Chapter Text
And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things;
I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen;
wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.
- Ether 12:6
On his 19th birthday Kevin Price received the letter his whole family had waited for. They all had expected the letter but when it arrived, his mother broke down and cried. Even his brother Jack was close to tears. A clap on the shoulder was all he got from his father but it was the closest thing to a hug he had got since he was little.
The yet unopened letter would say that Kevin was finally old enough to serve in the armed forces. The sigil on the backside left no doubt about the sender.
Since the outbreak of an infection that had spread over the planet like a wildfire, things had changed. It didn't even have a name – everyone just referred to it as „the infection“ or simply as „it“. People who got infected by bite or blood on open wounds started to transform into an animal like being. Some within minutes, others within hours or even days. Red blood turning into a black thick mass. Not even a shade of themselves anymore, just mindless aggressive beings with a bloodlust. A cure? Not yet found.
According to the government.
Even almost fifteen years after the first infections had been recorded, they couldn't tell how it had started or who had been patient zero – there were a lot of theories but in the end nothing really mattered anymore.
Survival was the only thing that mattered. Survival, the extinction of those who are infected, finding a vaccination or even a cure and forming a new, safe and functioning society again. The whole world struggled and after some failed attempts in the past, Northern America had managed to form a new provisional government which was more or less stable for five years now. A new form of military service was introduced and became the duty of everyone at an age of nineteen years: at least three months of training and two years of missions, wherever they got sent to, wherever they were needed.
A lot of different organizations offered spots for fulfilling the service – everyone different in tasks, faith, ethics and locations. The main purpose though was to make more areas safe or at least safer. Northern America got split into „Districts“. Those habitable areas were guarded day and night by both civilians and military services. A few Districts even had the size of cities like former Manhattan, New York, but most of them were much smaller. In between Districts was so called no-man's-land, mostly woods, lakes, fields, destroyed and long forsaken towns or any other area where no one or barely anyone lived.
Except infected ones.
One might think that after fifteen years human life would have found a way to eradicate them or to adapt to this new situation but no one had believed that infected people also were able to adapt. That they were capable of learning at all: from hunting in groups and trying weak spots in fences to distract guards to attack from a different side. They were still not very smart but nevertheless it was an alarming evolution. Also their number didn't seem to drop as fast as everyone had expected it. But that was another topic.
--
Kevin went to his room he shared with his brother and sat down on his bed. Hesitantly he tapped on the envelope in his hand. Through the small window he could see his two sisters playing soccer with other children. They were only nine and eleven years old.
The sun was high in the sky; it was a lovely summer day. The children were laughing softly - trying not to shout in delight for making noise is something that you weren't allowed to do, even inside the borders of a relative safe District. The Price family was lucky to live in a middle section of the District. The houses closer to the protected border were always the first to get attacked by infected ones.
The children born here didn't know another world. Even Kevin could barely remember a different world. The world before.
He had been five years old when the outbreak began and possessed nothing but a few pieces of memories of the time when everything used to be normal – a term only older people used in this context. He remembered playing in their garden, full of daisies and dandelions, yelling loudly and laughing. He remembered his mother's cheer when his father had asked him to sing her a birthday song – which he did. They had been happy.
And once they had been to a theme park. Sitting high on a Ferris wheel, looking over the world and the little boy had been amazed by how small and big the world was at the same time. Every time the gondola was near the ground, the boy had yelled “up, up, up” and up they went again. Round and round and round and round.
Kevin shook his head. Maybe it hadn't even been that blissful, back then, he told himself. But his memories told him otherwise.
Life before the outbreak hadn't been normal to him. It had been a fairy tale.
And he desperately wanted it back.
There was a knock on the door.
„Hey,“ his brother said quietly and lingered at the doorframe. „So, what does it say?“
Kevin shrugged. „I haven't opened it yet.“
„Oh, okay,“ Jack said, „they are waiting though.“
Kevin sighed. „Just give me a sec.“
Jack closed the door and Kevin took a deep breath. He had known this day would come. Was he scared? Yes. But so was everyone, even here in Salt Lake City. Fear was something they all lived with. Every day. He looked back at the children outside. Living without fear, that's something worth fighting for. For his family. For his brother, for his younger sisters who reminded him of himself when he was younger.
And, he had to admit, mostly for himself. He not only wanted it, he owed it the younger Kevin Price. To love, laugh and wonder about the world like he did when he was younger. And he believed it was possible. He just knew there was a place on this planet where all this was possible.
And he knew exactly where he had to start looking for it.
„Here we go,“ he mumbled and opened the envelope.