It's Christmas time, and instead of spending time with friends and family, you decide that
you're overdue for some travel.
Instead of visiting grandma, or going home for Christmas dinner just so you can get into
political fights with your drunk libertarian uncle- you decide that this year, you're taking
a 'me-holiday', and book yourself a plane ticket to the heart of China.
On your way there you end up missing the heart by a few thousand kilometers and instead end
up in Wuhan, but hey, it's a new place, a foreign culture, and it's all very exciting
anyways.
Eager to dive into the local Chinese culture, you hop out of your plane and head to the
first place you've read about- the Seafood Wholesale Market.
Upon arriving you notice two things: the place sells a whole lot of land animals for it to
be called a “Seafood” market, and most of those animals are very much alive.
In fact, the entire thing is rather macabre and definitely depressing, you find everything
from porcupines to bats to even wolves just sitting in cages next to freshly skinned corpses
of what you can only assume were their former compatriots.
You very quickly decide to end your visit, realizing you've walked head-on into an animal
cruelty nightmare, and as you quickly leave the market you decide that you really need
to think your sightseeing through a little bit more.
China is one of the earliest human civilizations, there’s plenty of cultural wonders to see
elsewhere!
On the way out of the market though, that's when you spot it- a snake slithering along
the ground.
Except it doesn't quite look right.
Suddenly the snake stops, and starts hacking and coughing, and you realize- omg (say the
letters), that snake is choking!
A crowd gathers around the poor, choking snake, nobody knowing what to do.
Lucky for you though, you just got your CPR certification for your new, totally not depressing
job as a mall guard!
You're Johnny-on-the-spot, and leap to the snake's help.
“Out of the way!”, you cry out, showing your CPR credentials, as you shove the crowd
aside.
The snake is gasping now, it's almost over.
You flip the snake on its belly though and start doing compressions, humming to yourself
the tune to “Staying Alive” by the Bee Gees, exactly as you've been trained.
This is it, this is your moment.
You check the airway and realize there's no obstruction, this snake isn't choking, it's
dying!
Not on your watch.
You didn't take a 12 hour public safety course to earn the coveted mall guard badge in your
pocket for nothing.
You pry open that snake's mouth and start giving it breaths, quickly followed by more
compressions.
You continue this cycle of breaths and compressions, working up a fierce sweat.
“Live, you snake bastard, live!”, you cry out.
Suddenly, the snake coughs, sputters, and opens its eyes.
It's alive!
Tears of joy flood down your cheeks.
The crowd cheers.
A pretty lady feints.
You've done it, you saved this snake's life.
With deep gratitude in its eyes, the snake looks up at you and whispers, just faintly
enough that only you can hear it, “One day, when you need me the most, I promise I'll
be there.”
You leave that market a hero, and hey, you've made a snake friend for life now.
Thinking back on that poor snake, you wish him well and go on about your trip, this time
heading to some proper tourist destinations and having a blast in China.
The whole time though, something is seriously wrong with you and you don't have even the
slightest clue.
Deep in the cells of your body, an invader has taken root.
Unknown to you, as you were saving that snake's life, it was passing on to you a deadly coronavirus,
one of the few that are transmissible between man and animal.
Even worse for you though is this is a brand new strain of virus, and one that the world
is completely unprepared for.
The virus inside you is a stealth assassin.
It has one job in its short life: to make as many of itself as possible and then spread
its brethren to other hosts.
But it can't get caught, so it's learned to remain undetected.
You show no symptoms, you feel perfectly fine- you're a snake hero after all!
But the entire time the deadly virus within you is busy working.
You're slowly dying from the inside and don't even realize it at all.
First the virus infects healthy cells, inserting genetic code into the cell that forces it
to start mass producing other copies of the virus.
This uses up all of the cell's energy and when it's all spent up, masses of new viruses
burst out of the shriveled up, spent cell like xenomorphs bursting out of wayward space
marine's chests.
Your body fights back, calling in white blood cells- the heavy hitters of your immune system.
The white blood cells are tough, but the virus is even tougher, and unlucky for them, they've
never seen anything like this virus before.
Normally white blood cells would call for help from antibodies, but your body has no
idea what antibodies to even send.
This new virus is like nothing it's ever faced before.
Your white blood cells are helpless to stop the infection from growing, and soon you are
so filled with the virus that you're infectious.
Every time you wipe your snot, cough into your hand, or lick a stranger's plate you're
leaving behind deadly virus, and the worst part is: you're completely unaware.
You show no symptoms whatsoever!
No serious cough, no fever, no headache, no fatigue- nothing.
You continue your trip through China, not washing your hands after digging for gold
in your nose, licking every door knob you come across- hey, you're on vacation, anything
goes!
And the entire time you're leaving behind traces of the deadly virus in your veins.
Two weeks later, you're finally on your way home.
As you board the plane you feel a little bit fatigued, but hey, you just spent your Christmas
traveling through the exotic orient, you're probably just bushed.
You look forward to a nice few days at home before returning to the daily grind, and to
pass the time on the long flight home, you get into a coughing fight with the kid in
front of you.
