B.A.R.T: The last War

Log ... entry 472 ...

Class I sanitary agent, registration V-184516…

The remaining members of my team have been compromised, there is no response from the central agency or any other frequency ...

I am surrounded by hostiles, I am left without weapons, equipment, transportation and support, I do not know if I will survive…

I'm probably the last one; I will record this in case someone finds it ...

This story begins more than 6 decades ago, at that time, no one suspected it. Throughout the world multiple antimicrobial drugs were developed, these were used indiscriminately for years, without knowing that this would lead us to the "microbiological apocalypse". The warnings started 40 years ago, but it was too late.

However, for the eyes of the world, the event known as "the beginning of the end" was the pandemic that started in 2020. The agent responsible for it was a strain belonging to the coronavirus subfamily, baptized as COVID-19, a couple of weeks after its discovery; at the beginning it produced a respiratory type disease, however, over time, it was shown that any organ and system was affected by this virus, due to the inflammatory reaction it is capable of causing, not to mention the series of sequelae after the illness. It could really be more lethal, since around 12,000,000 inhabitants perished in the world, but it was characterized by being highly contagious, it took over the world in just 2 months after its first appearance in Wuhan on December 31, 2019. It should be mentioned that the main ally to favor the transmission of this virus was negligence and human folly worldwide.

At that time I was around 20 years old, I had barely graduated as a doctor a week before declaring quarantine in my country, about 6 weeks after the virus's debut, so I started my medical practice with a pandemic. After the world quarantine, everything changed, nothing was the same after that. It was 18 months of struggle, 3 waves and multiple mutations of the virus that made the creation of a vaccine almost impossible, cost a lot, many could not tolerate it, their minds fractured, society collapsed, the economy was practically non-existent. The world was in pieces, yet hope was preserved.

They were turbulent times, anarchy reigned, governments fell, civil wars everywhere, old social resentments resurfaced, many secrets were revealed in those years, among them, the existence of laboratories that, in 7 countries considered at that time as world powers, they were dedicated to creating biological weapons, manipulating microbiological organisms at will. The most prominent laboratory was Smuck Industries, its location was never known, but it made its existence very clear, after the historical public statement of its mysterious creator, self-proclaimed "Mr. Smuck", basically confessed as an orchestra the destruction of humanity for years. It was all a big scandal, the whole world tried to stop that, but once again, it was too late.

Despite all the madness unleashed in the world, many of us tried to work hard from our positions. Our attention has always been focused on fighting the pandemics that arose over the years, however, since 2027, all doctors noted that it was increasingly difficult to fight infectious diseases, we used all the existing arsenal, experimental drugs, even thus mortality was over 80% and contagion almost reached 100%, something never seen before.

Due to this situation, the WHO declared a maximum state of emergency worldwide, on March 22, 2029 the worldwide declaration and mandate was issued, from that moment on all doctors. Nurses and the rest of the health personnel became "health agents", members of the Biological Agents Response Team (B.A.R.T), each with a different class and function, our work became field work, hardly any sanitary facilities were used At that time, the protective equipment we used was evolving, always improving, until it practically became a tactical suit; Given the circumstances, we began to receive special medical and military training permanently confined in special camps, without families, without friends or any other type of social life outside these camps, in fact, I can hardly remember the last time I hugged my loved ones. I don't even know if they managed to survive, or how they died, eventually.

Every year everything was getting worse, basically it became a war "the third world war", they started calling him, but this time, it was about humans versus microbiological agents. Now we fought deadly battles trying to save humanity. We soon discovered that it was not the third world war, but the last.

The peak was in December 2035. Panicked, the world powers unleashed an attack on each other, but this time, the weapons were exclusively biological, weapons that countries had accumulated and developed since decades. The known world finally disappeared completely, no more technology, exclusively military communication, there were no social strata, laws or anything similar, it was about the survival of the strongest. We were the last standing organization, backed by a couple of smaller organizations.

I can no longer remember so many names, bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites ... all kinds of nightmare diseases, the classic symptoms were a thing of the past, now people with organ failure, tissue detachment in just hours, massive hemorrhages in seconds and hundreds of other horrors. In just 2 years, less than 500,000 healthy people were estimated.

The last piece of the puzzle was courtesy of the last psychopathic act of "Mr. Smuck ”, used the communication frequencies to declare the release of the" Berserker virus ", his latest creation; Since he was the man with unlimited resources, he managed to liberate him throughout the world, he did it using us, it was through our teams that he did it, during all these years he was one of the main allies of the WHO behind a friendly mask and solidarity, we were only pawns in his game.

It is a virus that affects the central nervous system, capable of using all the known contagion routes, it mutates every 7 days, the infection is characterized by behavioral changes mainly, since it activates the brain areas related to aggressiveness and primitive behavior . Those who become infected carry out acts of war and indescribable behaviors: massacres, cannibalism, self-cannibalism, rapes, are some of the consequences of this erratic behavior. That is why we baptize them as "hostile"

According to my calculations, we have been fighting this abomination for about 33 months. My unit refused to surrender, but today, out of 17 men, there were only 5 of us left this morning, including myself.

We left our hiding place in search of provisions and survivors; We needed more men for our last mission: to infiltrate a facility where the heart of Smuck Industries was supposedly housed, and perhaps the cure to save the few humans left standing on earth. But we were the victim of an ambush by the hostiles, we tried to fight and contain them, but we failed, given the nature of the attack, we dispersed. By this time, my 4 colleagues could be dead or maybe, being tortured by the hostiles, I cannot know, I lost all my communication and defense equipment, my suit barely resists and I am wounded, hidden inside what was a bank vault ever full of useless money.

Most likely he is dead by tomorrow at this time, that's why I record this entry in the blog, telling our story and how humanity created its own destruction, how the end of an era was generated, I also leave the details of the plans of our mission, if there are any survivors ...