[ WP ] You are part of the first settlement to mars . On your journey there , a virus spreads through your spaceship killing everyone on board . But somehow , not you .

`` Jesus Christ Nell! Fetch the bucket, fetch... Oh Christ. Lord have mercy!'' Sister Grey stumbled back from the man who lay prone in the sickbed in front of us. He was naked to the waist, squirming on the blue paper towel that had been put down to protect the fabric. The black hair that covered his chest was glistening with a clammy sweat, his face more green than grey. His eyes were closed and a thin groan escaped from his mouth. Hair was plastered to his forehead. Nell approached with the asked-for bucket as the man flopped to one side and a stream of vomit escaped from his mouth. His groaning only increased. Nell examined the vomit. It was speckled with blood, same as the others. 
 
 
 But the thing which so unnerved Sister Grey was not the vomit. She raised one quivering finger to the man's stomach and Nell bent over to look. There was a rash, spread across the man's lower abdomen. It grew by the second: red and white speckled dots that trickled like fire ants up to his nipples. The man moved again on the sick bed, as though he was rapt by agony. The rash reached his neck: he turned and was sick again. This time it was all blood. 
 
 
 Sister Grey crossed herself: an antiquated symbol which Nell hated, but which the older woman found comfort in. The man flopped still, blood covering his chin. The now dissolving chunks at the bottom of the bucket told Nell that his stomach: liquified, was amongst the bile. The groaning stopped, his eyelids fluttered to show a strip of white. He had died. 
 
 
 `` That's four now,'' Sister Grey whispered, beginning to wrap the dead, bloodstained body in the blue paper. Nell looked around the San. Three more lay in beds around them; sweating profusely. There was nothing which could be done. First the sweating started: nausea and inability to keep food down. Then the near-constant vomiting; with more spots of blood each time as the organs died inside the body itself. Then the rash: starting from the toes and working up to the neck. Once it reached the victim's mouth, they were dead. 
 
 
 And there was nothing Nell could do to stop them. 
 
 
 Sister Grey placed a bloody hand on Nell's white clad shoulder. The older woman had tears in her eyes. She looked tired, flushed and warm from the heat of the San, beads of sweat sprung to her brow. 
 
 
 `` See to the others, Nell,'' she asked. `` I will deal with this one.'' 
 
 
 The colony ship -- The Fair-weather -- had left New London with sixteen hundred people on board. That number halved in twelve days. At one point, as the artificial sun rose once more in the San, Nell looked up from the body she was wrapping in blue paper and realised that she had not slept in six cycles. The person before her was marked with the red rash, their eyes open and staring in pain. Bloody organ tissue hung from the corner of their mouth. They were still in their uniform when they had been taken ill. Nell held the dead body of the captain in her hands. 
 
 
 Nell could not remember when Sister Grey had died, only that it had been too early: when they still had beds to spare. Now people lay together, top and tail like sardines in the San. The beds that remained were covered in blood. Dead and dying lay together like lovers. The stink of blood and vomit had burned Nell's nostrils. She would never smell anything ever again. 
 
 
 Thank god the children died fastest. Their bodies were wracked by the endless vomiting, but at least the rash reached their neck fastest. 
 
 
 After sixteen days the sun cycle did not change. There was no more night, but it was day and it was death at every hour of the day. Everyone in uniform had died. 
 
 
 Perhaps Nell did not realise when she held the last person in her arms. It was another young woman: perhaps exactly her own age. The girl's eyes were so dark, clouded by pain. The skin of her body was ashen grey. The blood-sick came and Nell held the girl's hair back. The rash speckled her neck, crept over her face and Nell brushed at it, as though she could sweep it away. 
 
 
 After that, there was no one left to help. 
 
 
 Nell made her way to the bridge. Mars loomed red before her, red as the blood she was coated in. A new world.