You're both having so much fun, that soon the other passengers get in on it!
Pretty quickly, the whole plane is laughing and having a good time with an old fashioned
cough fight, everyone doing their best to cough as hard as they can in each other's
face.
A few days later you're showing up to your first day at your exciting new mall guard
job- but you don't feel so well.
You've got a headache and you're developing a nasty cough.
Well, you did just travel internationally, you probably picked up a small bug somewhere,
it wouldn't be completely unprecedented.
You ignore your symptoms and take to your duties as the first, last, and only line of
mall defense against shoplifters and Karens who complain about their expired coupons not
being accepted.
You've got a runny nose by now, but no big deal- you make sure to wipe away the boogers
every time you have to give CPR or shake someone's hand.
You know you really should be washing your hands frequently, especially since you've
been coughing and sneezing into them a whole lot lately, but hey, the life of a mall guard
is a high-stakes, high-pressure gambit, and mall crime doesn't take any breaks so neither
can you.
At the end of your first week at your job you definitely aren't feeling well at all.
Your cough has gotten pretty severe, so bad it's starting to hurt when you cough.
You've got a full-blown fever and your uniform sleeve is practically dripping with all the
mucus you've wiped on it through the course of your day.
Plus people are starting to complain that their CPR tastes like snot.
You know you have to ask for some sick time off, even though that's really not a good
look for someone who's literally just started their job.
Your boss agrees, the CPR-snot complaints have reached his desk.
“Take some time off kid, you can't fight mall crime unless you're at your best.”,
your grizzled veteran of a boss says in between bites of food court Panda Express orange chicken.
As you get home though, your vision starts to swim.
Your fever is spiking, and you're pretty sure you could cook an egg on your forehead.
You drag yourself to the hospital, and as you walk into the emergency room you collapse
in the lobby.
When you wake up you're laying in a hospital bed with an IV in your arms, dripping fluids
into your body.
The virus has put your body into overdrive, and you're pretty dehydrated.
You've been given various cough suppressants and medications for your fever, but they're
barely doing anything.
To your alarm, on the second day of your stay, the doctor comes into your room wearing a
full-body plastic suit that exposes only his face, which is itself covered by a surgical
mask.
They wrap your bed in a plastic sheet as the doctor informs you that you've been diagnosed
with something strange- a coronavirus they've never encountered before.
Given your state, the doctors fear that you've infected many of the medical staff, and so
they have been quarantined as well in the hospital's other rooms.
Your condition worsens by the day, the virus is replicating completely out of control now-
what started off as one little hitchhiker has turned into billions upon billions of
copies.
A man enters your room in a full-body contamination suit.
He sits by your bed and identifies himself as working for the Centers For Disease Control
and Prevention.
The CDC is America's frontline defense against disease, even though they forgot to add the
P from Prevention to their acronym.
There's no time for that, the man says as you point out that fact.
He has to know where you picked up this strange virus, and who you may have been in contact
with that could now be infected.
Reluctantly, you start back at the beginning, telling him about your impromptu trip to China's
Wuhan.
You tell him about the seafood market that definitely sold more land animals than seafood.
You tell him about the dying snake and the CPR you administered.
You tell him about the giant cough fight you started on the plane ride back.
The man pats your hand, “That was a brave thing you did, giving that snake CPR- but
we're afraid that you've been infected by an animal-born coronavirus.
The snake you saved, it passed it on to you.”
Then the government man leaves you, scurrying to track down every member of your flight
back home from China.
By now, the disease could be anywhere and everywhere, and completely undetectable until
its sufferers start showing symptoms.
Over the course of the next few days, you deteriorate even further.
Breathing becomes more than painful, it becomes difficult.
Your parents come visit you, as does the rest of your family- everyone knows that the end
is near.
Your siblings lean in and kiss you on the cheek through the surgical masks they wear.
Even your libertarian uncle shows up, tears in his eyes.
He leans in and gives you a kiss on the cheek one last time, whispering reassuringly in
your ear, “Taxes are just another form of theft.”
Your body can't function properly anymore, the virus has saturated all of its systems
to the point that basic functions begin shutting down.
Much like an over-consuming humanity, viruses have no sense of self-control, and once they
infect a host they reproduce completely out of control until the host dies from the burden
of the virus within it.
Like the earth, but with people.
The light is fading now, and in your final moments you think back to that snake you saved.
You remember its parting words to you: “One day, when you need me the most, I promise
I'll be there.”.
Suddenly you hear a slight hiss, and hope floods your body as you barely manage to lean
up just slightly and look around your room- but it's just the hiss of your air conditioning
unit winding down.
As the light fades completely, you think to yourself, “Man, that (bleeping censored
sfx) snake lied to me.”
At your funeral your supervisor shows up along with several of your co-workers.
Using Dicks Sporting Goods air rifles, you're given a twenty one gun salute.
With somber purpose, your supervisor stands at attention before your grieving mother,
handing her a folded Spencer's band T-shirt- the official flag of mall security.
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