Everyone is fearful of when the next wave might hit. Maybe that outbreak will be the one to end us all. It's not like anyone knew where the Bloody Death came from, or why it still mysteriously showed back up from time to time, which added to the fear. The unknown and all that? Some people have a real hang-up about not knowing things. I don't understand that fear, but maybe it was because as a Plaguer, I've always known more than I wanted.
When rumors started creeping up about how a teeny tiny percent of the population, something like less than .001%, was surviving, most people thought it was a lie. Plaguers are so rare you can go your whole life never meeting one, but I'm living proof they exist.
The first couple of days after I'd survived the Bloody Death, I'd thought I was the luckiest girl to walk the Earth. I was young when it happened, only four and so full of childish delusions. Children can be like that before life teaches them better.
I still regard myself as lucky, but now I know survival comes at a cost. The Bloody Death changes you, makes you see things. They say these things aren't true, but I know better. They say all Plaguers are psychotic, contaminated and ruined, need to be locked away to protect society from the evil they spew about monsters.
I say they're blind. But maybe willfully so. I know what the Plaguers before me have said. I've seen the things they've seen. There's a reason no one wanted to believe them. I understand why they hide us in places like this.
The people here, they tell me that this is the only safe place for me. That I would be killed if I'd been born somewhere else, like the Wilds, which encompasses the vast majority of what used to be the United States now except for the small slivers pieced out to form the few smaller countries that exist.
I'd prefer to take my chances. I didn't survive the Bloody Death to only go on and live as if I were truly dead. If I was meant to be alive, I didn't want to walk this Earth-I wanted to truly live it, dance and revel in everything it had to offer, feel every sensation and emotion open to the human psyche. I would. Even if it took me until I was a hundred and I only had one single day of freedom, I would not die here; I would die living.
The door to my cell opened and startled me. It wasn't time for the daily release yet. I looked up from my bed, already dressed for the day in the simple white dresses we were given, to the guard.
"You're getting a visitor."
I let out a sigh. It was going to be one of those days.