Editing Raphael's Personal Journal (section)

== ENTRY 1 ==
Today I coughed.  Not a Smoker's Cough.  Nor a Post Nasal Drip Cough from allergies.  And not a cough from something in the air.  This was the beginning of a Sick Cough; that first cough with that slightest of feelings in the back of your throat and that slightest of an odd taste in your mouth and that slightest of feelings in your chest. The cough most people ignore.  The first symptoms most people ignore or deny. The day of denial for most people. But not me.  I knew better. This was Day One.

TODAY, I coughed. After making it all the way through the Deadliest Pandemic in Human History (I think), and remaining totally symptom free for over 2 years, through the mass deaths and breakdown of society and government, through the pure chaos of the Human Race's last defiant actions in the face of the end of all things and a hellish death, all the way to the literal end; the end of civilization and very possibly the end of the Human Race... and TODAY, I coughed.

It has been well over two weeks, possibly a month since my Best Friend died; I buried her in the backyard.  I still wear her eye necklace; memento mori.  Which means it's been even longer since my certain exposure to the Omega Variant; the deadliest and most virulent variant of the New Virus.  Which means I should have been symptomatic well before now, if I wasn't somehow resistant or immune.  

I didn't waste time trying to decide if it was or wasn't the beginning of the end, instead, I packed up everything I had prepared for my departure with the Poodle Boys. After the death of my Best Friend, I knew we wouldn't be staying in this apartment any longer than necessary.  I had been making forays out to scavenge what I could, where I could, getting what I thought I might need to survive once I left the apartment and the city.

I had prepared us all to go... but just as we were about to leave, I had a sudden urge to write... something... anything, down on paper... I found an unused journal bound in leather in my Best Friend's belongings; something left over from her mother's estate (she had died of cancer near the beginning of the Pandemic, before it got lethal).  

And so I begin writing this journal of the beginning of my journey and possibly the end of my days.  As I write these words, I am about to depart my apartment and the city, this city of death, and I plan to never return.  I am hopeful about the future, but realistic.

'''<big>R</big>'''