2nd Selina Li, “1% Prison Island”

1% Prison Island

“A virus has wiped out over 99% of the world population, now, the 1% of survivors globally are gathered together in the airport of NewYork and ready to fly into a secret city, and we are trying to save the last civilization of humans, this is Bob reporting, and it is also the last time of the news reporting, thanks for listening, good luck…….” (voice from TV)

Unfortunately, people did not see the monster until it was inside of them.

Virus X PLUS is an extremely fatal and highly contagious disease, which is transmitted from the flying black bat. After being infected, humans will have fever, difficulty breathing and it can cause death easily after there is a shock or blood coagulation happens, people cannot do anything but wait until they lose their life if it becomes severe. At the beginning, it was not taken seriously. It was a master of disguise; it pretended to be a common cold virus, and to hide cautiously: in closets, in kitchen sinks, on subway platforms, on everything…

In this year, 2041, it became energized and started killing people globally, continuing to spread, spread...The world map online turned scarlet, from one side all across to another side. More and more countries fell into this color, a color of blood and killing. The monster finally won, successfully making itself everyone’s worst fear.

It is a cloudy day. The grey clouds for today are not very high above the ground like they usually are, which gives people a feeling of oppressive tension like they are going to be squeezed into pieces. A faint sound of thunder can be heard and small raindrops start to appear. Emily, a 6 years old girl, is now holding the hands of her mom and dad, running quickly to a huge airplane sitting right in the center of the New York airport. She started to loosen her hand that held her father’s and put it on her right ear to cover the huge noise of the airplanes.

“Hold my hand tight, quickly we have no time!”

Her dad’s voice is stressed and worried, and that makes Emily nervous because dad never talked to her like this.

“There is no time to explain, just follow me!”

As they are running, Emily turns her head around. She sees many people running in the same direction like they are doing a running competition. It would appear that the airplane is their common destination.

They finally arrived, and those other people arrived too, they bumped and squeezed each other toward the entrance of the airplane, waving their hands and screaming. Emily almost cannot endure the big noise, but she is afraid to loosen her hands with her parents because “they could easily get separated by the waves of hysterical people”

“Attention! Please! Be quiet, now there are not enough seats for you all! Only the people with permission can get in! Please line up! 50 seats left now” yelled by a person dressed in white protection suits.

“Me!! Me! I have permission!”

People start to become more disorganized. Emily’s dad and mom are waving their hands too and using their body to squeeze the people in front of them trying to clear a way in. It was finally their turn, but an arm stopped their way, “Only 2 seats left!” One of you needs to take the next airplane and wait here. Go quickly!”

After only a few seconds, dad turns to mom and takes a deep breath, he puts one hand on Emily’s head.

“Hey, listen, you are going to take good care of Emily and I am going to take the next flight! We are going to meet in the city? OK?” said dad to mom in a strong and serious voice.

“But you are not coming daddy? No! Come with us!”

“Just go!”

Daddy’s hand loosens and Emily is pulled into the airplane by mommy, she turns her head back but the entrance door closes as soon as the people with

“But you said there’s only 2 seats left!” yelled Emily’s mom.

“Be quiet! listen, of course I am going to leave this terrible place, and I don’t care about anybody else! This is the last flight!”

“But what about daddy! Please! Open the door, let him in!”

“Shut up, we are going to city X now and never come back!There will be no time, a bomb from the government is going to explode 30 minutes from now, and all infectious people will be cleaned!”

“But my dad is not infected…”

The big sound of the engine starts, the plane is moving forward, Emily looks out the window and sees her father standing in a large group of people left on the ground, waving one hand to her and thumbs-up with a slight smile. Emily cries loudly as the plane runs faster and faster, and until the daddy’s shape becomes more and more blurry and finally just becomes a black spot before it disappears completely. This is the last time Emily will ever see her father, the plane is flying into the grey clouds with a lot of weeping sound from the seats, Mom is crying too, she lowers her head and wipe the tears continuously using her hands, but her shoulder goes up and down, her body is shaking uncontrollably.

The destination is a secret city located at the northernmost part of the world map, no one knows what it is called and no one knows what is going to happen. All Emily knows is that they are flying away from the home she used to live in since she was 1, flying away from her dad, never coming back.

After they arrived at the city X..

A girl is sitting in front of the window. Her name is Emily. She is one of the survivors of this virus. No doubt, she is lucky, but her face is white and her eyes lack light. She is not a normal teenager. Smiles disappear quickly from her face since she and her mom were transported to this unfamiliar city days before by an airplane. She lost her father, forever, she hates the virus, the virus that broke her original happy, complete family.

Now, Emily and her mom are in a city that has no place on the map. Food is transferred everyday to their room by people in white heavy protection suits and huge masks. There is no more school, no homework and resources are free everyday, but nothing was like before anymore. Emily feels no happiness, not even a little bit.

Suddenly, silence is broken by a piercing cry, which pulls Emily out from her sad memory. She sees a mother running with a baby in her arms. The mother is crying, and constantly screams:“Help! Help”. Her face is pale, her hair is disheveled, and her hands stretch forward in despair that is like trying to grasp someone tightly. No one responds because no one wants to take any risk of exposing themself to the virus, but the baby in her arms has no more crying, he is more like a stone, with his eyes closed, hard straight body and a pale little face. Emily remembered them from the airplane; this baby also had no father anymore.

The mother runs onto the street with no one. Emily started to feel extremely nervous and attracted, she stood up with eyes continuing to follow the running mother and the baby. Everyone knows that they are not allowed to leave their distributed house, any movement of exposing themselves outside is restricted, completely restricted. Surprisingly, Emily sees that the mother is running towards her house. She stands up immediately, runs to the door and puts her ear on to listen to what is happening.

“Can somebody help me! Please! My baby is going to stop breathing, what can I do! Please, let me in, please..” saids in a shivering and hopeless sound.

Emily starts to breathe quickly and puts her hand on the doorknob, just as she was about to open the door, mom’s nervous and sudden voice stopped her. Emily quickly turned her head and saw her mother staring at the door, shaking her head vigorously to her.

“Stop, stay away from the door, come here!”

Emily ran quickly back to her mom and put an arm on her mom’s waist, they both staring at the door, while the continuously knocking sound from outside still can be heard.

“Keep quiet, pretend we are not here, we cannot help them and if they are infected, it is so difficult to contact them!” whispered by mom.

A few minutes later, the sound disappears, and Emily runs quickly back to the window. She saw two white monsters run forward to the mother with the noisy, enormous sound of the alarm starting to diffuse in the whole community; they are found by the investigators! Seconds after, the mother is caught by the two “monsters” dressed in white protection suits, and heavy masks. She is trying to run away, but they rob the baby in her arms. Emily is still watching everything, in front of the window, she feels extremely worried but curious about where the woman goes since she disappears from her view. After a few seconds, she closes her eyes slowly, but tears come down without any control. She hears two gunshots, which is so deafening to hear even though under the big noise of the alarm. But then, silence comes back quickly like nothing really happened.

Suddenly, several black birds are frightened and fly quickly into the grey sky with a bright but husky voice coming out from their mouth.

“Come quickly, Emily, go to sleep!” said Emily’s mom.

Emily dried the tears quickly with her hands. “OK, mom, emm, have a good night, I love you.”

“I love you too baby, don’t be afraid, everything will finally be fine, I am with you, always.”

The city is isolated like a lonely island, no more rescue, no resources, no family, no work, no school, no money, but however, life needs to continue, no one knows what the future will be like, all those survivor’s goal is to survive and be that only 1%……