Part 3 - The First Month
Opening Excerpt

In the first month after the outbreak of SDC, all the twenty-first century civilized societies had essentially disappeared. Less than one person in every hundred thousand survived. In most cases, the survivors found themselves very much alone. If they could survive the trauma of losing all their family, friends, neighbors and acquaintances, their opportunity to continue living in a completely changed world was quite good. In the short term, the supply of food and other essentials was abundant. The resources of the previously densely populated world were now available to just a very small number of survivors.

This was a completely different “End of the World” scenario than what had been predicted by most twentieth century futurists. There were no hydrogen bombs, no radiation, no famine or drought. Most importantly, there was no violent struggle for the survival of the fittest in a world where insufficient resources were available to sustain survival.

By the end of July, except in some isolated parts of the world, the population of survivors had stabilized. Most of the people who could not stand to live in this new empty world had already died, usually by suicide or by simply losing their will to live.

In this first month, the survivors were mostly picking themselves up and trying to discover how to live in a completely different world from the one they had grown up in. They were also starting to look for other survivors.