[ WP ] Through the eons , Earth has experienced thousands of apocalypses . This time around , it 's a pirate themed apocalypse .

No one knew where it originated, the virus. It consumed everything in its wake, turning the helpless victims into its mindless drones. 
 
 Some say it was first seen at the northern shores of Romania meeting the Black Sea. Some say the first documented cases came from a small sea-side village in France. Many spoke their opinions but no-one agreed. They did agree on some facts, however. How the victims were infected, how they were turned and what they were turned into. How deadly it was. 
 
 The poor and hungry were the first to fall. Weak, desperate, they were quick to succumb to the virus. Some were only touched by the infected, some scratched. Some were turned from just hearing the hollow echoes of `` Arrrr''. 
 
 The stronger and wealthier resisted at first. Perhaps a stronger immune system provided them some resistance. Some speculate that it was their dignity and pride that kept the virus at bay, attributing some mental aspects to their defense. But however strong, however resistant, they all eventually fell. And those who fell hard turned into the most vicious, most deadly of them all; The blackbeards. 
 
 There were two kinds of the virus strain discovered, ones that infected the weak, and ones that infected the strong. Borne of the same infection, it split in its blossom, deciding what fate and form its victim would take. 
 
 The weaker strain's metamorphosis was devastatingly evident. Days after the turning, a leg shriveled and turned to a mere stump, thin and wood-like, thudding against the ground as they stumbled around chasing the survivors. It was either leg, but it was always just one. 
 
 Next, it was their eye, turning hollow and the skin around it smearing with the darkest of blacks. They lost their sense of distance, stumbling more often and more awkwardly as they chased. But they chased unrelentingly after the living. 
 
 Last was the hand, slowly mutating, curling inwards as if to scream in agony. Eventually, it thinned and hardened, turning into a hook that would point itself to the innocent victims that crossed its path. 
 
 One leg, one eye, one arm. There were never two. 
 
 At first, the people looked at the changes in disbelief, wondering how such a human mutation could occur. Such a mutation was never seen in the history of all apocalypses. Then the Blackbeards appeared. 
 
 Taking form in the stronger victims, overnight, their beards grew, thick and luscious, jet black as the night sky. It swayed in the wind as they marched and ordered the weaker ones to attack. Then over time, a lump started to form on one of their shoulders, growing into a grotesque devilish figurine beside their infected bearded face. All the scientists thought it was a cancerous growth at first, concentrated on one targeted bodypart. They believed it, until the day it spoke. 
 
 `` Shiver me timbers!''. 
 
 No-one will forget the day when its high shrieking voice was first broadcast to the entire planet, as it stood behind the thick glass walls in a science lab, location undisclosed. 
 
 `` Walk the plank!''. 
 
 No-one will forget the look on the blackbeard's face as it stared coldly into the camera, searing its red burning eyes into the souls of every onlooker. 
 
 `` Parley?''. 
 
 No-one will forget how mere words of a parrot-like growth turned every man and woman, the world's greatest scientists in that room into one of them. 
 
 Many months have passed. No-one believes there is hope anymore, not when anyone could be infected from mere war cries. No, of curing this pandemic, there is no hope. The only hope rests now in the labs of scientists, working to create a new strain of a virus, one that might turn the humans immune. They know it will not cure the infected, but it could give the living a fighting chance. 
 
 They call it'The Caribbean Project'. 
 
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 Sorry. No plundering, no booty. Just a deadly deadly virus.
