August 29th, 2089 Lawrence, Kansas
One of the most normal things in the world is feeling. Be it for a person, for an object, and even for the simplest action like feeling the wind as you run, or eating your favorite ice cream. In 2089 a new disease spread throughout the world, a far more powerful and annihilating disease than the last. The Decline carried away many lives and also what moves the world, love.
The n99 gene plays an important role in this period of time. Five years ago came out the first case of the Decline, affecting 40% of the female population.
Little by little the women were disappearing from the face of the earth, and at the same time almost all of humanity was infected by a mortal disease like this one. Months and months are when scientists try to figure out what it is that affects people’s emotions, but so far the only clues we have is that this gene affects the limbic system which is the area of the brain that directs our emotions and our most primitive sensations.
As a result of the percentage of female deaths, the government took action and locked the few women in bunkers, isolated from the world and from human contact, where they could be safe from the disease. Two days ago was my 21st birthday. I sneak into the woods taking refuge from the search troops the government deploys weekly to make sure no unauthorized women are outside.
Free neurological tests are performed every 3 months to monitor the population and look for signs of feelings in people. The last person who showed evidence of feeling was taken to the labs and made him a test rat. I didn’t understand much about what was going on, I’ve been hiding and sheltering for a year.
I woke up in an abandoned hospital, apparently I was in a coma for the last 5 years and something in the drugs I was given made me immune to the gene spread by humanity. I’ve searched in that hospital to the point of exhaustion for notes or something to guide me to what made me immune.
I’ll keep a record in this journal in case anything happens to me. I’ll write a note every day and if the pages are blank they found me.
By Natalia Sanabria, Step 9 Blue
