Flashdrive Thing 1: 'Days Gone Bye'

Darkness falls over a small house where a father, a son, and a girl wait. Both fifteen, the Boy and Girl have been friends for years. The Boy gently reaches over to the Girl, slinging an arm over her pale shoulder. The girl smiles at the boy, but it disguises her worry and fear. The Father stands beside the radio, turning the dial with trembling hand, seeking the station where they find news.

The girl is an orphan, her house burned to ashes by her own hands.

The son is motherless, and the girl, his only friend, is now the closest he will ever get to a mother.

The father is spouseless, and now turns to protecting both the girl and boy, fearing he will lose them, too, along with his slowly slipping grip on sanity.

With sputtering static droning away in the background, the trio awaits the voice of the announcer, an all-too-familiar fuzzy assertion that voices relief as well as fear. The white noise continues to overpower any voice—if there were any other voices.  Then, suddenly, a pop sounds as the introduction, a pre-recorded track, is played, old-fashioned music looping in the background. Their mayor, Macintosh Merryweather, begins the somber foreword. Rumor has it he is dead. He must have made this when the disease started to spread.

What happened, you ask?

Listen.

"…The Coughs. Spread worldwide in a matter of weeks by those infected, this illness has become known as many things from the wrath of God to an apocalypse. Though those suffering displayed no signs of sickness, they soon began to cough horribly, growing into something that almost surpassed Tiberculosis. Once it started to spread around the globe—this is law—whenever someone begins to show signs of the Coughs—no matter young or old, big or small, useful or useless—they will be ousted by high powers into a hospice where one will die."

The girl remembers how they died, the strangest thing of all—the coughs would reach a climax, then the infected would disintegrate as if they were but paper being shredded.  As they disintegrated, they would release a gas that would infect others close, if they already weren't.

The mayor takes a breath, continuing to talk. "Is this an unknown, likely deceased scientists' experiment gone wrong? Or an ailment created and spread by the government?"
His voice stiffens. "…Possibly."

The track ends, another announcer continuing on, listing obituaries and updates on food shortages. Stealing has become more common as the days continue on, and many stores have given up on trying, abandoning their shops for others to take. The trio has resorted to this. On many nights the Father risks his safety for sustenance. The girl has become sick with the Coughs because of her mother, now dead. The Boy plunges deep into trouble to avert attention from the Girl.

This world has become a broken vase, and all they're trying to do is put it back together.