some areas of the world had been spared the despair of the hordes of bipeds who had escaped the fear of the deadly virus outbreak from the confines of the big cities. But if things had gone down the same way as they had in my country, I didn't have high hopes.

Next day after we left the villa, we walked ten more miles towards the city’s edge. We stopped inside a forest and decided it was too late to continue our journey. I was all tired and full of muscle fatigue. We decided that it was safer to wait for the next day, then form two teams of three people, the strongest of us, then go and explore the capital city (or what was left of it,) for anything useful. If there was no danger to be found, then we would come back and bring the others. But no one thought about what we would do next. What if the capital was just as deserted as all of the cities that I had passed through? In our minds, it was all about getting "home", but where was "home" at anymore? For nothing was as before. We all slept the exhaustion off. No one was in the mood for food anymore, since it all tasted like crap. Myself, the architect and the colonel remained on guard. Our preservation instinct told us that our sufferings were not over, and that we should not risk anything. We had gone through too many misfortunes to make it to the end.

I wondered what had happened to the rest of the bipeds in Europe and around the world. I hadn’t known anything about the rest of the "civilized" world ever since the 1’st of June, when I had left the Capital City with my mother-in-law and my daughter. The pandemic was growing crazy at the speed of light back then. In just under two months, the second wave of the pandemic had killed over two billion people. The human species had never encountered such a thing in the entire history of its existence on the blue planet. All the known wars and plagues throughout history had failed to kill even a quarter of the amount from this figure. And everything had happened in barely sixty days. Looking back, the first wave of the pandemic had been gentle. It’s the second wave that had hit harder, the one that had destroyed the rest of humanity, after the virus had mutated to a more aggressive strand. All of the horrible things told to us by the geologist, the last person to get glued to our "tribe" of survivors, were perfectly real. He had survived like a miracle during the first wave of the murderous pandemic. The fact that he had lived in the USA for another month, and that he had just arrived onboard a cargo ship in Eastern Europe, was a pure miracle in it of itself. Now I totally believed what he had told us, that everyone was gone. However, he had no reason to lie or exaggerate. He had thought that he had been left alone on this deserted planet, until he had ran into us. But we were hoping that there would be some surviving bipeds somewhere, still trying to restart the wind turbine power plants or the hydro dams. For the moment, these were the only feasible energy sources available. I did not think that atomic or coal power plants would still have the “juice” to function anymore. It was clear that we would be forced to ride bikes for transportation for a long time from now on. I was trying to imagine how the few other people who might be left around the world would survive. But my tired brain, brined in nine months of intense survival activity, just refused to give me an answer. Without realizing it, fatigue overwhelmed me and I fell asleep. I hoped that the architect and the colonel would pick up my slack.

The next morning, I woke up numb and with a bitter taste in my mouth. The cloud-filled sky cast down a gray, oppressive atmosphere. The others were still sleeping in the rags that you could barely call sleeping bags. The Colonel snored back into the remnants of his campaign gear. Military education had made its presence felt, when in regards to the old colonel. Although he was almost sixty-five years old, the virus had avoided him like he was the plague instead. Perhaps the virus had been too frightened by the arrogance and demeanour of the old officer. I must admit, however, that the old officer was one of the most lucid minds I had encountered in my life. His decisions had always been based on sound scientific and military arguments and had often taken us out of trouble. He and the math teacher had helped us enormously over the past few months. Now that he had lost his whole family, the colonel was not interested in anything anymore. He'd had had a drinking problem as a young man, but he was an atypical drinker. He only drank when he felt his nerves were about to leave him. He just wanted to escape from the miserable reality and nothing more, so he was in charge of the booze. The last bottle of moonshine we had drunk the night before, myself, the doctor and the pharmacist. The Colonel was the only one of us who did not want to see the ruins of the capital that had been rampaged by the virus. He had nothing to do with the capital city and his former home anymore.

