Day 1,749

The whole world was nearly wiped out by a reemergence of the great plague. The media quickly called it "The End of Days" and the world flocked to religious sites to beg for salvation or a quick death - though the latter was far more likely.

When it settled, things went back to normal surprisingly fast... suspiciously fast. Countless towns and industrial-based cities were left utterly uninhabited and yet their production didn't suffer. There was no change in their input or output, though the houses all around were empty and nearly every door had a large X sprayed onto it.

The survivors were too busy being grateful that they'd made it out alive to bother looking into the source of all of their resources. By the time they did, there wasn't much they could do to help and they didn't really want to do something that might jeopardise their comfortable lives.

So they laid flowers by the gates and prayed while the semi-lifeless husks of the infected worked day and night with no breaks while great cables drove electricity to the relevant muscles and fed enough oxygen to their brains to keep them moveable and functional as fleshy cogs in an uncaring machine.