The Plague of the Undead

Have you ever lived through something so horrific and scary or that killed over half of the population? Well, my grandmother has and she always tells me about it when I visit. I am nine years old and I visit my grandmother once every four months. It is July 12, 2087, and I am so excited to see my grandma. She starts her story at the beginning of the year, almost, with a little information about herself.

"The date is January 3, 2039, and it is 45 degrees. I am a resident of Hammerfest, Norway, the northernmost city in the world. Usually, about this time of year, it would be snowy and 25 degrees, about, but these past few years the temperature has been increasing by the slightest degrees. I am fifteen years old at the time. Hardly any more polar bears exist, to our knowledge, and there are fewer and fewer icebergs each year. I now know why my grandfather and all of my ancestors before him hated cars and cellphones, they always said that it would happen eventually.

It is now January 16, and I am reading the newspaper, since I've never had a television, and there is a small article on a quickly spreading disease called Anmortance or the Plague of the Undead that started in Australia. I had to take a double-take. When I saw it and confirmed that I wasn't imagining things I rushed to the store and bought everything that I thought I would need, my neighbors, saw me rush down the street and into the supermarket, they looked at me like I was a psychopath, but when I rushed out I wasn't the only one in the store stocking up. We all went to the mayor's house since it was the largest, we all took our supplies, and just before the disease hit Asia And Africa, the temperature seemed to spike ten degrees. And we all knew why. It was because the whole rest of the world was doing what everybody in our town had just done. We talked for maybe two hours about the ordeal before I decided that we would need order. So I went to the mayor talked to him about my idea and he agreed with it. We went to the main room where everybody resided in and the mayor quieted everyone down so I could talk.

'Um... hi. You all probably know who I am. And if you don't my name is Leah Lysen. And I think think that we all we'll be here for a while and we will need some rules. you can talk to either the mayor or myself about adding new rules and... yeah. So there are about five rules that I have thought of myself; the first one being, if you are going outside you need to let someone know and take a different person with you, the second one being, there will be a curfew, 10:00 o'clock sharp if you're out past then there will be consequences, the third rule is to tell at least two people what you're doing at any given moment, the fourth one is stick with the two people that you're paired with, and last but not least we all must learn to defend ourselves. Uhh... again if you would like to add any rules or change your buddies you can talk to the mayor or me and if you would like to help Mayor Olsen and myself please talk to us and we will probably hold a vote or something. But for now please get a small snack and head to bed. Goodnight everyone!'

I stayed up all night long with the mayor coming up with buddies and groups, we tried to keep families together as much as possible but in the morning it seemed as though nobody liked their groups so we spent a majority of our time with the vote for a helper, which was desperately needed, and upon redeciding the groups. All the young children stayed with their mothers and everybody else was allowed to pick their two buddies. It was a long and tiring process but we also got a miniature constitution written and all in a day's work. After that, we agreed that we would have 'house' meetings, even though it was the whole town, on every Wednesday.

It was about January 20, now and we still had no cases of this plague but for some reason, we were still getting the newspaper. At first, I didn't believe it but then when I reread it, it said 'the cases are skyrocketing. We are up to half a million people around the world. We need everybody's help to bring the world back to peace, please stay inside at all costs.' Once we all read it we all got into an argument of some sort over whether it was true or not. Once we got everyone back under control, we decided that we would talk about it on Wednesday during the meetings.

After nine months of this craziness, we noticed that we were running extremely low on food. So we sent the fishermen out to fish. They came back with more fish than they had ever before. The house had a greenhouse and we were using it, but we were running out of seeds. So I called an emergency meeting, everyone came. I informed them that we would be going on a supply run for food, seed, and drinking water. We chose a few select people and sent them out the next day. I and a few other people were chosen to get water. While we were out we met a traveler at the lake and he looked as confused as us when we ran into each other.

'Oh my goodness! Who are you?' he asked happily.

I responded with the question 'Who are you? And why are you in our town... oh wait, you are the guy inducted into the Ancient Polar Bear Society a few months ago.'

The other few people I'm with nod there heads in agreement. They then start murmuring about how he survived and some other stuff that I couldn't make out.

'Is there any chance that I could come to stay with the town? Oh... my name is Leo Kallen' he asked timidly.

I was reluctant but I still said yes and I told him my name as well. When we got back we were asked tons of questions and then I pulled him away to ask him a few questions. he answers all of them confidently.

It has been about a year since we met but we got to know each other really well. But some of the town elders have died and Mayor Olsen wanted some of the younger adults to start repopulating. First, he asked me to be his girlfriend, and I said yes, we were the first couple that isn't married to become a thing, and then we had your uncle Thomas, then your Aunt Lynh, then your mother, and then your Aunt Olivia all within a year of each other. We alone had covered for the ones who passed away in recent months.

I know 16 sounds young dear but when I was a girl it was old to start having children.

After we found out I was pregnant with Thomas, we got married a week before we had him. Those were the happiest years of my life. And after your Olivia was born when I just turning 20 a doctor in Australia found a cure and they shipped it out in the masses to the countries who needed it desperately then to those who needed less and less. we were the last place in the world to get the cure because we had zero outbreaks of the Plague. The disease has had a few cases in certain areas, mostly around the Equator, but they were all treated so no one else was infected. Some people say it was caused by the atmosphere, but those of us who lived in Hammerfest knew that it is caused by climate change and the heat it produces. That is why our family has lived in Norway for millennia."

"Wow, grandma! That was amazing! I love it when you tell that story!" I said.

"Oh, why thank you, dearie! I'm glad you like" She replied with the sweetest tone.

My grandma always tells me this story because she doesn't want History to repeat itself. After this, the world banned the use of cars and anything that uses gasoline or anything that creates pollution. So that way the world doesn't get warmer causing another outbreak.