Aftermath, No. 10

May 6, 2041

I’m going to the American Confederation to help shore up the quarantine lines forming around Los Angeles. It’s not going to be easy. Quarantine enforcement is never easy; it takes a particular kind of cruelty to keep the sick and dying penned up like cattle, and to keep their families from seeing their loved ones for the last time. That’s what it seems to everyone else at least. They don’t seem to care that the world might be at stake. Maybe I’m lying to myself though; we’re going to die eventually. I’m not sure why we delay it. Unlike everyone else, I’m a little bit too stubborn to accept that the plague is definitely going to kill us and we might as well just go to pieces while it does. 

The army has come up to the walls in the last week. They tried to enforce quarantine by shooting anyone who came up to the wall. But dying of the plague is far more painful than being killed by gunfire, and the sick started pouring towards the wall. The soldiers look shaken; understandably so. One of them told me that he’s just waiting and hoping that they’ll run short of ammunition. Shots ring out all down the wall; it’ll be a while before their ammunition’s gone. 

Some of the soldiers refused to fire, but they were arrested and replaced within hours. They must take shifts, because the violence never ceases.