Un Desiderio, one wish

ûImagine... a world without adults.
That's exactly what happened the winter of 2012.Perhaps it was the pursuit to cure cancer or the efforts to vaccinate the world but, somewhere along the way, a wicked strain of influenza erupted. America, as it always has, thought itself untouchable as the virus ravaged the rest of the world. It was the Bird Flu all over again. At least, until it showed up in their backyard. Once airborne it spread like wildfire, but there seemed to be a bit of an anomaly with this virus: it only targeted adult immune systems. The virus couldn’t thrive in bodies that were still growing. For awhile, life continued normally. Adolescents still went to school; however, fear was growing as their parents became sick and were hospitalized only to die a couple of weeks later.

The world as adolescents knew it was collapsing. Anarchy erupted in cities all across the nation and there was no way to save oneself from this catastrophe. Even before all the adults were deceased, there were adolescents who wanted to take over. They had recognized this catastrophe for what it was and knew that, eventually, they would be the only ones left. Within six months, there was no one over the age of twenty-one left alive. The world had collapsed. Adolescents whose days once consisted of homework, video games, take out dinners and hot showers were now struggling to survive. There was no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no doctors, and no supermarkets.

These adolescents began to band together into groups to survive. In the death of a culture they had always known, a new one formed. These groups became an entity and called themselves tribes, and the most powerful tribe got the most food – that’s how it worked. They bullied, raided and destroyed the smaller tribes that couldn’t run, hide, or fight otherwise. Canned food, bottled water, and batteries became currency. Life as they knew it was history.