We interrupt our programming; this is an emergency. Important instructions will follow…

  This is an alert from the State Government of New York, directed towards the citizens of New York City. We can confirm unidentified creatures have launched attacks throughout the boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx. They are concentrated around the hospitals, but sightings have been recorded throughout these districts. Manhattan and Bronx are now off limits. All citizens within 10 miles of the boundaries of these boroughs are to be evacuated, specifically within the Boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn and the county of Westchester.

  To all citizens within Manhattan and Bronx, remain in your homes. Do not panic. NYPD personnel are being deployed alongside the National Guard. Do not use your telephones and keep the lines clear. Avoid the creatures at all costs…

  Emergency Alert System Broadcast on the 18th of February, 2012. Seven minutes later, Ferals are reported within New Jersey state boundaries…

  In the days leading towards the outbreak, a series of attacks would be launched on major population centres, with the first reported cases being within New York City and Washington DC. Launched during peak times at public gatherings or facilities, where the numbers of people were at their greatest. The attacks themselves were calculated and swift, with communication lines and security systems being cut or shut down shortly before these ‘offensives’ began.

  With the loss of these security measures, the attackers made a move to target the public with significant force, leaving hundreds to thousands injured. However, unlike most terrorist attacks recorded throughout history, these attacks did not claim the lives of any of the victims, although several were horribly maimed and in terrible condition. With a lack of reliable footage, most evidence had to be collected from eyewitnesses to the attacks themselves. Much of this was conflicting evidence and understandably, the shock and fear the people were suffering from made these reports seem unreliable at best.

  However, many victims claimed that the attackers were large, hulking beasts comparable to canines in some form or another, with some even going as far as to call them werewolves. These descriptions were highly varied however, some were noted as being bipedal, others quadrupedal. Even the condition of the attackers themselves was not clear. Couple that with the previously noted fear and shock present amongst the victims, and it led to much scepticism and ultimately, the initial dismissal of the true nature of the perpetuators, outside of some kind of elaborate, violent act. The only singular link between them was the tendency of the attackers to bite their victims, instead of relying on firearms or knives.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  As the injured were triaged and sent to hospitals within New York and DC, other attacks were reported within hours. However, hopes that this would be an ambitious, small-scale and American centric assault were dashed as these incidents were occurring on other continents. Paris, Berlin and Beijing suffered near identical attacks, again receiving mixed statements from eyewitnesses on the actors behind these actions. By the following day, Tokyo, Chicago, Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro experienced the same event, amongst many other cities.

  As stated before, these attacks were calculated. Spreading panic and confusion around the world due to the nature of these attacks, and dragging attention away from the original victims in the process.

  What we know now, is that these attackers were likely the first of the Ferals, and the victims of these attacks would have been the first of those infected by the Retrovirus. Unknown to the wider public, many of the original victims began to show increasing signs of sickness, aggression and physical changes. These victims soon became the first Ferals known to the public, and on the 18th of February, 2012, they broke out of the hospitals and launched surprise raids on the cities they had originally called home.

  Using terror tactics, these creatures – at the time still unnamed – were able to infect significant portions of the city population where they struck, leaving the human defenders in a state of disarray. Some countries saw the writing on the wall and attempted to cull their hospitalised victims in order to prevent the transformations. However, more packs of Ferals made their play, launching sudden attacks as a distraction, whilst others kidnapped the surviving victims to deny the security forces a chance to stop these outbreaks before they started. That being said, the presence of these Ferals all but confirmed that they were already present in significant numbers

  Despite the efforts to maintain a quarantine in those cities, the Retrovirus – at this point still not fully identified – spread at an incredible rate, killing or transforming many of the desperate survivors of the outbreak zones, bolstering the Feral’s numbers. They took full advantage of the chaos and a rapid breakdown in law and order to further expand their holdings within the cities. Other attacks and outbreaks erupted globally, marking the full start of the Retrovirus Outbreak. In some locations, Ferals were breaking out of the infested territories and into new population centres, triggering new outbreaks in their wake.

  Security and home defence forces were swiftly mobilised and rushed to the quarantine zones in an attempt to contain the attacks, not understanding the nature of the Retrovirus and it’s spread. At any other time, organised governmental and military units may have been able to contain the infected and prevent it’s spread to the wider population.

  Unfortunately, as defensive lines were drawn up, forces were spread thin and some offensives were launched into the quarantine areas, this turned out to be exactly what the Ferals had been hoping for…

  An Overview of the Retrovirus Outbreak, as written by an unnamed human survivor.