Silver City

By Louise Lake

When a virus breaks out in Silver City, death is inevitable, or is it?
After her death, when Marie wakes up in another’s body, she must fight against all odds to survive. With riots breaking out on the streets and the government pursuing her, Marie makes a life-altering discovery that was never meant to be found …

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781326342081

Louise Lake

Louise Lake is a UK author that writes in a variety of different genres including: horror, dystopian sci-fi, fantasy, young adult, historical romance and poetry. She has had a number of poems published into separate anthologies by United Press and Forward Poetry, and a few articles published into newspapers and magazines such as Take a Breaks Fate and Fortune and her local paper Wakefield Express. Louise has also worked as a writer for the Wakefield Literature Festival, where her story was brought to life by live theatrical performers. She is currently working on a number of books including: Poems For Kids, a sequel to her historical romance debut Arabella, and a number of young adult fantasy books, including a four part fantasy series titled The Three Kingdoms. Her favorite authors include: Stephen King, Darren Shan, R.L.Stein, Paulo Coelho, Rhonda Byrne, Jane Austen, Stephanie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, Casandra Clare, Veronica Roth, Nicholas Sparks, Bella Osbourne and Bella Forrest.

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Silver City

SILVER CITY BY LOUISE LAKE

COPYRIGHT© 2015 LOUISE LAKE

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

LULU EDITION

Cover Design: SelfPubBookCovers.com/Snowmoondesigns

ISBN: 978-1-326-34208-1

DEDICATIONS

I would like to thank all of the following supporters and sponsors of my NaNoWriMo challenge to write this book. A special thank you to Michelle Lake, Eddie Lake, Christopher Lake, Linda Snowden, Tracy Townend, Suzanne Shaw, Sagir Hussain, John Collett, Faesal Fazil, Akki Hussain, Sham Hanif, Sean Ryan, Alisha Hussain and Thomas Hilton for all of your kind donations in supporting my challenge.

A big thanks to Amy Spendelow for all of your help.

Also I want to thank NaNoWriMo for giving me an excellent experience and helping me to learn that nothing is impossible.

PROLOGUE

I have never wondered about my existence. Why I am here or what I was meant for. I just know that I have a purpose- even though I don’t really know what that is.

I live the usual life that any reprogrammed technological advancement would. Some people want to terminate us, but most however, welcomed the idea of a bright new world. Supporting the future existence and further developments of our generation. A world where humans and robots can co-exist as equals, and live together in a new found society is what we all hoped for. But there are selections of religious groups who claim we have no rights, as we are not naturally born into this world like the humans are. The Government tried to resolve this issue with the distribution of free bots to the main conspirators that stood against us.

Racism against the bots however continued rapidly and many of my kind had to be sent in for R and S, known to the population as reskinning surgery, which is at its best a torturous and long procedure. Eventually the world began to settle and the strikes made against us became a momentary weakness of the past.

I married my first human husband exactly one hundred, fifty seven days and twenty one hours ago. He treats me how all bots are to be treated-with respectful commands. We have a rather normal approach towards our marriage-minus any feelings of course, as the humans have no emotions towards us and we have little towards them. Except for the small nagging feeling of accomplishing one’s personal best, on each assignment we are given.

Many call us slaves to the human desire but I liked to think of us as great helpers, as we can do things that humans could only dream of doing. We were all kept under strict supervision by our owners. Each of us wore a plain silver band around our arms that would signal any disturbance within our elements. We always followed orders and did what had to be done as we knew no different, that was until an unexpected collision came that would change our lives and those around us forever…

CHAPTER ONE

DYING EMBERS

~MARIE~

The night before the virus broke out was my first wedding anniversary. It was a special night full of laughter. Friends and family gathered from different sectors to celebrate our night; just in time for our anniversary. It was a special surprise that made everything perfect, for although we did not know it, this would be the very last time that we would all be together. My husband was happy that night, his smile lit up the room like a cathedral of burning candles.

Then the virus came, wiping out the world’s female population one by one. Women all over the globe would become sick and bed ridden, until they began to fade away, like dying embers in the night. At first no one suspected the virus as a global threat, but when more and more patients were brought into the hospitals, the virus was named as a killer.

I was a nurse before all of this happened. I worked in one of the busiest wards of Meadow Park hospital. Every day used to be the same; we would get people in with injuries from work, accidents and general illnesses. We also had a ward exclusively for cancer patients, as cancer was the biggest disease we encountered back then. But nothing on this earth, could have possibly prepared us for what we were about to experience: the Pandora epidemic. Pandora is what they named the virus, as when it began it was like unleashing hell upon earth, straight from Pandora’s Box. We never truly understood how Pandora attacked only the female population, sparing all of the males all over the planet: although men could contract the virus, they were free of symptoms, and instead of ending with a cruel fate such as a woman would, they acted as a carrier of the virus instead.

