The Hot Zone

I decided to grab a book one day. I mean why not have a good read every now and then right? Browsing the tall brown bookcases, my wandering eyes abruptly stumbled across a tall, thick black book. The mysterious book carried no name, as the cover was completely black and peculiar, an outcast within the swarm of library books. “Pick me if you dare”, it’s appearance shrieked, and so I did.  A couple pages in and my thoughts were vague, lost in the abyss of black ink typed across the pages, I yearned for entertainment. Then it began, the excitement, the suspense, the GORE! Tales of horrific fevers plaguing the world such as Marburg and Ebola, slaughtering victims with ease, sickening them with symptoms such as blood spewing from orifices on the body, liquified organs, black vomit and rotting skin. Discovering real life encounters, scientist within the book recall the appearances of rare and lethal viruses and their “crashes” into humanity. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction.  

Scientists analyzing and studying various cases of outbreak, one individual stood out the most, Charles Monet, a lonesome Frenchmen Traveling to Kenya in hopes of exploring a more exotic canvas, Monet eventually met a woman who he found staggeringly, beautiful. A promiscuous relationship, the two exchanged money for sexual pleasures up until Monet’s departure. A difficult flight back to France, the man began to feel ill, seemingly with a steamy fever until… Black vomit began to explode from his nose and mouth, violently entering the brown paper bag he now held in his shivering hands. The flight attendant cleaned the mess that missed the bag… (Yep she’s definitely got the cooties). After arriving home, Monet continued to exhibit flu like symptoms until one day the feeling was unbearable. His organs burned, his bones screamed with agony, and his stomach felt like a mosh pit, as he stumbled into the hospital like a zombie. Waiting in the emergency room for 30 minutes, Monet felt as if his body would explode, just spew into the air like a malfunctioning chocolate fountain. Maintaining his silence, Monet was entering the last phase- the explosion of the human virus bomb. Like a bed sheet ripping, Monet’s bowels along with blood leaked from his anus as his stomach (yes, the actual organ) began to follow. Black vomit spewed from his nose, the dark specks in the vomit resembling ants scattered across the hospital floor. Blood leaked from each of his orifices as his body continued to crash, his organs removing themselves, running from the infected host one by one. This was the beast known as Marburg, failing to spare its victims, crushing them with an incubation period of 2-21 days with a survival rate of 24-88%… Yea so watch where you put your private parts and lips and just your body in general. No telling what type of virus someone can be carrying. Btw, cases of Marburg are not only relevant in parts of Africa but also have been identified in the US, Canada to be exact. The last case was reported in 2009! Viola, you are now a germaphobe!