Rhoades - U.G.L.Y

U.G.L.Y

H. A. Rhoades

H. A. Rhoades 2012

H. A. Rhoades has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published 2012 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

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I woke up in a panic. Looking over to the night stand the clock read 5:36 am. What a nightmare, it was so vivid that I could look back on it and recount every detail. The dream was a continuous story that covered days, maybe weeks, so clear that I felt as though I had lived it rather than dreamed it. It was as if I had lived to watch my death. I closed my eyes and began to recount the details. Like a chronological history of a cataclysmic event seen through my eyes as I observed the end of humanity. And it began with the fall of a city.

The Population of the greater Los Angeles area was over ten million when the first wave of infection started. That first wave took out almost 100 percent of that population, and they were all gone within a week. Another one million got sick , eventually becoming hosts that would help the propagation of a fungus that turned most of the remaining population of the world, as far as I could tell, in to hosts or food . No one had any idea if the infection had spread to other continents. M aybe it hadn't, but I believed it would eventually.

The communications we got towards the end were limited and very little information was passed on about any other survivors outside of what was left of our group . It seems likely that it spread to Canada and Mexico . It absolutely had overrun the western United States .

There was some hope for the rest of the world if it was contained before international travelers became infected, although it was doubtful as airline travelers had spread it to major cities inside the US very quickly once the second wave broke out. The infection traveled in a similar way to a SARS epidemic that spread in the early 2000's. Fortunately, the W orld H ealth O rganization managed to get containment and stop international flights before it spread.

The fall of Los Angeles was labeled the first wave because the fungus that had caused the infection was unable to spread initially to other humans. Every victim had gotten sick through drinking the water supply. I speculated often about what led to the poisoning of the city's water. Maybe it was an overwhelming desire to profit. Maybe a need to control the population. O r maybe it was simply an act of compassion to help an ailing society ?

I don't think anyone will know the motivation, but it was clearly human stupidity. My thoughts were always with the idea that it was greed that was the motivating factor. A desperate attempt at selling a product to a population quickly spinning out of control because of increased stresses.

Haste in bringing a new drug to market led to precautions being overlooked that were designed to insure the safety of drug manufacturing. That carelessness led to contamination by a fungus common to the region the drug was manufactured in. A fungus that had previously only affected ants in the South American rain forest, but was able to adapt to humans with the help of a unique delivery method.

At the time the first wave of infection began, a large number of US citizens were on some form of prescription anti - anxiety drug or anti - depressant. General practitioners were handing pills out like candy. I thought it was surprising that someone didn't come up with a cute little PEZ dispenser for the modern versions of Mothers little helper .

The drugs weren t calming people down anymore. Benzo's (Benzodiazapines) which was a common prescription given out was a very dangerous, habit forming drug that required a continuous increase in dosage to maintain. A drug that was almost impossible to stop taking.

Benzo's had the power to destroy a life, spinning someone into a nightmare that there was no escape from. T rapped within your own mind in a hell in which the path to escape is long and excruciating, or quick. If you killed yourself.

Many people didn't make it through withdrawals if they tried to stop. They would often e ither kill themselves or die after going into seizures, or the strain would trigger a heart attack. Many simply would go back to the safety of the drug for the rest of their lives. T he cost was phenomenal because the body acclimates so quickly to drug levels there is a constant need to up the dose to maintain a level of control.

I knew first hand what these drugs did. I had gone through a breakdown initiated by prescription drugs and that was the closest thing to living hell I could ever imagine. I survived it and eventually recovered but the cost was terrible. I lost my family and the impact on my children was devastating.

Many of the drugs approved for treatment of depression and anxiety were developed and sold by large pharmaceutical companies, which made millions, perhaps billions profiting from the misery of their patients. But it was largely what people wanted, they wanted help with their issues and felt they needed drugs to function in their everyday lives.

A new drug company emerged just before the first wave that claimed to have the ultimate solution for depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorders, and all the other behavioral abnormalities that had crept into the human experience by the beginning of the st century. Unu Gallilum Lithium Ytirlum (U.G.L.Y) was advertised as the doorway to a happier life.

A pharmaceutical corporation , F allecimiento LLC. which emerged out of South America , had begun advertising this drug before ever getting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Clinical trials were not completed but doctors and patients were lining up for information and getting on waiting lists to be the first to try it. Even more influential was the impact this drug had on the medical research field, not because of the promised euphoric effects of the drug itself, but rather its unique delivery method.

F allecimiento LLC, had enlisted the use of H-Pylori, a common stomach bacteria, to deliver the drug into the digestive system of a patient. T his concept became popular in research community after it had been adapted to delivering a drug that had a high profit potential, vindicating the work done by an earlier researcher who had been experimenting with using it as a delivery method for anti-viral medications. E ventually this interest would result in a modified bacteria that would carry U.G.L.Y into the digestive tract of an emotionally ailing patient. The drug itself wasn't in question with the FDA, clinical trials showed a success rate that was better than any other drug trial in history. I t was the delivery method that was still being studied.

Interest had grown in testing the potential for the delivery and biologists all over the world were eager to work with the bacteria. What hadn't been considered however was how a contaminant would affect the biological delivery platform. Contamination of a batch of U.G.L.Y with a fungus would initiate a symbiotic evolutionary event. Leading to the end of the human race.

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-Breakdown-

Two years before the initial outbreak I had entered the most difficult period in my life. It all began with a single event that lead to a complete breakdown initiated by a reaction to prescription drugs. I was having a heart attack , or at least I thought I was. In the years before my breakdown I had been working at an IT security firm and spent more waking hours at work then at any other aspect of my life. One spring day I leaned over my computer, stressed, in a daze, and my chest began to flutter and cramp. I was terrified, I left work and drove myself to the hospital, feeling real panic for the first time in my life.

I remember staring at an EKG printout.

Name: Stevens, Duncan . H