Pandora started with a fever and night sweats, followed by vomiting blood, paralysis of the body, and eventually every organ failing, until each patient passed away. The smell of death filled the air everywhere I turned, and no matter what we did to extinguish the stench, it would linger on for days at a time. As more women came in, the stench grew overpowering, and we all had to wear a number of face garments, under the masks we already wore, to ensure our safety.

I have always felt mildly attached to the patients I have treated in the past. I believe that every person brought into Meadow Park deserves to be saved. No matter what crimes they have committed in the past, every person should get the chance to start again. Most of my colleagues told me that not everyone is worth saving, but I found this rather contradictive of them, as why would you study years at university and train to become a doctor or a nurse, if you didn’t believe that everyone should be saved, and, more importantly, is worth saving.

I respected my patients and always tried to make them feel as comfortable as possible, no matter if that meant supplying them with an extra pillow, or bringing them a vase of freshly cut flowers out of my own pocket. There was nothing I would not do for my patients, and they always thanked me greatly for it, and when it was time for them to be released home I would say goodbye, hoping to never see them again, as I knew if I did it would be back here.

I never really spent much time at home as I worked seven days a week, most weeks covering other people’s shifts as well as my own. My husband was always considerate, and understood that caring for people was a big part of my life, and he was fine with everything. Although he did worry about me a lot because of the Pandora virus, he liked to make every night we shared extra special on my return home, just in case the worst case scenario became reality. As a nurse, I was trained in maintaining a professional manner at all times and therefore was unable to personally mourn the death of any of my patients. However, one woman’s suffering affected me more than most, to the point that I felt completely heartbroken at her passing. Her name was Sera.

Sera was a gentle soul that had suffered a great deal throughout her life. Her eyes spoke of pain without anyone having to ask any questions, and yet she would tell you all of her stories regardless. She had a kind angelic face with pink rosy cheeks, rose red lips and honey blonde hair. Sera caught my attention the moment she arrived at Meadow Park with her delicate soul. She told me of Victor - the man she loved. She described him as strong but gentle and handsome, with the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen. Sera and Victor should have been married, but their fate was interrupted by her cruel sister. Sera claimed her sister was the jealous type and always wanted to have anything that Sera had, including the man she loved. Her sister tried to seduce Victor, knowing that she was in the early stages of the Pandora virus, but Victor refused her. But Sera’s sister had deeper motives than just trying to steal her sister’s lover, she knew that if she touched Victor then he would contract the virus, and when he touched Sera the consequence would be fatal for her. Sera was the first patient that I couldn’t bear to watch die. She never told Victor that she had contracted the virus, and instead admitted herself straight to hospital, where she was immediately quarantined for further testing. When Sera told me her story I wondered why she would not want the man she loved to be with her on her final days. I asked her why and she simply said, ‘I could not tell Victor because it would destroy him. He loves me so much, and I him but if he knew that he was the one to pass the virus onto me, he would never have forgiven himself. This way he will think I caught the virus elsewhere, and not live in torment with the fact that he killed me’. Sera’s words had me at the point of tears but I still could not help but think that Victor should be here to say goodbye. Nether-the-less, I respected Sera’s wishes and I made her comfortable until the end, holding her hand until she passed.

I felt a terrible sadness after Sera’s death and felt the need of a well-earned day off. I knew that a day off was out of the question though, when fifty two more women were admitted with the beginning symptoms of the Pandora virus. None of the patients that I treated ever died peacefully, or with any inch of dignity left in them. It was a horrible virus that spread, not sparing a single soul in its way.

A couple of months after the virus made itself known to us, it mutated. The mutation sped up the dying process, giving each patient on average up to seven days life expectancy and no more, which was a drastic change from the usual two to three week process. This was devastating news to family’s worldwide, and everyone prepared for the worst. Pandora spread like a cold and anyone could catch it. Although it helped if you had a strong immune system and stayed away from anyone that was already infected, there was always going to be a ninety eight percent chance of catching the virus regardless. I considered myself very lucky to be within the two percent of women that never caught Pandora during its initial spree, but with my job it seemed that it was inevitable that I would eventually become infected.

