Genus: Evolving

Tony panted. Each step was agony. His body felt like it was on fire, burning and stinging at the same time.

Warm blood was flowing and his thoughts began to feel heavy.

He walked past buildings without power. Houses and businesses, buildings were losing power all over the city and no one knew why. Their preoccupation with their food in their refrigerators going back, or that their phones weren’t working kept anyone from noticing Tony’s desperate need for medical care.

Finally, he reached the police station, and struggled to open the door.

An older woman was chatting with an officer at the front desk, “Young man, listen to me,” she was saying, “the farmers around the farmers’ market are all saying their chickens are disappearing; it’s too many for some animals. They have to be stolen.”

“I understand your frustration, ma’am, but we simply don’t have the resources to search neighborhoods for lost pets.”

The woman and the officer’s awkward conversation was brought to an abrupt end when Tony started to feel his body seize up from the spine down.

“I got bit…”

The officer called for a medic.

“Sir, what happened?” the officer asked loudly. His voice sounded distorted.

“There is an animal on the road. I thought maybe it was going to get hurt, so I tried to get it off the road,” Tony explained frantically. “It bit me.”

“Where was this animal?” the officer asked.

The medic arrived, also asking what happened.

“Everything hurts, obicer… and erm cent… si”

He abruptly lost consciousness, falling to the ground with a loud thump. He was immediately unresponsive before the medic was able to check his status.

“Weak pulse, beginning CPR,” the medic immediately declared. He promptly began chest compressions.

Within twenty minutes of the ambulance being called, Tony was pronounced DOA at the hospital. And without the animal that bit him being found, a full autopsy was ordered and a toxicology panel was to be run by the county medical examiner.