Grid

Whoever started it is both the smartest and most dangerous person known to the digital world. In less than a week this person was able to kill off most of the population that had access to the internet, this wasn’t some picture that made you go insane, or a chainmail letter that actually worked, no this was something far more cunning. No antivirus could protect you against it. After it was in your system no rebooting, no defragmentation could get rid of it, destroying your computer may have been the only solution.

Now you’re wondering how a virus like this could kill so many people. Though it did contribute to many, many vehicle, airplane and train crashes, but that was only the side effect from it. I was working at my local hospital when it first started. We had to monitor a patient’s physical state due to a possible flesh eating virus. As I was watching the camera, I noticed the heart monitor going erratic and half a second later the patient start wailing and flailing all over the bed, no amount of sedation shots could get him under, he died of what we thought was heart failure 10 minutes after we got in.

My first thoughts as I was reviewing the footage was that the monitor must have had a glitch which then sent an electrical pulse strong enough to cause a heart attack. But later lab reports showed he died of brain damage. The monitor, even if it was strong enough to shock someone wouldn’t have that much power. About an hour later all the heart monitors in the hospital were going off, every patient was doing the same just as the first one had. Days later we find out they all died of different causes, heart failure, kidney failure, hell even collapsed lungs, and that was only a few of them. Some of the causes can’t even kill people but they did.

The next day was complete pandemonium, people were coming in sick half to death, and some of them didn’t even make it to the door before dropping dead. I knew right then whatever this was, it was going to become a pandemic if not one already. The CDC eventually got involved; they were as clueless as we were. Eventually they started asking the still living people what they did just before coming in the hospital; everyone said they were on their computers. When asked specifically what they were doing many of them said, after their computer would completely glitch out they would go back to doing what they normally would do, listen to music, watch videos, the typical stuff.

Soon there were over a million cases springing up all over the U.S. unfortunately a lot of the symptoms differed so we had no idea what was what. Then cases were appearing in the U.K., Russia, Japan, China, any place that had technology. The CDC came to the conclusion that it must have been something the electronics were made with, and honestly that was the best answer at the time.

The mortality rate of this sickness was higher than anything else, if you got it; you only had maybe a few hours left in you. The virus was later named ‘Grid’ due to people only getting infected when using something electronic. A global statement was released that highly recommended people who weren’t yet infected to stay away from anything electronic. Computers, phones, t.v.s, even speakers.

One thing stood out to me in all this chaos, people who lived without electronics weren’t getting infected, a crazy idea spawned in my mind, I told myself over and over that it wasn’t possible but it was the only thing I could think of.

What if that day in the hospital when the heart monitors went crazy, what if a computer virus unlike anything we have ever seen was able to go from the monitor into the patient? The monitors are connected to the hospitals computer network; it could have slipped by so easily. It would explain why the effects are different for everyone; it would also explain why they all died of different causes. The virus was created to target different parts of the body so it couldn’t be traced as easily.

The day I figured this out was also the day that most of the population that was connected to the internet died out. And what of the people who didn’t get infected? Well that virus must be able to mutate as well because it can spread through blood to blood contact. I don’t know if this is just irony or some cruel realization, I guess the best antivirus was to never need an antivirus. Well this computer I’m typing on is infected therefore I most likely am too, I estimate I’ve got another good hour or so, I think I’m going to go off the grid for once in my life. See what the computer screen has been blocking my view from all these years.