The Rage Virus, also known as The Infection or Rage, is an alternate human history of the original outbreak that happened after midnight on 31 October (Halloween) as a bloodborne, virulent, apparently man-made pathogen which causes exposed hosts to fully develop symptoms and become infectious within a matter of seconds, locking them into an indefinite state of extreme, uncontrollable, homicidal, animalistic rage and chronic hemorrhaging as detailing the total collapse of British society within just four weeks starting in November 2002. In the early hours on Friday 1 November 2002 (the day after Halloween), the three animal rights activists broke into the laboratory to release chimpanzees being experimented on, which were infected with the "Rage" virus—a genetically modified agent, often described as an anger accelerator. Ignoring the scientist’s warnings, an activist opened a cage, resulting in an infected chimp attacking the female activist, immediately exposing her to the virus via saliva or blood. She turned in seconds, attacking her comrades and the scientist who had tried to maintain control, spreading the virus immediately. The Infection traveled like wildfire across mainland Great Britain. The virus, characterized by its extreme contagiousness (one drop of blood), induced violent, irrational rage within seconds until the media and authorities initially reported the events as riots or spontaneous violent outbreaks, rather than a pandemic. The virus spreads outward from Cambridge, initially misreported by the media as intense civil unrest or riots. By 5 November 2002, the situation is recognized as a full-scale medical pandemic, with mass killings occurring across Southern England including London from the rest of Cambridgeshire into East Anglia as well as Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex. The reports grew dire, day after day, night after night on 6 November, many UK channels (Sci-Fi, Paramount, Living TV, UK Gold) went off-air due to escalating violence. The Prime Minister Tony Blair declares a state of emergency, but it is quickly overwhelmed due to the massive, chaotic evacuation ensues. Blair delivers a tearful address to the nation before attempting to relocate to a secure bunker. Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family are moved to Balmoral Castle in Scotland, but it is deemed unsafe. They are then evacuated via Royal Air Force helicopter, destined for Northern Ireland, with final plans to relocate to either Canada or Australia. Councillors, police and military personnel fail to contain the infected, who move with blinding speed and rage. The candlelight in the isolated cottage offered a fragile sense of safety from the ruins of London. Major news outlets held out, but all public broadcasting in every satellite channel, including BBC News, ITV News, Channel 4, and Sky News, ceased operations by 11:59 pm on 19 November 2002. Within fifteen days, Britain was completely isolated and quarantined by NATO. By 29 November, the entire mainland was destroyed, with the population either dead, infected, or in hiding, because of the virus that turned the population into mindless, murderous creatures within seconds. While it destroyed the whole country, the virus's inability to survive without hosts led to its burning itself out by starvation, with most infected dead or dying by the end of the four-week period (like any other catastrophic events in British history compared to the Harrying of the North and the Great European Famine of 1315–1317). For Don, his wife Alice, and the four other survivors, the boarded-up windows were a shield against the nightmare outside. They ate in quiet desperation, trying to preserve a semblance of normalcy while Britain starved. Then a sudden, frantic pounding on the door shattered the quiet, through the cracks, they saw a terrified young boy from the village of Sandford outside London, screaming for help as his parents were infected after being chased by the hordes of infected. Don and the others hesitated, paralyzed by the risk, but empathy won. They pulled the boy inside and barred the door shut. The silence of the English countryside had erupted into a chaos of glass windows smashed. The barricades splintered. In seconds, the Infected breached the cottage, moving with terrifying, feral speed. Don watched in horror as the other survivors were overwhelmed and torn apart in the shadows. Don and Alice grabbed the boy and fled upstairs, looking for a way out. They barricaded themselves in a bedroom, but the infected slammed against the door, the wood groaning under their weight, which cornered and helpless against the onslaught, he urged Alice to leave the Boy, but Alice refused, as Don jumped out of the second-storey window, he hit the ground running, sprinting through the overgrown grass of the riverbank. Behind him, the Infected poured out of the cottage, locking onto his movement. Don scrambled frantically toward a small motorboat tied to the dock. He yanked the starter cord again and again as the infected closed the distance, their snapping jaws inches away. The engine roared to life. Don pushed off, the boat surging into the safety of the open water. As he drifted away, he looked back at the shore, covered in blood and completely alone. In the Scottish Highlands, while Jimmy was watching Teletubbies with his multiple siblings before the infected breached in, they were too young to understand what was happening, they attack and infect Jimmy’s mother and aunt first, transforming them into frenzied, bloodthirsty predators within seconds. Before Jimmy could even comprehend the horror, his multiple siblings were mauled by the infected. The living room turned into a slaughterhouse of screaming children and tearing flesh, Jimmy, gripped by a primal terror, bolted through the front window into the cold autumn air. He ran as the infected pursude Jimmy into his father's church, while his father was praying inside. He claimed that those were infected were saved, as he handed Jimmy a gold cross necklace and told him to hide before they broke in by attacking and infect the vicar, Jimmy watched his father from a hiding place which allowed the Infected to swarm and violently infect him, as Jimmy fled the church on foot into the countryside. Operation Rising Dawn was the NATO-led mission to resettle British survivors in a heavily fortified "Green Zone" on the Isle of Dogs (District One) which began on 26 May 2003, after Europe declared mainland Britain free of infection because the original infected had presumably starved to death. The second outbreak was triggered by the discovery of Alice Harris on 29 June 2003, an asymptomatic carrier. Her husband, Don, unknowingly became the first newly infected person after kissing her in isolation, leading to a catastrophic "Code Red" event where the military eventually firebombed the entire safe zone. By August 2003, the virus had completely decimated the resettlement effort, rendering Britain a "dead nation" for a second time. Andy Harris along with his older sister Tammy, another asymptomatic carrier, was flown out of London by a NATO helicopter that eventually crashed in northern France. By late 2003, the infection reached Paris, as seen in the iconic final shot of infected swarming the Eiffel Tower, but drove the infected back to Britain by NATO as they attempt to invade and infect not just France, but the whole of European continent. In 2030, after 28 years of British societal collapse from the beginning of November 2002, the island of Great Britain remained a silent, overgrown graveyard of concrete and rust. The year 2002 had indeed been the end of its long history of 902,002 years, 90,200.2 decades, 9020.02 centuries, and 902.002 millennia, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne acts as a self-sufficient, feudal-style fortress (since the Viking raid in 793). Its inhabitants live a "regressive" existence, strictly governed and physically isolated by the natural rising and falling of the tides on the single connecting causeway. The Rage Virus has not burned out but has instead mutated. "Alphas" are a new, more durable and intelligent strain of Infected that can lead packs and exhibit strategic hunting behavior. Beyond the island, the mainland is occupied by bizarre survivor factions, such as the "Jimmies"—a cult of tracksuit-wearing men in blond wigs led by a man who survived the initial late 2002 outbreak as a child by Autumn (Fall). Dr. Ian Kelson, a philosophical survivor who has built a "temple" from human remains and maintains a strange, "mutually respectful" relationship with the mutated Infected. The story highlights the gap between "Pre-Outbreak" survivors who remember the old world and "post-Virus" children, like Spike, who have only ever known the quarantine era since 2002.