1960: Dark Watch
21 December, 1937
Nanking, China
Private Mikio Hayashi held back a sob as he lifted yet another corpse from the wheelbarrow and dumped it unceremoniously onto a pile of dozens more. The stench of death was omnipotent, so much that covering his nose with his sleeve did nothing whatsoever. What have we done? he thought hopelessly. What have we done here?
He glanced around. The pile of dead he was currently adding to was one among thousands lumped along the banks of the Yangtze River. The banks of the mighty waterway were literally choked with bodies, their blood sufficing to make the river run red. So many dead. How many have we killed?
Twenty thousand corpses were within his sight alone, with other 'cowards' bringing truckloads full of the dead every few minutes. Even now the killing continued. Hayashi could hear the screams of children and their mothers as his comrades rooted out the remaining families one by one, tearing so many lives apart with rape and murder. Gunshots rang in his ear every few seconds. The screaming. The screaming wouldn't stop.
Hayashi glanced down, his stomach churning. Many of the fighting-age males of the city had perished defending it, leaving their wives and children in the hands of a Japanese army that should've treated the vanquished city and its inhabitants like human beings, not so many ants to be squashed. The women should not have been near-worthless playthings, yet here they were, scattered in the mud after being shot or stabbed once the rapists were done with them. The old? Worthless, and so killed. The young children? Worthless, and so killed. The older children? Their fate was almost the worst. A few days before Hayashi had witnessed a teenager being shot point-blank by a Japanese soldier for declining to remove his cap.
No longer able to bear the sight of the dead any longer, Hayashi through the last corpse in his wheelbarrow onto the pile before beginning the ponderous trek back to the truck to fetch another half dozen more. The men who joined him in the horrid task of dumping bodies onto the banks of the river were all men who'd found enough decency within themselves to refuse to participate in this animistic madness. Hayashi had happened upon a family of six when his platoon was rooting out the last resistance in the city, in early December. His lieutenant had ordered him, the youngest and greenest soldier in the platoon, to rape the mother in front of her sister and four children, an order which Hayabashi had refused after a only a moment's hesitation. In return, the men he'd fought alongside in order to take this city in a real battle had beaten him senseless, and the lieutenant had assigned him to corpse disposal duty afterwards.
As he reached the truck, which was still more than halfway full with corpses, Hayabashi came upon Akio Tanaka, a fellow 'coward' soldier who was equally distraught at the woe they were inflicting here.
"Hayashi, how are you holding up?" Tanaka patted him on the back and smiled sadly, exhibiting a confidence which -real or false- was one that Hayashi could not muster.
He shook his head. "After this? I'm not holding up at all, Tanaka."
The two soldiers reached the truck and began yanking corpses out one by one and dropping them into their respective wheelbarrows. Tanaka checked his watch. "Well that's about the answer I would expect from anyone who hasn't fallen prey to this madness. On the bright side, our shift will be over after this load. We can get a bite to eat and find a place to sleep as far away from the Old Quarter as possible."
Hayashi frowned. "Why stay away from the Old Quarter?"
"You haven't heard? The Army has developed some sort of lethal injection, and the Prime Minister himself has approved Nanking's Old Quarter as the testing site. They started injections this morning and sealed off the affected neighborhoods. We won't want to be anywhere near the Old Quarter until whatever it is runs its course."
Hayashi froze. "This truck came from the Old Quarter!"
Both soldiers rushed around to the driver's seat. Except for the corpses in the back, it appeared to be unoccupied.
A nervous laugh squeaked out of Tanaka. "Ahahahaha. I'm sure he went to grab a bite for dinner or something."
A moan emanated from the rear of the truck in response.
The soldiers rushed back to the rear of the truck, and froze in absolute terror. The dead corpses sat up and stared at them with lifeless eyes. A moment later they were on their feet and, against all sense and reason, were walking towards the edge of the truck bed.
1960: Dark Watch is a player-defined nation roleplay set in the aftermath of a worldwide zombie apocalypse. The virus was originally developed as a biological weapon for use by the Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. After Nanking was captured in late 1937 and the mass killings there began, Japanese High Command judged order in the city irretrievable until the units stationed there had their fill of murder and rape. Thus, it was judged a prime location for the first testing site for the virus outside of labs. On the morning of December 21st, 1937, the virus was forcibly injected into the Chinese residents of Nanking's Old Quarter, and that part of the city was sealed off by Japanese troops so the virus could run its course.
However, the Japanese had not experimented with groups of infected while testing the virus in laboratories, and were totally unprepared for the ferocity of a large group. By the day's end the seal on the affected neighborhoods was broken and the city fell to the undead, letting loose the worst plague man has ever seen onto the world.
Due to China's instability at the time, information on the virus was minimal and it received little news coverage until China was engulfed with the dead and Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, India and Australia were fighting for their very survival. By March 1938, most countries were struggling to hold back the tide of dead. City after city was lost, nations fell like wheat to the scythe and governments were shredded like paper. By the onset of 1939, the world population descended below a billion people.
It was in this critical year that many countries lost contact with one another as electricity began to fail across wide swathes of the planet. Entire provinces fell into complete anarchy as governments' hold on the countries they ruled shrunk to areas free of infection. Mastery of the world was still contested, but mankind was undoubtedly on the losing end of things. Still, the human race survived 1939, and the year after. And the year after, and the year after that. Mankind suffered two defeats for every victory against the undead, but the resolve of nations did not break.
1943 brought with it a turning point in the conflict. Formerly green troops used the experience gained over years of warfare to formulate new tactics for specific use against the undead. Great victories were won that year at Berlin, St. Petersburg, Jerusalem, and Philadelphia, boosting morale across the world and bringing hope for a future free of the undead. 1943 marked the first time since 1937 that mankind experienced net positive population growth. The number of undead also decreased significantly by the year's end.
However, a zombie-free future is not yet realized. Throughout the late 1940's and early 50's nations began to let down their guard somewhat, causing smaller regional outbreaks that prevented the human population from cracking one billion. With tactics and techniques used to fight the undead now mastered by most nations, the hordes were no longer a threat to the very existence of the human race, but they still posed a significant danger to all nations, who were attempting to rebuild and turn their attentions to things other than fighting the dead for the first time. Countries reestablished contact with their neighbors. Economies were rebuilt from near-complete annihilation. Governments began to focus on things other than defense, and the generally insane mobilization rates of the early 1940's were abandoned in favor of smaller, higher-quality armies in a world more like the pre-plague one, where nations could be threats to one another.
It is now 1960. The last major outbreak occurred in 1955. The world's population now numbers approximately 1.2 billion people. The undead still pose a significant threat, but most nations are no longer in danger of being wiped off the map. The 1950's were marked by a return to (relative) stability, and now this new decade, this new unknown age has become known as the 'Dark Watch' for its utter uncertainty. The dead might no longer contend for planetary hegemony, but now nations begin to remember their old conniving ways. With the single-minded resolve to defeat the dead no longer a viable political platform, politics have become more relevant that ever as differing ideologies strive for the hearts of countries. Alliances will be founded and shattered, battles shall be fought, and mankind will be directed on a new path in this new age, the coming Dark Watch.
OP: Mesrane
Co-OP(s): Bering
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