The contagion spread quickly and silently. It was only when it was far too late that people began to understand that this was not something we would ever recover from. It would change us all forever.
Of those that were infected, most would succumb to the pains of the infection and become hollowed by it. Whatever makes us human was stripped away and what remained was a vessel with nothing to hold.
But there were a few that withstood the agony. A few that bore an uncanny will. These people became something else entirely. More than human. And they began to hunger, both for the hollowed and the unhollowed alike. Even for each other.
Thus the age of prey dawned. In a time of international travel, vast transport infrastructure, and instant global communication, there is a veiled sense of security in the strength of an interlinked society. But this was the vector through which the new hunters tracked their quarry. Our world burned so quickly and so brightly because of the assurances we built to guard ourselves, not in spite of them.
It is only now, as the phone lines go dead and power grids give out, that the tide of blood begins to slow. The new hunters must look a little harder than before. The new prey have a sliver of hope, which is more than their predecessors.
Paddy Dobson
28th March 2022