Marcellus

Marcellus yawned, blinking open his eyes.

He sat up, looking around his dark warehouse. There was dust over everything and the weak sent of mildew lingered in the air. Stretching, he stood, wondering to the bathroom. He showered, detesting the smell of a dead corpse and sprayed lots of deodorants on after before getting dressed. He put on his coat as he walked out the door into the cold night, heading towards the library.

A common misconception about vampires, we don't really sleep during the day. We're dead. We don't need to sleep. We sleep when the century gets bored, and wake roughly 10-100 years later. He guessed he'd slept for, ow, 20 years?

Anyway, walking into the library he asked the librarian, another vampire, to point him to the history section. It was always moving. Humans could never leave good things be. He wandered along until he found it, grabbing a few magazines and sitting down. Curiously he began to look through.

Someone named after a colour had become a great hit singer. Pink.

A thing called "Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill" happened. He hoped his cousin was ok.

More terrorist attacks. Did those idiots ever die? Like, really die.

A peach had gotten into the white house. That was just weird

And the queen of England was still alive. Figures.

He was beginning to look through fashion magazines to see what the changes were when he overheard a girl talking to her partner about something called Carona. The girl had long black hair and wore long bluey pants and a black shirt with only stings over her shoulders. "There were over 28 000 cases of the virus in Australia, and over 900 people died."

Her friend nodded. "Yeah, but America had it worse. They had over 18 million cases and 314 000 deaths."

The blonde-haired girl shook her head. "2020 was hell on earth. Donald the peach did not help."

He wondered over, sitting down beside them. They both looked at him awkwardly as he said, "tell me everything."

They looked at each other. "I'm sorry, but... do we know you?"

He shook his head. "Unlikely, now, tell me what happened in the year 2020."

They looked at each other for a moment before shrugging. "Schools shut down."

"Which wasn't so bad," her companion said.

She smiled slightly. "Quarantine?"

"Horrid wifi was so bad," she complained.

The girl chuckled before turning to him. "Many died, buried in mass graves."

"How did this virus start?"

She shrugged. "No one's entirely sure. It WAS made in a lab. We know that because of its perfect circular structure, which is also why it's so hard for our immune systems to fight it. We're not sure if it was China or America though. China refused to let anyone into Wuhan, where the virus started, to investigate."

Her companion packed up her things. "I got to go. I'll see you later."

She nodded, watching her friend go. "What is your name?" Marcellus asked.

"Emma," she answered.

"Emma," he murmured, testing the name. "Tell me more about this sick year."

She tilted her head. "It was a global pandemic. Everyone but essential workers were locked inside their houses, not allowed to come out. Netflix and other movie channels were used so much that during the day, you couldn't watch one episode of Lucifer without it lagging a hundred times."

Marcellus became horrified. "How can the wifi be so bad?"

Emma shrugged. "It's Australia. Anything is possible."