October 2019 NaNo Prep

Oct. 26: - CONTEST ROUND: Plot Background Story

Welcome to the twenty-four hour emergency radio broadcast. We will be updating you on anything and everything going on in the region as well as giving you hints and tips to help you survive, letting you know where you can go and which areas to avoid. Our factions will send updates on any events they may be hosting or for those who may need help. But as this is our first ever broadcast we need to introduce ourselves and update you all on what is going on around Canberra and the surrounding areas. But I think we need to start this by talking about how all of this started; we don’t know all the specifics or the very beginning. So we can only start the story from when we realized what was happening and when it started affecting the general public.

I remember the first YouTube video; it went viral worldwide, over night. It was shared on all sorts of social media as well as the news stations, and then more and more videos popped up from other areas of the world; soon it was all you saw broadcasted. But let’s discuss the first one that brought this tragedy to light. It was recorded in London; Hyde Park to be exact. It starts off like you would expect for a beautiful sunny day, a young father is recording video of his children riding bikes for the first time. You can hear him behind the camera cheering them on. Then the screaming begins and the camera turns to face where the screaming is coming from. He zooms in on the commotion. It looks like a staged scene, a flash mob or publicity stunt. That was the initial reaction, at first at least. A group of five people looked like a typical ‘fresh’ zombie from a movie as they limped their way towards a group of playing children. Blood was smeared all over their clothes and faces. One of them had a mangled arm; the bone was protruding from the skin, and another was dragging their intestines along behind them.

The gore and horror had the children running to their parents sides and adults were seen fleeing from the scene. You can hear the young man’s children crying at his side and then their mother speaks. She picks up the younger child and instructs the father to pick up the older one. The camera flickers all over the place as he picks the child up, then it stabilizes back onto the group of zombies shuffling their way towards the screams. He whispers to the child to close their eyes and not look at what’s happening. One guy goes toward the group, you can see he’s angry as he yells at them that they aren’t funny and need to stop what they’re doing as children are present and they’re scaring them. He gets no response except now the five people have turned in his direction. One of the group lunges and misses him; he stumbles backwards, caught off guard by the sudden movement. Then a second lunges, catching his arm. He screams and rips his arm out of their grip, but by then it’s too late. They had surrounded him. The camera lingers long enough to watch the first bite and blood spraying everywhere. Then the young man swears and that’s when the recording ends.

The first comments on the video are from people saying things like ‘cool effects bro’ and ‘why would you do that in front of children?’ but then other videos start to surface, there were a couple more of that area from different angles, from different people recording what was happening at Hyde Park. Then there are videos from news stations in different parts of the world. All the disbelief is now suspended as news crews begin to report stories instead of the general public. And now people are scared, some try to flee, others board themselves up inside their homes. Looting and rioting now begin as people are attempting to survive, but this is also very dangerous as groups of people fight with each other over the supplies being looted, this causes the number of zombies to grow as people are killed, either purposely or accidentally by getting caught in the crossfire.

And now, here we are, civility has mostly returned, with the help of the military and armed forces, but emergency services are no longer active. Please be aware of any hazards, especially fire as it can destroy everything very, very quickly. A football stadium can be destroyed within minutes. Take precautions, have emergency packs and first aid items close by at all times. We don’t want to add to the unfortunately growing zombie population. Well that’s it for this segment; we’ll take a short break, and be back after this song. Stay safe and above all else, destroy the brain!