28 Days
Imagine if you were in an accident and suffered a minor head injury. The doctors thought it wise not to awaken you from your sleep and decided to induce a coma through medication for 28 days. During this time you were connected to a life support system and fed food and liquids intravenously.
28 days later and you awake. You are obviously in a hospital, but no-one is around. You are dazed and groggy. (and in the movie version, naked)
You stumble to your feet and are met with some pain as you inadvertently remove the drips from your arms.
Now you yell out in pain. ‘Is anybody there?’ “where the %#$%$ is everyone?”
The response is deafening in its silence. You say to yourself, ‘I must still be dreaming’ or ‘this is some $#%$@# up hallucination’
The world as you previously knew it has changed irreversibly, and forever. What remains is but a hollow shadow. Appearances are the same, but life has all but disappeared. A deadly virus has wiped out 99.99% of the human race in a matter of 28 days.
The fact that you were in a coma during this period, probably saved your life. Plus that fact that you were quarantined when the virus was most virulent. However the most likely cause is less coincidental. You were simply one of those rare people who were immune to the virus.
Not that you know anything about this right now. As you stumble out of the hospital room where your bed was located, all you know is that everything smells of decaying flesh. You are taken back. You make efforts to cover you mouth and nose and breathe less deeply. Then you start to see bodies. All the bodies have a dark blue/black hue and dark liquids oozing from their orifices. The bodies are to be found almost everywhere, well at least it seems that way in the beginning. It is a grotesque sight. The bodies have been dead for some time, deadly stiff in obscenely twisted positions. It this is not bad enough, facial expressions paint a thousand worlds of the kind of death suffered by the poor victim. One can only prey and hope that the end came swiftly for them.
God only knows what you would do if you ever found yourself in this predicament. I would suggest that once/if you recovered from your shock and grief, survival instinct would take over. What follows, is what I would do. (if ever this scenario did occur)
First and foremost, I would plan ahead as from today. Hopefully I will have more than 28 days to do this. This is simple practical stuff. I might suggest the following items: Food, water, utensils, candles, lighters, torches, batteries, first aid, educational/inspirational books, music.
My advice to anyone reading this would be to secure the above items right now and always keep a minimum 28 days supply. It goes without saying that the food should be able to be eaten without being cooked and stored without the need for refrigeration or freezing. This is now your personal insurance policy to safeguard yourself and your family. Just in case there ever was a pandemic or some kind of major natural disaster.
Realistically, if ever there was a pandemic, it is unfortunately unlikely my advice would be of much use. (eg to quarantine yourself in your house) This is one of the weird things about human nature. We become so attached to family and loved ones, that the very thought of seeing them suffering needlessly; is too much. We rush to their aid and through our natural act of charity; we also become infected with the virus. I would suggest that it is futile to resist this urge. After all, this urge is what defines our species as human. (at least for the majority) If you resist this urge in the beginning, you are only likely to spend the rest of your life wondering what sort of person you have become. My advice would be the following: be more practical with your conscience.
It is all related to our evolutionary path. It is this path that we learn all about sacrifice. Sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice the innocent lives of a few for the sake of improving the survival of the whole. Indeed it is the ability of the human species to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of others; that defines our human evolution.
