It was a normal day for Arabella Barlow. She was working in her garden growing some of her vegetables to sell in her stall inside the Borough Market in London. She was at peace and content by doing this while she waited for her beloved husband Cenric Barlow. Cenric worked as a butcher together with her in the stall. They had a very good reputation in the market and a wonderful list of clients that would pay good money for the products due to their trust in them.
Cenric went out to do some errands about looking for the meat they would sell in the market. When he arrived home, his wife went to greet him with a tender smile, but something stopped her in her tracks. Cenric was covered in blood from head to toe and with what can only be called a very foreboding smile and a butcher knife in hand. Arabella didn't understand. He was a butcher so being dirty by animal blood was normal for him in their business stall. But this was off.
At that moment, Cenric said a phrase with that same smile that deeply disturbed Arabella: "Let's go for a walk". Arabella ran away from Cenric but he was faster and grabbed her immediately. Arabella screamed "WHAT ARE YOU DOING CENRIC?! What has gotten into you?!" Cenric just said with that same smile "Let me protect you". The confusion that followed that statement could not be measured.
Cenric manhandled Arabella as she screamed her lungs out in disbelief to the outside of their home. When they were outside, she could not understand what she saw. There were men. Men fought each other with whatever they could find. And it was not a fistfight. It was an all-or-nothing fight with anything they could find to go for the kill. It was sheer brutality. Some were armed with kitchen knives. Others with construction working equipment like sledge hammers and drills among other things.
Everything is a weapon if you are creative enough. Cenric was using his old butcher knife for example. Cenric, while still grabbing Arabella, went for their car and put his wife inside while the mayhem in the streets continued. One man with a pair of gardening scissors went for Cenric for the kill. But he was faster and used his butcher to cut one of the attackers. And later his face. The man was not going to stand up again. All the while Arabella saw this horrified.
Cenric got inside the car which Arabella didn't close because she simply was too scared. As Cenric drove outside of their home, she started screaming "Where are you taking me?! Cenric, please tell me what is happening?! Please, I love you! Are you going to kill me too?!". She said this while Cenric was driving like a madman bashing and running over any man in front of him and dodging the incoming cars that were in the street while the mayhem was going about.
When Cenric heard those words, his smile became a sad frown. "What? My love, I would never hurt you. Please dear, just let me protect you". After Cenric said these words, he went back to his eerie smile and Arabella went to her disturbed state of mind. She didn't know where they were going. She didn't know what was about to happen. She was just crying her eyes out due to the dreadful situation.
But the crying stopped. This happened because she recognized the pathway of the road after a while. The thing is, Cenric and Arabella had a beautiful cabin in the woods that they would use to relax some weekends. The car, all bloodied up as if red was its natural color, was following the road to their cabin in the woods. Arabella then started getting more nervous and almost cried again. She didn't know what Cenric was going to do to her when they arrived at the cabin.
When they arrived, Cenric got out of the car and then grabbed Arabella out of the car. But something was different. He still had the foreboding smile and the bloodied cloth he had on. But he was gentler this time and grabbed Arabella with tenderness. The tenderness that she loved from him. In her confusion due to this change of pace and mood, Cenric took the opportunity and got her inside their cabin as fast as possible.
As Arabella was about to ask again to please explain to her what was happening, Cenric kissed her inside the cabin and told her "I love you. You will be safe here for now. Don't go out. Use the food and water that we have stored here. It should last weeks for one person. Take care Arabella. I need to go". His smile became more sinister when he said those 4 last words. With a butcher knife in hand, he went back to the car and went off.
Arabella could now understand anything. Her smartphone didn't have a signal and she was in the dark. But thankfully, there was a TV in the house, and I paid for the cable and signal still without internet. Arabella turned on the tv and prayed that there was something to explain the behavior of her beloved husband and the mayhem she saw in the streets. She found a news channel, where thankfully they had a briefing of the situation. But what she would hear would destroy her heart.
There was a viral outbreak of a kind that was never seen. This virus hijacked the nervous system of males and sent signals to the brain that would alter a man's perspective on priority. The thing is that men had one main priority given by instinct: love and protect women and family. But due to the rising narrative that masculinity was the source of all evil according to many modern ideologies and social groups, something horrible had happened.
Men started seeing other men as something that must be killed immediately. If the menace to their beloved was men, they shall be killed. So said the brains of the victims that succumbed to the virus. It was a war among the entire male sex. After that, Arabella dropped to her knees inconsolably for she knew that there was an extremely high chance that some random man would kill her beloved Cenric and the world was practically coming to the weirdest of ends.
After some time passed, the population of the earth halved completely for there were no more men. Did the human race go extinct? Who knows.
Isn't it ironic? Such a fervent desire to protect can be so destructive.