Stolen novel; please report.

Slowly, the other bipeds started to wake up. With the help of the architect I lit up the fire again. The ladies heated up the last three liters of the so-called tea. It was nothing but a cloudy boil of chamomile, mint and linden flowers. But it was something hot that helped us survive the sharp cold of the winter. I drank the shlop quietly. The surgeon cracked appart the last packet of dry biscuits. Each of us had two biscuits. The damn things were so tough you could beat nails in wood with them. They were still better than nothing.

We decided that myself, a student and the architect would form one of the capital-city exploration teams and the surgeon, the pharmacist and the other student would form the other team. We planned to enter the capital through different points, then meet up in front of the royal palace. Then, if everything was quiet, both of the teams would come back and retrieve the others. Everyone understood what to do. What was worse is that we had all started scratching our heads for a while now. Last time we had washed had been on the day when we had found the intact villa, on our way to the capital city. Back then, taking advantage of the fact that the three bathrooms of the villa were still in one piece, we had all taken turns bathing. Us men had carried dozens of buckets of water from the well to the bathtubs. Of course, we had washed with cold water, because we had no way to heat the water. The soap scraps had all gone up in smoke right then and there. No one had commented that the water had been cold and somewhat improper. It was enough that we could have finally washed in a bathtub. Even then, the girls had managed to wash a few of the so-called shirts. They were just discolored rags over which we had put on other rags called sweaters or jackets. But it had been a while since we had left the villa, and now we were all scratching ourselves like we were on fire. The two furries were also scratching in unison with us, although it seems that the fleas had also been destroyed by the rebel virus. Othello was tactically grooming himself in the arms of the math teacher. They had become best of friends in the last three months. The teacher had always parted with a piece of his food rations, to appease the critter. The french bulldog Obelix was enjoying the love of the girls, who were carrying him in turns inside of their backpacks.

We finally left the woods and headed for the capital, all the six members of the two teams. One team was supposed to enter the city through the south entrance and the other through the north. If we maintained a decent pace, in the evening we would be back at the woods camp. After three hours of walking, we decided to separate from the other team and went on our own way. The architect and the student took to the north. After another hour of walking, we reached the surface subway line, which connected the international airport with the central station. Basically, this subway line enters the capital through the south gate of the city. We only had to follow the subway, and in a maximum of two hours, we could be at the center of the capital. So I set off again along the subway rail. After half an hour's walk, I encountered the first abandoned subway car. There were five wagons burned, filled with dead bodies that had expired for months. I climbed into one of the wagons, curious to see what was left. Here lay the bodies of the people who had tried to escape from the city, driven by the second wave of the pandemic caused by the killer virus. They had hoped that when they arrived at the airport, they could catch a bus that might take them to other quieter or safer areas. There were still traces of facemasks, hazmats and backpacks all over the place. All of the backpacks were empty, signs that the passengers on the subway had been killed by the struggles for survival. The surviving hordes of human locusts had emptied and plundered everything in their path. I was saddened when I found a wallet chock-full of credit cards on a bench. Probably the biped card holder had transferred all his money to the cards in the hope that they would not be stolen. He had only been an idiotic biped. Where the hell would he find an ATM to get the money off the cards anymore? What value would paper money have anyway? None, most likely. But people have always been greedy and over-cautious. What made me extremely happy was the discovery that I made by opening a backpack that had been stealthily stashed inside a trash can. Inside the backpack we found some canned meat and fish, as well as three packets of salted biscuits, weighing one kilogram each. We now had enough to eat for the next two days. How these treasures had gone untouched, I cannot explain, but never forget that miracles can happen. It is true that when the first robberies had started in the capital, myself, my daughter and my mother-in-law had promptly left the capital to avoid the obvious incoming disaster.

