Sunday, May 22nd, 2022. This is the day the horseman’s plague escaped its internment. Not by the devil’s hand but by mine, and by those who aided us in our expedition.

The contagion spread from a tomb in Rome into Germany, and within weeks consumed all of Europe’s mainland, leading to a global military effort to contain the outbreak. But the virus survived, and the pharmaceutical company that procured the strand, too powerful to infiltrate.

It only took a few months before the infected emerged along the Eastern Shoreline of the United States. Coastal Quarantine Zones were established, but they were not prepared. No one was. No one had been. And no one was intended to be.

But as I sit here in a familiar home, embarking on a new expedition, trying to right my wrongs, I realize my chance of survival is slim against a virus that has evolved into something more instinctual, more sophisticated, than the mindless undead that rose from the tomb they were condemned to.

Dr. Katherine Nelson

September 6th, 2022