The Beginning of the End by Lorana Hoopes (readict txt) 📕

seen them that she had begun to wonder if they’d been a dream, but there behind the most important man in Washington state was a dark shadow. Why was she seeing them again now? And what did one behind the governor mean?

Raven jumped from the couch and retrieved her laptop from her desk. After signing in, she took a deep breath and placed her fingers on the keys. She was about to do something she hadn’t done in a long time. She was going to enter the dark web.

The dark web was not a place she went often. When she was young, its taboo name and reputation had lured her to find it, but once there, she’d been appalled by some of the things she found. Coming from an abusive house herself, she’d been sickened by posts requesting children as if they were property. Raven knew what would happen to those kids if they got delivered to the sick requesters and it was nothing good. Briefly, she wondered if those kinds of posts had fallen away after most children under the age of five and many under the age of ten had disappeared.

At first, Raven hadn’t quite understood why some children had been left behind, but she’d managed to find something about the age of accountability in Kat’s journal. It was as close to an explanation as she could get - some kids reached it faster than others and those who reached it had faced the same opportunity to accept God as she had. They had either accepted Him and been taken with the others or rejected Him and been left behind.

Shaking her head to clear the rabbit trail, she focused back on the task at hand. While the dark web was a hangout for sickos and weirdos, it was also where confidential information sometimes lived. Information that the government didn’t want to get out. And that was what she was searching for.

She began by typing in NCAV though she didn’t think it would be that easy. She was right. A few posts appeared, but they were mainly conspiracy theories about how aliens were behind this. Shaking her head, she scoffed lightly at how aliens seemed to be the catchall for anything not easily explained. She supposed she had once been one of those people, but she wondered now how people could believe in aliens and not believe in God.

Her fingers tapped at the keys as she chewed on her bottom lip. What should she be searching for? Fault? A coverup? What? Suddenly, the image of patient zero filled her mind. He’d been a lab technician in China, but he’d been unable to explain how he’d been infected. In fact, he’d claimed there was a period of time that seemed to be blank for him, though the media had dismissed it as a symptom of the virus. What had his name been?

Liu Wei Chang. Like a firework, the image of his name flashed in front of her eyes, and her fingers quickly typed the correct keys. Dozens of stories filled her screen. She clicked on the first one and scanned it, her fear increasing as she did.

Liu Wei Chang had been seen being pulled into a vehicle the morning of the day he appeared to not remember, yet his employer claimed he’d been at work the entire day. Even more disturbing was the fact that the woman who reported the abduction turned up dead a week later, supposedly from the virus.

Liu, though he had recovered from NCAV, had been placed on medical leave after continuing to speak out about his memory loss and was now being treated at a psychiatric hospital. His family members had disappeared.

Raven blinked at the screen, unsure of what to make of this. Was this some crazy conspiracy theory or was there some nefarious play occurring that no one knew about? Though not prone to follow crazy theories, Kat’s words continued to rattle around in her head.

Could this virus have been planned to allow some savior to rise to power? And if so, were the US leaders accomplices or were they simply pawns in the game being played?

Though she knew Candace wouldn’t have all the answers, Raven also knew she was on the front lines and would at least be able to verify what the media was saying. Hoping that she wouldn’t be busy at the moment, Raven dialed Candace’s number.

“Hello?” Candace’s voice sounded breathless on the other end.

“Is it as bad as they’re saying?” Raven decided to forgo the pleasantries; she knew Candace had caller ID and would know it was her.

“Yes and no. Hold on a second.” There was a pause, a shuffling noise, and when Candace came back on the line, her voice was much quieter. “It doesn’t appear to be as deadly as the media is claiming, but it is certainly contagious. We are working twenty-four hour shifts here without much of a break, but so far, we’ve only lost about ten patients and all of them were over the age of seventy.”

“What happens to the younger patients?”

“For some, it’s little more than flu-like symptoms. A few have come in needing breathing treatments, but generally they’re released in a few days. Something weird is going on though.”

“What’s that?” This whole thing felt weird to Raven, like something out of a sci-fi movie, but she had a bad feeling it was something she would get used to.

“We’ve been giving patients this drug called Ramidil. Basically, it just boosts the immune system to help recognize and fight the cytokine storm that some of the severe patients we’re seeing here have.”

“Okay, pretend I understand all that,” Raven said, jotting down notes to research later. “What’s going on with it?”

Candace’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Well, it’s been helping the patients we’ve been giving it to, but now we’re getting orders not to use it.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. Look, I have to go, but I’ll try to get down Sunday, okay?”

“Okay, stay safe and keep me