What Rough Beast | 07 13 20 | Abigail Schreiner

Abigail Schreiner
The Virus

The virus checks its surroundings,
a large house the color of a cloud,
it’s the United States.

The long journey across the land
yet no mercy for any creature,
that dare come in its path.

First, just a handful of victims,
still letting numerous slip through the teeth of danger,
but in no time the teeth sharpen.

Prey spikes as numbers grow,
and soon the kill
doesn’t give off the same adrenaline,
but instinct calls.

Fear, terror, distress
written across each face,
telling each victim’s painful story.

Hospital beds fill up,
people cling to life,
while some take their last breath.

As numbers reach the millions,
deaths creep to the sixty thousand marks,
less and less mercy is apparent.

Supplies run out,
People race for simple objects,
stores become empty metal shelves.

People start to lose hope,
the predator catches sight,
And just like that, the prey takes its last breath.

—Submitted on 05/15/2020

Abigail Schreiner writes: I am 14 years old and an eighth-grader at Pembroke Community Middle School in Pembroke, Massachusetts.

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