We climbed down from the wagons, and continued towards downtown. After another hour of walking, we entered the city proper. The scenes on display were a nightmare. We saw dead people everywhere, cars, trucks and buses burnt and destroyed. Many biped corpses had traces of bullets, a sign that they had been shot by the army. The government had driven the army into the streets immediately after the second wave of deaths caused by the mutated virus had broken out. The idea of maintaining order had been at the forefront of the endeavour, but soon, the surviving bipeds had developed a grudge against the encircling army and had rioted. The robberies and murders had begun. The curfew had been established and the army had been allowed to fire without prior warning. Hundreds of bipeds had escaped the virus, but had been killed by the army instead. Of course, the military did not fare very well either, being stoned, molotoved, or axed to death by the angry mob. After a week, the curfew didn't scare anyone. The powerful rioteers had robbed, raped or killed as they had pleased. A more terrible urban war had started than the one produced by the virus. The bipeds had gone crazy. The most intelligent of the bunch had left the capital waaay before the second wave of the pandemic had broken out. But these were only a few hundred. And even then, the vast majority of them had been wiped out by the second wave of sickness or by the hordes of bipeds who had escaped the two killer waves of the virus and were trying to survive at any cost. What was most frightening, was the gloomy air that filled the capital. With the exception of a few dozen sunbeams cracking through the clouds, it seemed that every trace of life had disappeared from the city.

I quickly realized that there was no major danger, and that we could go back to the forest camp on the edge of the capital and bring the other nine bipeds back with us. So we returned on the same path to the rendezvous point. After four hours, we were back in the woods. After us, the other reconnaissance team arrived ten minutes later. And they had discovered the same deserted and desolate city landscape just like us. At the edge of the forest, the remaining bipeds were very happy. They had forgotten about the hunger and the cold as soon as they had seen us return. The zeppelin had managed to get the colonel's military walkie-talkie radio station to work. Our luck was that the station was very modern, and could be fed by solar energy, received via the solar panels attached to the fattie’s backpack. Although we had been exasperated all throughout our journey by his silly stories about migrating to other planets, it was now proven that his solar panels were indeed life savers. The problem with solar power was that the gloomy weather of December and the clouds of lead did not let the sun's rays reach us much, so no juice. It seems that the sun did not love the Earth anymore. But that was the last thing that mattered. It‘s a boon that now we had a functional means of communication. Sooner or later, the sun would rise again and we would be able to communicate with other bipeds, if someone was still alive on the planet.

We decided to spend the night in the woods again. We were too tired to go back to the city, and it was already late. The colonel shared the canned goods and the biscuits found in the subway in even parts. We were all relatively satisfied. The repair of the handheld station had restored our hope. We still had a chance to get in touch with the world. We lay exhausted inside the so-called sleeping bags. Nobody said anything. Obelix snored contentedly inside his backpack, in my daughter's arms. He had received his share of canned meat. Othello twisted his tail around the math teacher's arms. Did we return to normal? You can say yes, because the behavior of the two furries was the best evidence to this regard.

Next morning, we all left for the capital city. The sky was just as leaden, so the radio station was of no use to us yet. After three hours, we were already in front of the royal-palace square. We sat on some stone benches from the square, in front of the palace. I was somewhat happy to have made it here, a rare thing to occur during the last eight months. Suddenly, from one of the side bushes jumped up a ginger cat, which began giving us an inquisitive look. I was surprised to see another living thing inside the city. The wicked Othello suddenly jumped from the teacher's arms and walked toward her. Within a minute, they both had sniffed and had “liked” eachother, then had gone to “work”. The zeppelin, being his usual numbskull, began producing special sound effects, as if they were extracted from the soundtrack of a XXX rated movie while Othello was being "dedicated to his work”. Obelix looked at the two entwined felines mercilessly, but he didn't move either. The tomcat stared at him with a knowing look, almost saying: "Stay quiet, friend, soon you will find yourself a partner as well, and you will enjoy it so". It was clear, after almost a year, that life had returned to its rightful cycle, one cat booty call at a time.