There was a sadness that went beyond tears – beyond anything physical that could be expressed, creating a yawning emptiness in her chest that made her feel like a hollow, paper shell. Never in life had Danielle imagined it might come to this.

She was burying her last living relative.

It was almost as if she was drifting through a dream, standing at the edge of the casket as she stared down at the still, pale face of her youngest brother. He had been the one to hold out the longest – the one she’d clung to hope for. After all, how long had the world’s governments been working on a cure? How long had every single trained medical researcher on the planet searched feverishly for something that might save the human race from its rapidly approaching extinction?

Danielle had pitched all her hopes and dreams on them finding something,
anything
that might save Jordan’s life. For five years, she had watched him suffer. He had missed out on his childhood, unable to run and play with others his age. Due to the bouts of coughing that wracked his chest and the disease that slowly, but surely worked away at his immune system. He’d been in pain – constant pain – but he’d always had a smile for her.

For anyone, really.

Jordan had a kind heart, and a beautiful soul. He’d never wanted to let anyone know exactly how much he suffered – remarkable attributes for one so young. Even when he’d been bedridden, he’d laughed and joked, dreaming about the things he’d be able to do once he got better.

But now, all those opportunities had been lost to him.

Danielle had watched the Ignacious Virus steal her family members from her one by one, starting when she was very young. Her grandparents had been the first to succumb – all four of them in one year. They’d been in their sixties, and relatively healthy, before the disease had struck with brutal speed. Now, two decades later, the young woman knew that the elderly were the first to go. Their immune systems simply couldn’t cope with the assault on their bodies, and they usually succumbed in a matter of months.

Next, she’d lost her father at the tender age of ten. When he had gone, there hadn’t yet been a name put to the disease, even if she’d known he’d died of the same thing her grandparents had. Despite his hearty, robust thirty-five year-old body, the disease had spread through him like wildfire. He’d been gone within three years.

Her mother had come next, and then her older sister, Glenda. By the time Danielle had reached her twentieth year, the entire world had been in a frenzied panic.

Named the Ignacious Virus after the man in which the first case had been recorded, the sickness had spread over the entire world, affecting three in every five humans. If infected, there was no cure. The disease had a one hundred percent death rate, though whether it took you quickly or slowly depended entirely on the victim’s individual fortitude.

Strong, healthy people between the ages of fifteen and thirty could sometimes linger on for years, while the oldest and youngest of the world’s population were snatched away within months – sometimes mere weeks. The symptoms varied from person to person, but the illness manifested in basically the same way: an all-out attack on the immune system that eventually resulted in the body turning on itself with brutal efficiency.

People died in the millions – with numbers growing every day. Even with mass panic – people terrified of what seemed like an inevitable diagnosis-life continued as normally as it could for people all over the globe. Everyone was encouraged to continue about their daily lives as the people in power searched for a cure – a cure they promised they would find.

So far, they had yet to deliver.

And now it was far too late for Danielle’s family.

Now, as she stared down at her brother’s youthful face, she cursed herself as guilt consumed her.

She’d been fifteen years old when doctors had pronounced her immune to Ignacious – one of only one percent of people worldwide genetically incapable of falling prey to the disease. Her mother, of course, had been overjoyed. She’d wept, clutching her middle child to her, grateful that at least one of her children was safe from the scourge that was slowly covering the entire planet; and Danielle had been relieved. So relieved that she’d wanted to cry too. She would never have to die the terrible, slow death that she watched unfold day after day around her.

Now, years later, she realized how naïve she’d been.

What was living if those you loved the most were taken from you? If you had to watch them languish and suffer before finally succumbing to forces beyond your control?

At the age of twenty seven, she was now completely and utterly alone in the world.

Luckily, she didn’t have to worry about food or shelter. The human population was dwindling so rapidly that there were now copious systems in place to ensure that she had a roof over her head and enough to eat. Everyone was provided for – and why not? After being ravaged by Ignacious for nearly three decades, the world only had about one billion or so people left to provide for.

For the rest of the funeral, Danielle was quiet.

She sat alone, in the front pew of a church she had barely ever visited, numb to the words the man administering the ceremony spoke. State provided funerals were all the same. She should know by now – she’d attended almost twenty of them in her lifetime. The ceremonies were vain attempts to do justice to the lives of those who had lived and died under the penumbra of Ignacious.

In a daze, she went through the motions of grief, declining, even, to speak on her brother’s behalf. Though her love for him had never wavered – though it had filled her heart when she’d had no one else upon which to lavish her affection, she felt that somehow, her words would have no meaning. She could only say that she loved him more than words could ever say – that he’d been a gentle spirit with a kind heart. That he had been taken too soon.

But who hadn’t?