CHAPTER TWO

GLIMMER OF HOPE

~MARIE~

When I became infected with the Pandora virus, I wasn’t ready to give up. My husband continuously watched the news and searched for any hope of a cure, but there was nothing, despite the government at one point promising the fresh hope of a cure that was within the final stages of testing. The rumours spread far and wide until people began flooding into the hospitals, looking for the cure. I asked around my colleagues, to see if anyone had heard of a real cure that would beat the virus, but nobody seemed to know anything, or they were too exhausted from working twenty four hour shifts on a daily basis. Now that they had lost me and a few other female members of staff, the struggle began. Some people had to be thrown out of the hospital, as riots began to escalate.

Men started fighting each other trying to get into the hospital. Everyone wanted to be the first person to get their hands on the cure that they had been promised by their friends and the government officials on the news. But the cure never existed. Many people had to be thrown out of the hospitals and banished from being with their wives, girlfriends, sisters and mothers, who lay upon their death beds. The violence grew stronger, and groups began to form outside of the hospital. People marched on in circles and as the numbers increased, the groups grew so large that they surrounded Meadow Park entirely, forming an impenetrable barrier of defence. The news anchors continued to tell the same lies over and over again, and problems got so bad that all of the doctors began to flee from the hospital. Fearing for their own safety above their patient’s illnesses, they sneaked out one by one, blending in with the mob outside. The mob, were still anxious for a cure and simply would not understand that there was no such thing. Huge logs of wood were thrown through the windows, which had to be replaced with table tops from the cafeteria.

Meadow Park was eventually abandoned by the mob outside, as they had finally realised the hospitals had no cure. Instead they decided to go after the government. Reports were all over the news of brutal murders by a group they called the Savages. The news station was the next on their list. The savages broke in late one night, when all of the staff had retired to their homes. Upon their arrival the next morning, the savages were waiting for them. It was rumoured that they locked the news station down from the inside out, and butchered everyone in sight. One of the savages recorded clips of the bloodbath, posting them all over the internet with a message- that signalled what was to come: ‘you’re either with us or against us’. All order was lost after that day and a new world began: a world of murder, chaos and destruction. The world was at war with its own people, and the price was far greater than was ever imagined.

The death count rose, with thousands of victims being slaughtered. The savages invaded people’s homes, killing anyone who would not join them. Evidently many joined out of fear. No one wanted to die. The virus was killer enough, without a town full of rebels wiping out the remainder of the population. The ones that didn’t want to join the Savages but also didn’t want to die fled their homes taking shelter on the streets. They lived in the sewers and did what they could to go unnoticed. People say they started living off rats and insects, and eventually were so ravenous that they began eating each other. Whether the rumours were true we will never know.

I convinced my husband to take me home. I didn’t want to die in an abandoned hospital, or anywhere else for that matter. I wanted to be within the comfort of my own home. When it was safe and there was word of the Savages moving out of the city, he brought me home.

I laid in bed trying my best to not show the fear in my eyes, or the pain that took hold of me. I wanted my husband to remember the good days and to not see me like this, but he insisted on being with me in every passing moment. He read to me, fed me, bathed me and made me as comfortable as I could possibly be within this situation. I loved my husband, he was my rock, but when he let a complete stranger into our home I could have killed him - if I wasn’t dying already of course.

The minute I saw the man I feared him. He was of an African origin, around six foot five, with a shaved head and muscular build. He wore a white robe and brown sandals. His neck was mounted with golden neck chains, with what looked to be animal teeth on the end of them.

‘Marie this is Simba, he’s here to help’.

My first reaction was instinctive, ‘what could this man do to help me?’ The Pandora virus was literally invading every inch of my body.

‘Hello Marie I come to help ease your pain. I am a priest and maybe I can help you.’

A priest? He sure as hell didn’t look like any priest that I’d ever seen before. As his face neared my own, I saw the horror trapped within his eyes; this was a man who knew pain, a man that said he could help me, but still I did not believe him. I worked in a hospital before it was ruined, and I saw the many women who were taken by the virus, so there was no way I was going to let this stranger barge into my home, leading my husband astray with the false hope that I could be saved.

‘Dale, I’m sorry but please get rid of him. He is a con artist and has no idea what he’s doing. Please get him out of here,’ I protested.

The man stared at me with a glare of death, before turning to my husband. He put his hand upon Dale’s head. Dale’s body became limp and he swayed before falling onto the ground like a sack of potatoes.

‘What have you done to my husband? Get out of my house!’ I yelled.

I felt like the life had been knocked out of me. As I lost my breath whilst trying to cough, I began to choke as blood spurted out of my mouth. The priest ran over to me, and holding me within his arms he chanted a few words in another language that I didn’t recognise. He then spoke in English.

‘You’re right; I cannot save you. But another will.’