HVE-5

HVE-5, or *'Yellow Flu'* is a part of the newly discovered Parana Virus family, and directly responsible for The Collapse, killing an estimated 5 billion people worldwide.

## Discovery

The Parana Virus family was first discovered several months before The Collapse, when forestry teams in the Parana River Valley first started exhibiting symptoms of an unknown disease. By the time Brazilian health officials had been notified of the epidemic, the outbreak had spread throughout the Parana Province.

## Signs and Symptoms

### Stage One

The time between infection and showing of symptoms, known as the 'Latent period' for HVE-5 can last anywhere between 3 days to 2 weeks, depending on a multitude of factors ranging from environment to the host's health at the time of infection.

Defying traditional conventions of virology, HVE-5 infected individuals become contagious only within hours of infection, despite displaying no symptoms. This stage of the infection cycle is known as 'stage one' and poses the greatest risk to public safety, as an infected individual may go about their daily routines unaware that they've been infected, inadvertently spreading the virus to everyone around them.

### Stage Two

The second stage of infection begins with the manifestation of symptoms, anywhere between 3 days and 2 weeks after infection. The most common symptoms of HVE-5 infection are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, chills, painful coughing fits, profuse sweating, fatigue, confusion, increased aggression, and violent outbursts. As the patient progresses through the second stage of infection, the symptoms will gradually become worse, until the patient falls into a comatose state. This second stage of infection can last anywhere between 2 days and 1 week, depending on a number of factors.

### Stage Three

The third stage of infection is the shortest stage by far, lasting anywhere between a few hours and 3 days. During this stage of the infection cycle, the patient remains in a deeply unconscious state, as the infection reaches the brain. It is here that the patient will either succumb and progress to the fourth stage of the infection, recover, or in a small number of cases, die.

### Stage Four

The fourth stage of infection begins with the patient recovering from their comatose state, and returning to regular autonomic body functions. With large portions of the brain having been attacked by the virus, the infected exhibit extremely erratic behavior, losing the capability to comprehend speech, complete complex tasks, and reason. Despite this, other parts of the brain appear to have been sent into overdrive, such as the fight or flight response center, and the aggression response, leading to the characteristic hyper-violent tendencies of the infected.

## Transmission

HVE-5, as well as the other members of the Parana Virus family, are highly survivable and adaptable pathogens. While it is originally thought that HVE-5 first came to infect humans through a cross-species infection known as a 'spillover event', The Yellow Flu proved to adapt to its human hosts' well, adapting itself to become more infectious.

As it currently stands, it is known that the Yellow Flu can spread from human to human through aerosolized droplets, contact with infected bodily fluids, and even through surface contact, with HVE-5 being known to be able to survive outside of a human host for an upwards of a week.

## Infected Behavior

Despite significant deterioration of mental facilities, stage four infected retain some degree of mental aptitude and self preservation instincts.

Congregating in groups, sometimes referred to as 'hordes', the infected will aimlessly wander through an area, remaining somewhat docile and carrying out basic self preservation tasks, such as eating available food, drinking water, and sleeping. Despite these basic functions, however, the infected lack any sort of ability to differentiate between what should and shouldn't be eaten or drank, meaning that the infected can often times be seen feeding on decaying bodies and drinking from obviously contaminated water sources. Due to this, the infected are known to be carriers of severe illnesses, aside from the Yellow Flu.

Through some means that is not entirely understood, the infected have the ability to differentiate between infected and non infected. Upon seeing a non infected individual, the infected will enter a state of blind rage, pursuing the individual and making broken and disjointed screams and grunts to alert any nearby infected. This pursuit will last until either the non infected person gets away, or the infected catch up and beat the non infected individual to death, utilizing basic strikes, slaps, gouges, and bites to incapacitate their prey.

## The Yellow Flu

During the first month of the collapse, as HVE-5 spread across the globe and panic began to set in, both the CDC and the WHO sought out ways to minimize panic in hopes of reducing erratic and potentially dangerous behaviors to cull the spread of HVE-5. To this end, they began a series of public health bulletins, informing the general public of how to identify a potentially infected individual, what to do should they become infected themselves, and how to keep themselves safe. As part of this public information program, the CDC and WHO started to refer to HVE-5 by its new name, 'The Yellow Flu', in hopes of downplaying the severity of the virus, and making it sound less dangerous than it actually was.

During this time, the CDC and WHO would start to face increasing backlash and public mistrust, after several of their public information attempts would be proven to be false or misleading. Even though large swathes of the population would come to completely disregard the CDC and WHO, the term 'Yellow Flu' still remained in widespread use, even after The Collapse.

## Conspiracy Theories and Controversies

It wouldn't be long after HVE-5 reached pandemic status that several prominent conspiracy theories would emerge regarding the outbreak, ranging from mundane and plausible to completely fantastical.

One of the leading conspiracy theories regarding the outbreak of The Yellow Flu states that the pathogen was actually developed in a lab as a bioweapon, and through some unknown means fell into the hands of eco-terrorists. To add credence to this theory, the group known as 'The Eco Warriors' claimed responsibility for the initial outbreak in the Parana Province as a protest against unregulated deforestation of the amazon rainforest. Although many latched onto this idea, it has never been conclusively proven that the group was responsible for the outbreak.

Other conspiracy theories postulate that the Yellow Flu was invented as a means for population control, with some unknown shadow organization hoping to devastate the global population in order to establish a new world order with themselves at the top. Despite the apparent logical gaps in the theory, it remains one of the most popular ideals regarding the outbreak.