The Manifesto

[The Killing Joke 43]

"Life's too short..."

That's what my father told me, right before the sickness took him. I'd like to think that he would have been able to prepare me better for what would come next. The looting. The killing. The... death.

It's been almost a month now, and my heart is hardening. I used to believe that I had seen everything in this world in my travels, but nothing prepared me for what happened when humanity fell in upon itself. I thought I had seen everything evil under the sun. But, when brother turned on brother, father on son, I realized that all that was good with the world was now gone. Just, gone.

There is no humanity left to speak of. Sure, you could argue that the rag-tag groups that run through the cities are surrogate 'families'. You could tell me, "at least, there's hope" and I'd probably tell you where you can stick your so-called hope. See, I've seen the hope, the very life, drain from a man's eyes... Watched him turn from man to monster in a matter of minutes.

Hope is what I had in my heart when my father changed. Hope that he would just die quietly. Hope that whatever soul he might have had would be saved from the living death of the sick, decaying carcass that took him from me.

I hoped he would be spared. Hope is a fairy tale. A fleeting memory of when we had ... something. Hope is dead to me. There is only survival now.

"Life's too short..." That's what my father told me, right before the sickness took him.

Minutes before I put the bullet in his head.

Time to survive.