Well, apparently I live! -poke- Huh. Yup, I'm alive. Or...something. Hey, existence counts.

GAH. MY MUSE RAN AWAY! -cries- Just up and left me for nearly two months! She finally returned, and just in time, too! English class had an interesting Final: short stories. Which was fine for me, as I got to hash out an idea I've had for a while: Pandemic.

The year is (undecided; definitely a ways in the future) and the Final War is over. There is...well, you could call it 'peace', if by that you mean that the nations are no longer fighting to destroy the others. Yes, you could say there is 'peace', then.

But only because there is no longer anyone left to fight.

A disease has ravaged the world, swept across its surface like a scythe through the harvest, striking down hundreds of thousands. There is no vaccine to this plague, no cure, not even a way of knowing who is infected and who is not until it is too late; if it isn't already. It came out of nowhere, its greedy grasp leaping across the oceans. No one who has contracted it has ever survived.

It is a Pandemic.

The world is in chaos; governments have toppled, lives fallen to pieces. The only semblance of leadership left is pockets of anarchy and feudal-style land governing. All the trappings of life before lie littered about the lands; great metallic towers of solar harvesting stand abandoned like lonely sentinels, the knowledge of all history and life before frozen within the huge computer data banks. But there is no one to use them.

If you have a means of defense, you are well off. If you have a means of defense and food, you are rich. If you have a means of defense, food, and shelter, you are Christ.

Fear builds in the remaining survivors, along with paranoia. It is near impossible to tell the Contaminated from the safe; most of the Pandemic's symptoms are mental ones. The first three stages are a gradual descent into schizophrenia, and it is only the fourth and final stage which so far is truly recognizable. But then, it's a little hard to miss when someone has a psychotic and psychopathic break from reality and begins killing people indiscriminately. If the Contaminated one is not killed then in self-defense, or anytime after, they eventually die from the wasting of their bodies as their minds melt within their skulls by the end of the year. The only other symptoms are bruises that never heal and blue-tinged fingers, but how easy are such things to over-look?

A small group of people have banded together, determined to wipe out the Contaminated. They are called Medics, and travel the world for this task. The Medics are one of the few people who have international communication anymore, and travel is almost certainly out of the question - far too expensive, even if you can find someone crazy enough to do it. The general population is both terrified and in awe of the Medics, but always suspicious and wary. Medics willingly expose themselves to the Pandemic, and with no idea how's it's transmitted, God alone knows who's infected. So whenever a Medic comes to town, whoever still lives there keeps their distance.

No one knows how this all happened. They just know it did, and they have to live with it. Well, no, that's not quite true. There are people who know exactly how and why. They just don't know they know.

Aurelie Derinou, decorated member of the U.S. Army's MedCorps. Her identical twin sister and civilian doctor, Kendra Derinou. Robert Dahllheim, a sergeant from Aurelie's platoon, and her lover. All three of them were intimately involved in the beginning of all this, Aurelie most of all. In fact, she is both the beginning and the end.

She just doesn't remember. Kendra and Robert - and the rest of Aurelie's platoon, or at least those still alive - clearly remember the beginning. After all, they were the ones that got her repatriated from her captors, they were the ones that got her to the best military hospital (as yet unnamed) they could to deal with the damage of physical, mental, psychological and chemical torture. And then they were the ones that left her to the care of the hospital staff. Staff that discovered something unusual happened when their sedatives and tranquilizers mixed with the flood of drugs already in Aurelie's system. She'd only been taken from one torturer to another, even if these new ones had 'patriotic ideals' and 'medical fervor' pushing them. She became trapped in the hospital, once more a subject of experimentation.

Luckily for her, Kendra had always paid close attention to her feelings and hunches. She knew her twin was in trouble, and she also knew just who could help.

The 53rd Platoon. Robert and Aurelie's platoon.

It was quickly discovered what was going on in that hospital, and the 53rd Platoon was given full permission to rescue their medic (rank as-of-yet undecided). Unfortunately, by this time the staff has become corrupt not only in thought and action, but in health. The hospital is destroyed, whether by the men of the 53rd platoon or by the doctors themselves or both. 53rd platoon manages to get Aurelie out before the destruction, but even so, it's too late. The potent cocktail of drugs she's had pumped through her body for months on end has left obvious reminders.

Aurelie cannot remember anything of her life before the day she opened her eyes nearly three months later. There are bits and pieces, things she instinctively knows; she recognizes the faces of the men of the 53rd platoon as 'good men' and 'familiar', but nothing else. She does not remember her family, but for Kendra. She does not remember Robert but for the odd twinging of her heart when she sees him.She does not remember joining the Army, fighting the War. She does not remember being captured, tortured, repatriated, and then tortured again by the people set to heal her.

She does not remember that she is Patient Zero for the Pandemic. The mother, the carrier, the creator, call her what you will but she does not remember. The chemical scarring is too deep, too layered. If ever her memory will return, it will takes years of patience, and possibly even more trauma to shake the memories loose.

But most of all, Aurelie does not remember the final experiment, never finished before her sister and platoon came for her. She does not remember that that one unfinished experiment had monumental results.

An antidote.

A cure for the Pandemic, held within her blood. If ever she could remember, the fight for humanity's survival might take a decided turn in their favor. Bu she doesn't remember.

Not yet.

Slowly, her mind is repairing itself. It has been six long years since her rescue from -blank- hospital, and the first bloom of the Pandemic and things begin to return. Every memory she recovers brings her closer and closer to herself; to the answers. Of course, now she just has to live long enough to get all the memories back. She, Robert, and Kendra are all Medics.

And everyone knows that Medics die young.

....Or something like that. I'm thinking I might break it into TWO books, one about Before, during the war and when she gets captured and all the stuff first happens. First book is creation of Pandemic. Second book is all about them trying to get Aurelie's memories back and 'save the world'. Or something. xP