I could tell by everyone's faces that they were afraid. Afraid of what was going to happen if or when they found out where they were hiding. They gripped their weapons and tried to act as positive as possible in such a dire situation. One person was sitting in the corner of the basement, shakily lighting a cigarette. Another was busily counting through the money that they looted from the bank a day or two ago. A body lying still in the corner of the room with a bullet in their head. Outside the cellar we could hear glass shattering, gunshots and the screams and cries of citizens being executed by vigilantes intent on killing anyone they thought had contracted the virus that they wrongly believe is deadly.

A month ago it wasn't like this. Back then it was only a small rumor that 'Influenza 5' was sweeping its way across America. Soon after the virus was reported in New York and Texas, the government sounded a statewide alert with the fear it may start a pandemic. In San Francisco, normal citizens turned into bloodthirsty animals and started executing as many people as they could with the fear that they carried the virus. Hell, not even the police could control it. Even half of the police force started killing people. Even factions of people have been formed, all vying to kill each other. What was once a beautiful city has been transformed into buildings of billowing smoke and decaying bodies littered in the streets.
The virus never reached San Francisco.  But the city can't return to the way things were. Not now, anyway.

He stood outside the hospital; standing amidst the chaos, holding the detonator in his hand. He took a quick, short breath. Sweat drops rolled down from his nose, dripping onto his upper lip. Groups of people around him were chanting, waiting with the blackest of eyes, the most evil intentions. He shut his eyes. He pushed down on the handle and in a split second there was an ear shattering roar before the hospital began collapsing, fire cascading out of the soon to be ruins. Everyone shared a moment of silence. The one person in that supposedly 'had the virus' was gone. Crushed underneath the piles of rubble and twisted steel. Nobody knew what was coming. They'd all had a taste of brutality and murder. They couldn't stop now.
The chaos resumed.

It was clear what I needed to do; either conform to brutality and monstrosity or call myself noble and rot in this basement with all these people, covered in blood, cradling weapons they have surely used to take another life…. They are no better. No better than the people in the streets. I stood up and began walking towards the cellar door. The desperate screams and yells of the people trying to protect themselves are trying to stop me. I ignored them, lifting the rusty bar holding the cellar doors shut. I walked outside and breathed the air. The others shut the cellar door behind me. I heard the bar go on the door once again. I turned around; taking a step forward into the chaos… the chaos…