These days, there were few elderly who hadn’t already succumbed to the disease, and so all who died were far too young.

But she would linger on. Somehow, she would find the power to keep on going – she had to. This was the way of the world now, and if she wanted to survive, she would have to fit into it.

The funeral lasted for an hour, and when it had ended, they took Jordan’s body away, casket and all. Only weeks before the young man had died, he’d opted for his body to be donated to research on the Ignacious Virus, in the hopes that someone would be able to benefit from his passing.

It had been the last time Danielle had cried. What fifteen year old boy spent each day knowing that he would die? It was horribly unfair.

When she returned to the empty apartment, her energy left her. Eventually, in the days and weeks to come, she would have to make herself go into Jordan’s room – to go through his things in an attempt to sort through what she would keep to remember him by and what could be donated. He had always wanted to help people as much as he could, and before the young man had become stricken with his illness, he wanted to be a doctor.

He would have made an amazing physician.

Surprisingly, the thought brought a small smile to the young woman’s face. Her heart heavy, Danielle rolled over onto her side to catch sight of her face in a picture on the coffee table. It was she and Jordan, on a rare outing from the year before to a nearby zoo. They’d stopped to have their picture taken at the front entrance, the image immortalized for all time. In it, her smile was wide, hazel eyes sparkling with laughter.

Though the picture had been taken only a year ago, she hardly recognized herself. Her long, dark blonde hair curled loosely over the collar of the navy dress she’d worn, contrasting with skin tanned from long hours in the sun.

She was a botanist, and so spent most of her days outside, tending to plants that would later be used to work on a cure for the Ignacious Virus, but even so, she enjoyed the time she spent among vibrant blooms and greenery. Plants had always fascinated her, and one of her hobbies was creating hybrid roses, which decorated many surfaces in her home. One of these such blooms – a vivid violet color – was tucked into her hair. She’d added it at her brother’s insistence, and people had commented on it all day long.

On that day, how many people had asked if she was his mother? They looked very much alike, she and her brother. The same eyes, the same hair color – he even shared her pronounced bone structure. In the end, Danielle supposed, she might as well have played the role. She’d been the only family he’d had left – and any woman would have been proud to call Jordan her child.

May he rest in peace.

With a soft sigh, the young woman made herself rise from the low sofa, padding over to the full length mirror that stood just inside the front doorway.

She had lost weight since last year. The black sheath dress she wore hung loosely on her slender frame, and she had cropped her hair short just a few weeks ago. She hadn’t the energy to deal with it anymore. At the time, working with it had just taken away from the hours she’d wanted to spend with her brother in his final days. It would grow back, she supposed, but for the moment – and foreseeable future – she didn’t know if she cared enough for her appearance to pay her hair any mind.

What she would have to concentrate on was functioning normally. Though she’d taken a few days off of work, she would soon have to return. Her role in the so-called search for a cure was instrumental, or so she’d been told, and so, regrettably, she wasn’t being allowed much time to herself. In reality, Danielle didn’t know how much her efforts were helping anything. Despite all their promises and all their proclamations, the worlds’ government hadn’t come anywhere closer to finding a cure.

Even as populations dwindled – as coalitions combined and new territories were formed, medical research continued in vain. By this point – thirty years after the discovery of the disease, the majority of the world was operating under the combined socialist system that comprised all but fifteen percent of the living. They were governed by the Global Coalition Council, comprised of twenty representatives based on the populations of the areas they represented. Danielle and her family fell under the American coalition, which represented both the northern and southern continents, and provided two representatives to the council.

Sadly a bunch of more incompetent people you couldn’t find. They were obsessed with making themselves look good – with being seen in the right medical centers at the right times – both of them immune to Ignacious and in their mid-forties, they vowed to do all they could to combat the disease – providing that they themselves didn’t actually have to do anything.

It was laughable, the way they handled matters in the Western hemisphere. Those immune were frightened that the disease would mutate – which scientists had hinted it could – to wipe them all out; and those with the disease could do little but wait to die. The world’s population had been reduced nearly ten times in the span of thirty years while their best and brightest grasped at straws, trying to save them.

What had the world come to?

Ignoring the blinking light on her telecommunicator, the young woman meandered down the hall to the kitchen. She didn’t want to eat, but she’d have to force herself to. She had to go through the motions until they felt real again – until she could remember how to be her normal, vivacious self.

Though God knew when that would be.

As she made herself a meal-shake, her wrist vibrated with another call – this one to her private line. Danielle glanced down at the holographically projected number before pressing a button to ignore the call. Though she was sure her friends wanted to give her their condolences – or wanted to reassure her that everything was going to be alright – she didn’t want to hear any of it. For the moment, she just wanted to be alone. She needed some time to think – about Jordan, her life, and what lie ahead for her.

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