a progressive YA dystopian story.
I'll start it off, and you guys can add onto it sentence by sentence. (If you feel inclined to write more, have at it.) Keep it clean, though!
Here's the opening paragraph (which I just pulled out of thin air):
The plague didn't change everyone--at least not at first. Nick was only 14 when the virus was accidentally released from that laboratory in Utah. Now he felt like he was 100 years old.
Go for it! And have a little fun while you're at it.
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To start with, symptoms only showed up in domesticated animals. The closer to humans, the quicker and more aggressive the symptoms were. Like the animals were catching it from their owners. No one wants to see their hamster's fur fall off while the little guy tries to find a way out of his fish tank and attack you. But that's what happened in millions of homes.
Wal-mart sold out of ammunition within hours of that news piece that profiled the pet-store owners. But after a wild cat found its way into the broadcast studios of The Price Is Right, the panic really started. People were shooting and knifing anything that looked aggressive.
Dementia was the worst symptom as the virus sucked years away from its victims.
Nick, so far, was spared, but his mother and father and older sister, Dennie, couldn't remember what year it was, let alone whether milk went on cereal or waffles.
"Please, pass the vaporub," Dad said, knife poised over his dry toast.
Nick handed his father the butter and went online. He had to find a way to stop this.
As usual there was a plethora of hits when he searched, but nothing looked very helpful. Most of the sites were conspiracy theories or personal rants. He clicked through picture after picture of crazy animals, people with underwear on their heads and socks on their hands, kids eating crisco out of the jar. Truly horrifying stuff.
Same people, still sane, had been dealing with their crazy relatives for weeks and months already. Nick knew he couldn't last that long, couldn't fight off rabid German Shepherds while making sure his sister didn't accidentally drink a whole bottle of cough syrup.
Still, Nick felt there was hope. Medical advances throughout the years were promising. So he decided to take action and signed up for a clinical trial with the Dementigone Group. He didn't care if they filled him full of weird drugs, since he wouldn't remember the effects, anyway...
So Nick went to the corporation, a huge building filled with only a few people. "Why are all these rooms empty?" Nick asked the attendant who offered to take him to the doctor giving the clinical trial.
"They aren't empty to those with dementia. They are an illusion of the feeble mind", said the doctor, a wispy-haired dude with a Jack Nicholson complex.
"Tell me, can you see the emptiness, or would you like to be a participant in our trial?" Dr. Dude glared at me with a psycho intensity, and for once in my life, I felt like I belonged.
Nick didn't feel the question needed an answer because he was already dutifully walking a step behind the man. He tried not to look into the empty rooms but there was something comforting in the fact that he actually saw the emptiness. It meant there might be hope for him yet.
The doctor paused finally in front of a closed door painted a pale, vomit color and marked with the word LAB. Nick noted someone had added a finger-scrawled "s" to the front of the sign in something red that glistened stickily in the harsh overhead lights.
"After you," the doctor said.
Nick walked into the room cautiously. To his right was a series of cabinets against the wall. In front of them was a single lab table covered in glasswork: beakers and burners, pipettes and test tubes. A fluorescent green gas oozed from one large, heated flask and into a spiral glass assembly. It seemed to pulse with life.
Sweat beaded on Nick's brow. Breathing rapidly, Nick watched as the doctor slipped on latex gloves.
"Would you please bend over?" The doctor said, snapping the bottom of glove.
Nick was petrified.
"Come now, I am only teasing. I find that humor helps relieve tension." The doctor stared into Nick's eyes.
The doctor added, "Hmm... Well, it usually relieves tension. Regardless, there is nothing to fear. This will be relatively painless. Now just lie down and relax."
Nick did as he was told, though his panic grew stronger. Something felt right about this... too right. Why was he willing to just lie down and be tested on? What was it that made him want to be here?
And that was it. Something MADE him want to be here. An unnatural urge to participate, to belong here.
Nick decided then and there that...
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