A new lethal disease affects a large proportion of the men in their early twenties. Thankfully, the authorities have finally found a cure: ingesting good old spunk! And those young beta males are going to need to swallow A LOT of it if they want to survive.
The story, names, and places are entirely fictional. All characters featured in the story are above 18. This story is only meant to be read by a mature audience, and in any case, by people over the age of 18.
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THE CURE
Chapter 1: The live presentation
We were all nervous waiting for the President's announcements.
President Harrison was supposed to hold another press conference at 6pm and this time, rumour had it there would finally be some good news. There had been a breakthrough. Apparently, a Cure had been found!
I did not want to get my hopes up though. We had been disappointed so many times before.
We were all gathered in the living space of the frat house. Nine guys, all part of the rowing team, all jocks, and yet, nine nervous wrecks.
Everyone had gotten back early to make sure not to miss the press conference.
The whole country would be watching for sure. It was mandatory anyway.
Gino, my roommate, was pacing around the house.
Next to me, Jason who was acting as the coxswain for the team -- meaning that he was smaller than any of us -, was shaking his left leg rapidly. He was stressing me out.
For the last sixteen months, we had been living in a different reality, where only the "Disease" mattered.
From the day it appeared, everything had changed.
Nobody cared about stupid reality-tv shows, politics, or social media anymore. The only topic worth discussing was the Disease: men in their early twenties were inexplicably dying. Hundreds of thousands of them.
This new plague was spreading in the whole world but the U.S. was suffering from one of the biggest hits. Although "spreading" may not have been the adequate word. We had tried quarantine but it was totally inefficient.
It was not an epidemy.
It was not transmissible.
It was something else entirely.
Without any warning, men entering their adulthood would start feeling fevers, experiencing nose bleeds, and it would be all over in less than four weeks. No explanation. Just death.
Of course, the international community was looking for some cures, for some answers at the very least, but every hope had seemed to lead to another dead-end.
We knew that there were secret clinical's trials. Why some men were affected and why other were not? Why only young adult men? Many countries started to go after each other, blaming their neighbour for implementing the Disease in some sort of a sick or chemical warfare.
Paradoxically, as men in their prime were dying from the Disease, more and more of them, of us, were sent to the battlegrounds in meaningless wars.
Many turned to God, viewed this sickness as Divine's wrath. "This is what you get for watching so much porn, America!" A conservative reporter had infamously said.
Most of us were simply stunned, struggling to adjust to this new normal.
How do you commit to a woman knowing that you might die in the following months? How can you project yourself into any potential career path when you might get sick at any given moment? How the fuck are you supposed to keep moving forward in a world like that?
Despite all the confusion, there had been some progress made in the last few weeks.
A scientific consensus had surfaced, the Disease was definitely linked, at least in some ways, to our testosterone and sperms' level.
A Swiss laboratory had recently claimed that they had designed a test with a 100% effectiveness rate to tell if you were among the 25 to 35% of men from the targeted age group (early twenties) subject to the occurrence of the lethal Disease.
The President was talking every couple of days to update the Nation, but that night, it was supposed to be the big one.
There were leaks in the press about a "miracle Cure", a new shocking treatment protocol.
"I think they did find something. For real, this time. Something they've been working on for months and they are finally ready to release it." Simon said.
He was a senior year, one of the most respected members of the rowing team. Simon was coming from a rich family and he was the son of a high ranked official in the State government, - he was destined to follow the same path -, his intel was often correct.
"What do you know?" I asked.
"My father could not say much but, apparently, the State is requisitioning gymnasiums and other big spaces to administrate a vaccine or some sort of medicine, starting tomorrow."
"Maybe they just want to gather all of us in one place and shoot us. This way, we don't have to wait until we develop that shit and we can just end it there. No need to deal with us anymore!" Franck said with a smirk.
If you need to know one thing about Franck Karter is that he was a prodigious asshole.
Captain of the rowing team and self-proclaimed leader of our fraternity, he pretty much thought that he was better than everybody else. Probably to appear cool to us, he pretended like he did not give a fuck about the Disease.
Most of the guys in the team were blindly following anything he would say as if he were a God or something. Honestly, he was a just a prick.
The dude did not even shed a tear when two of our teammates died a couple months prior.
"Man up." He had said when I had broken down at the funerals.
Man-up? Really!?
I had just turned 20 and my generation was living in the constant fear of developing the Disease.
My mother was terrified for my older brother Jack and I, to the point where it had totally screwed our relationship.
She was on our shoulders 24/7, and was forcing us to see a doctor three times a week. I could not stand seeing the look on her face anytime the slightest thing in my body started to go wrong. She was freaking out over a sneeze. As a result, I was barely talking to her anymore.
This was definitely not how I had pictured my college years to go.
When I was in highschool, I thought it would be all about hanging with my mates and snatching pussies... Not taking my freaking temperature ten times a day!
That ridiculous sickness appeared right at the beginning of my freshman year which was, as a consequence, entirely cancelled.
More than a year later, people were only starting to go back to college (when they were not enrolling in the army), with no other choice but to accept that potentially, up to a third of the guys in their class might not live long enough to graduate.
Finally, it was time for the press conference. Gino stopped walking around and sat on the sofa right next to me.
Because the guys had been stressing out, there was a thick odour of manly sweat in the air. We were all shirtless, and like most often, only wearing broad shorts in the house. That did not help to cover the musky smell...
To be fair, the house was stinking so much that we had all gotten used to it, only our guests would point it out from time to time.
Boys being boys, you know.
Only Franck pretended like he was not interested in what was going to happen. He probably thought he was naturally immune or some shit... He still watched the press conference.
Statistically though, on the nine guys living in the frat house, three of us would be dead before we could reach the age of 25.
I got cold sweats anytime I would think about that.
The President appeared on the screen. There was more agitation in the press-room than usual. I was definitely anxious to know more.
President Harrison was a good-looking man in his late forties but the crisis which had started at the very beginning of his mandate made him grow older quite fast. We could count more white hair in his trimmed beard every week passing by.
Still, he maintained a reassuring figure and was quite fit. Just like us, the President had been a rower in his youth, he even competed in the Olympics once. For that reason, we were pretty much all keen to trust him.
He was not alone this time, a man with a long grey beard and crazy curly hair in a lab coat was standing at his side. Frankly, that guy looked like a mad scientist coming straight from a cartoon.
"American People, I come here tonight bearing some great news!" The President smiled largely.
I had not seen him smile in months. He was always coming live with some more terrible news to share.
He opened his arms to his audience and to the camera and he proclaimed:
"I am both relieved and proud to announce that the U.S. Government is the first country in the world to have discovered an effective Cure to the Disease."
I got shivers all over my body.
Gino put his hand on my right thigh and squeezed it. Tyrone and Andre, two black twins in their junior years, stood up from the couch in excitement.
"Thanks to the tremendous efforts of the Health Department, and of Doctor Seeder and his team with me today, we are finally in capacity to fight this fucking Disease!"
A President had just said "fucking" on live television. Things were wild!
In the press conference, journalists, who were normally there to ask the tough questions, cheered. Next to me, Gino started crying. He had lost his brother four months prior. That had been rough.
The other guys were hissing and clapping.
The President waited a while for the people around him (and probably the entire United States) to calm down.
Then, he spoke again.