Epidemic

"Imagine an important event in the life of your protagonist, something hard to live through, something that had a big impact. Write about what happened from the protagonists's perspective. Include thoughts, reactions, interpretations. Then imagine that your antagonist was at the same even but interpreted everything differently and totally misunderstood how the protagonist reacted. Write about what happened from the antagonist's perspective."

Mors Extra Explanatio was a disease that came to our town when I was twelve. To this day we don't know much about where it came from and that is why it is called "Unexplained Death". We couldn't figure out how it spread and so it was very hard to quarantine it. Once the first symptoms started, a person had about eight hours left to live and no one who contracted the disease overcame it. First a terrible headache started, then chills, a fever, and hives, and it ended in hallucinations. The hallucinations were the worst part because the sick person didn't know that their loved ones were there with them and so they died alone and afraid.

Many different kinds of healers tried to cure the sick but no one succeeded. It was a disease that once it gripped a person, it didn't let go until it had taken her life.

This is the disease both of my parents died from. I watched them writhe in bed, afraid of the dark room they were in when really it was lit warmly and bustling with concerned faces.

The epidemic lasted for three weeks and thousands died. But they were scattered. One and two people in a family. Three on this street. Four on that. It seemed that some of us just had an exemption from the disease. Me and my sister included. It was the hardest time of my life. I had been very close with both my parents and was still a child in many senses of the world. Just a newly orphaned little girl.

When they died, I had to grow up almost instantly. Gwen was the only person I had left who cared about me and she took care of me. But I had to be strong for her too. We were strong for each other.

As the lives of the peasants were extinguished, I assumed the idea that it would just be less people to make problems. New people would be born and would soon replace those who had died. And besides, none of my soldiers were affected anyways. I barely noticed that there were people dying. I was the King, I was up in the castle, rightfully secluded from the death. And besides some of the people who died must've deserved it. Some criminals and wife-beaters must have died as well. So in that way this 'disease' was really more like a cleansing. And it was too hard to stop the disease anyways, even if I had wanted to.