I think for a moment and decide to fill Gaz in. But only on what she needs to know.
"Where I'm from, there was a viral outbreak in a city called New York, just over two years ago. They called it "Redlight". The entire city was nearly nuked as a last resort to combat the virus. Very few people know where it came from, and the ones that did were killed. Fortunately, New York was saved, but like all good viruses, it reappeared. First in New Jersey, then Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and so on. The rate of infection was phenomenal, rivaled only by the mortality rate. The only thing that hampered it's progress was its' inability to cross bodies of water, but by then, it was too late. The virus had already been transported to other countries via airlines. Within 3 months, the United States was lost. The virus achieved Global Pandemic status within half a year."
I look intently at Gaz, "Then the virus changed. A lower mortality rate, a longer incubation period. We made a habit of burning the dead, even if they weren't infected. We started calling it "Blacklight". It could take weeks for symptoms to show. When they did, it was too late. The infected became Walkers. They weren't dead, but they weren't alive. They were just angry and hungry. They'd travel thousands of miles, unhampered by fatigue or any other real need. They only wanted to spread the infection. It's like the virus became aware of itself and developed some sort of survival instinct coupled with a need to reproduce."
I take a hefty swig of the scotch. It's not like I can get drunk, but it's nice to pretend. If only to give them something to remember.
"Then came the Runners. Always female. They controlled the Walkers and gave rise to the Hunters. Hunters did what Walkers couldn't. They took insurmountable amounts of damage and gathered people to take back for infection. The ended up developing some sort of hive-mind, all the Walkers, Runners and Hunters connected by what they called 'MOTHER'." I look at the bottle, "As a last ditch effort, the military infected their soldiers with a variant of the virus. Called the 'D-Codes'. They were the only things that could go toe-to-toe with the Hunters, but it all went to their heads. They became barbarians and more dangerous than the infected. The military ended up doing more harm than good... By them time we had organised any attempt at finding a cure, most structures were gone, a chunk of humanity was dead and another chunk was infected. We knew that there was no way to formulate a cure in less than a century with our resources and skills and we knew we wouldn't live long enough to complete it if we started. So we gave up."
I look back at Gaz, "There's no immunity and no hope. Last thing I remember, I was running recon to gather supplies and hive locations to see if they were headed our way. Next thing I know, I'm knocked from my vantage point by a Hunter. I was forty stories up. I landed outside the bar."
The concept of aura's barely registered with me, but remembering all of this caused my aura to truly manifest. An aura of grief, guilt, confusion, loss and the two most dominant feelings of hunger and power...
