Dark Country

August 29th, 2008
         Nuuk, Greenland

It starts out simple: fever, sweating, and coughing. Light vomiting, but nothing terrible. As the day moves on though, the early stages of dementia are rampant. You start to cough blood. Nausea dictates your movements. Then you puke blood. Your corneas rupture. Kidney failure is imminent.
         Not soon after that, death is usually the last symptom.
         I am a journalist living in Greenland, one of the three safe countries in the world. My name is James Drogen. I am originally from Hendely, Arizona. As one of the estimated thirty million remaining denizens of the world’s population, I have dedicated myself to the study and research of the mysterious virus known as K4.
         It began on August 3rd, 2008 in Indonesia. No one has yet discovered how K4 evolved, nor how it spread so quickly. The accepted story is that of a farmer who fell ill after falling into a pond near his home. The sickness quickly spread to his wife and children. The children then passed it on, and soon it became an epidemic. No one could see the symptoms until it was too late.
         The first countries K4 spread to were China and Russia. Japan and New Zealand were quick to follow. Australia, India and Peru were next to fall. Soon over 3/4 of the world was infected in a span of a week. Greenland, Cuba and Madagascar are the only countries to have somehow avoided infection. As of this entry, New Zealand and Brazil are devoid of life.
         The government powers that be held an emergency summit to determine what steps should be taken. Each country voted to burn the bodies to prevent the spread of infection, to close down schools and hospitals, and to hand out bottled water in case the infection is spread by contaminated water supplies.
         There are also startling reports of the dead reanimating, but not into the archetypical undead “zombie” from the movies. First the reanimated start out the same as before, but after a time their organs start to decay. Their brains develop psychological damage, driving what remaining sanity the reanimated had, out. They retain most of their memories, but most have their personality altered. The most amazing thing about these so-called “zombies” is they can survive another week before dying. They don’t require food, water or air to continue to live. Scientists now call this a state of “undeath.”
         Now that you know about K4, let me explain what I aim to do. I want to study this virus for a cure. I know it sounds crazy, but someone has to do it. The safe countries have no interests in developing any kind of vaccine. They only want to survive.
         It’s every man for himself.