Nature is a beautiful aspect of life. Though man can attempt to imitate this beauty through arts, science, and various other means, nature is something that can just not be recreated. Unless, of course, this beautiful piece of nature decides to reproduce itself. Whether by complicated or simple ways, a piece of nature can make itself live on even past its own death. 

These natural beings that live and reproduce are beautiful, no matter if they are considered literally beautiful or not, whether they reproduce enough, whether they live long enough, whether anything at all. Beauty shall always arise.

There is an exception to this beauty, however. That exception is the disease.

Though the disease may seem to be just like the beautiful beings of nature, it deviates in its actions. It can make these eloquent and heavenly beings into ugly, ugly creatures. This disease, this ugly, ugly little creature, spreads its ugliness around to other creatures so that all may be ugly just like itself.

 The disease is inherently disgusting. 

 The disease is inherently wrong.

 The disease is inherently evil.

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These beautiful trees, though, looking out into the forest are just so nice. Television has got a lot, but these trees just keep on offering. I saw a squirrel fall out of the tree once, and it landed right on its feet. It made me think of myself turning into a squirrel, jumping down, doing a somersault midair, and then just landing on my feet as if I was one of them.

It’s a nice distraction from all the chaos of life. Just sitting here, watching nature. It makes me forget all of my problems, and I just feel a sense of peace.

The news? Oh, you mean about the quarantine, don’t you. It is pretty scary, being shut out from the outside world. I wouldn’t worry too much about it, the exclusion zone barrier should only be up for a couple more days. I’m sure ol’ Slick Willy’s got it under control.

The infection is pretty terrible in hindsight, I guess. It’s kind of weird having an outbreak named after your home county, am I right? I bet we won’t get many tourists after this one! Not like we would’ve gotten any tourists anyways here in nowhereville, United States! Anyways, I don’t think the ones who got cured would be pretty friendly in the weeks after this is all over, am I right? I’d be a pretty cranky guy myself if I had just been shoved in my home for days on end and not let out.

What? Have I seen one of them?

…

I don’t really want to talk about it.

Do you hear that? In the distance. That beautiful birdsong. Nature is beautiful, isn’t it? Us humans, we have to practice our songs, train our voices, make instruments and do so much. These birds? It just comes completely natural! Imagine if everybody was going around singing like Vince Gill! Singing their mating songs like this : “don’t let our loooove start slippin’ away”! Wouldn’t that be hilarious?

Hm? Oh yeah, I did hear about that. That big fire last night on the highway between here and West Point. Yeah, it was pretty awful I heard. It burned the entire night long from what I saw. I’m surprised the fire department never, well, showed up. In fact, my friends at the fire department haven’t said a word in a while. I guess they are the only people to bring the sick to the clinic downtown. It’s a miracle that a wildfire didn’t start. I don’t think anybody died, but whose to say?

You saw one of the people from the fire? They must’ve been fine if they could just walk it off as if nothing had happened.

Their face was covered in burns? You mean like, third degree burns? And they didn’t even flinch or wince? Not even a little bit?

Their face was blank?

…

You know, West Point is a weird name for a city, you know? I mean, it’s already a military academy about 800 miles away, so why would you name your city after it? I mean, come up with something original, am I right?

Hey, we were never off track, so there is no need to get back to the question if there isn’t one. Now, back to what I was saying about West Point.

I am not dodging any questions. I never saw any of the sick people. Let’s-

Alright pal, now you’re really starting to piss me off. I don’t want to talk about the sick people anymore and I think I’ve made that clear. Can we just move on?

I saw NOTHING! I don’t know what you’re trying to get at, but you’re not clever or anything, you’re just being a complete ass about this, just leave me alone!

JUST SHUT UP, OKAY?! I’M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED, DO YOU GOT THAT?! SO NOW WILL YOU-

Will you…

…will you…

…

…listen.

I saw one of them, alright. One of the sick people. He was just walking down the street and that’s it, ok? I don’t really want to go further into it.

…Well, I… I feel as if I need to go a bit deeper into it.

The infected guy, his face was just so blank. But it wasn’t blank at all. There was so much emotion that was behind it. Yet the face was just so…

…dead?

I see that he is limping a little, and walking a bit off, so I call out to him, “Hey man, are you okay?”.

He suddenly whips his head around and stares right at me, and…

…his eyes. There was nothing in his goddamned eyes. His pupils were there and everything looked normal, but there was not a single thing behind those eyes. It was as if I was looking into the eyes of a ghost.

I kind of froze for a moment and backed off because I was pretty terrified. This guy, however, doesn’t even take a moment to process me, and just turns his whole body around. And then I saw his…

his…

…you know when you have, like, a cheese sandwich and you pull it apart? Like, the strings of cheese between the slices of bread? …or like a stuffed animal that was ripped and the part is barely hanging on? His arm was…

…he began to trot towards me. He wasn’t walking very fast, but he was walking fast enough for me to be horrified. I tell him to back off, but he just keeps coming. I told him to get back but he kept walking as if I said nothing.

Then, this guy, he grabbed my arm, and he tried to…

…bite me.

Instinctively, I punched him in the face, and this guy clawed me so hard he left scratch marks. I backed way far backwards and I pulled out my weapon. I told him that if he gets any closer, I will shoot him. He keeps walking, as if he didn’t understand a word I just told him.

I call out to him again, “get back or I’ll shoot!”. He continues.

I tell him if he takes another step, I’ll blow his head off.

He kept walking…

… and I shot him.

He flew backwards and onto the pavement. His body laid cold upon the concrete. The guy looked like he was dead.

Until his arms moved, even the one that… he pushed himself back upwards and onto his feet. I could see the hole the bullet traveled through, right through him. And he just kept walking.

This was no guy, no person or human. Not anymore, at least. Do you understand what I’m saying? This wasn’t a man as much as he was a ghoul. I could look into that guy’s eyes, but I wouldn’t be looking at him.

Right then and there, I just brought the gun up again and kept firing. I didn’t stop firing. Shot after shot after shot. After I emptied the case, the man fell on his face and stopped moving.

…

After I took him down, I just kind of… stood there. Staring. He sat still as he was spread out on the ground. I got down and just went to look at his face, though I didn’t really know why.

As I got closer to his face, I saw the strange paleness his face had. His skin was covered in bumps, scabs, and it looked like his skin was peeling off. He was probably the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen.

… 

His eyes were closed, and out of morbid curiosity, I wanted to see them. So, I pulled up his eyelid.

The eye was looking downward, away from my eye, and the red veins were all pale, like dead vines.

Yet, as I looked down into his eye…

…his eye…

…

…looked right back up at me.

…