By Jessica Chopra, ’23
1152 and 1201 were both ready to go to the academy. They were in full PPE kits and had all of their own electronics ready to learn at the academy.
“Are you ready to go to the academy, 1152?” said 1201.
“Yeah, let me get all of my sanitizing kits and computer,” said 1152.
They were required to bring all of their stuff from home. The government had ordered all of the academies that they shall not provide their students with anything, to limit the spread of the horrific deadly disease. When 1152 and 1201 both got to the academy they got their temperatures checked and then they sat in the corners of the room. Only one student was allowed to sit in one corner and the middle would be where there would be a hologram of the teacher. When they all got situated at their desks with their laptops on, they got ready for the teacher to pop in through the hologram. When the history teacher came she started off with projecting a sentence that said, “There once was a disease like no other, that left a great mark on upcoming generations.”
1152 thought to himself, “Ugh, this is all because of this disease that started fifty years ago. Only if the people during the time could have understood the devastating effect that it might have on the upcoming generations.”
The teacher then started teaching the students about COVID-19 and how this virus ravaged through humankind in 2020. She started talking to them about the major economic recession and the toll that it had on the medical field. With all of this happening 50 years ago, people were so scared that viruses like this could happen again, people started to wear PPE kits and became extra cautious. The people wanted to make sure that germs that people may have don’t spread to others and create another devastating virus like what had happened fifty years ago.
1201 asked the teacher, “Why are we to suffer from all of this uncomfort when the people in 2020 and before were able to roam freely, showing off their fashion, socializing with people, and even not having to worry about a disease that may kill you?”
The teacher said in response, “This is life, this is what people get for being careless, this is what WE need to understand if we want to live the normal life again. People are still not taking this virus seriously that is why we have to suffer. That is why the government has put in place these restrictions, because they had no other choice. They could have let everyone die. They want people to stay healthy, so as long as people keep on ignoring this, we will have to suffer. When everyone takes this seriously and pays attention to what scientists have to say then we will live life as if it was before 2020 and we will forget about the years 2020 to 2070.”
Then every single child in that room thought to themselves that if we want to live the normal life we should raise our voices so the people understand how bad this actually is. If we do nothing about this then we will be in the apocalyptic phase forever. These children reached out to the media. They told them that we want to show the whole world what the children are going through, how we are being called by numbers instead of names so the government can keep track of how many people there actually are and how many people are dying. How we are living like we are under a nuclear attack. The media aired their story on every single media outlet. The children were hoping so badly that something would happen. Then all of a sudden they noticed a change, they noticed people coming out in front of the historic White House, telling them that we believe now, we know now, we are ready to sacrifice a small amount of our lives in order to give our children a better future. The government was so happy when hearing this that they ordered a strict lockdown for two months straight. The number of active cases went from one million to twenty nationwide. Soon after, there were no new cases. The United States of America was COVID free. The children felt so proud of themselves that they had hope that they could live life the way it used to be.