The Wet Flu - One Shot (Patreon)

My roommates and I stumbled through the door to our apartment. We had snuck some booze onto the bus home and were drinking the whole way back. It was our last chance for fun before getting back to normal life, spring break was over and school was getting back into its final swing, so we wanted to take advantage of it. 

We all managed to get through the door and kick off our shoes, then it was to bed for all. It was already 1am and the week had been non-stop partying and drinking, we were all ready to crash. My head hit my pillow and I fell asleep instantly. 

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The next morning, I woke up feeling sweaty but cold, and with a nagging headache. ‘Hangover’ I thought, ‘great’. I pulled myself out of the bed and walked into the kitchen where I saw Jenna, one of my roommates, open her door holding her blankets and sheets. She saw me, froze, and closed the door. I stood for a moment, still staring at the closed door in confusion, when all of a sudden I heard yelling from Trisha’s room. 

“You’ve got to be FUCKING kidding me!” she was screaming. I rushed to the door and knocked, but then swung the door open anyways. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked, followed by a dry cough. 

“I’ve pissed my fucking bed!” she announced loudly. I noticed she was looking pale and sweaty too, like me. Jenna rushed in and said:

“Oh my god you too?” She asked. I looked down to see Jenna’s pajama bottoms which were soaked with pee. 

“Jeez what were you two drinking last night?” I asked with a laugh, followed by another cough. 

“Same as you, fuck I feel like shit” Trish said.

“Me too” Jenna and I said simultaneously. 

“Okay well clean yourselves up, I guess I’ll make breakfast” I offered, and left for the kitchen. As I walked away the two bickered about who was going to use the machine first, even going so far as measuring who peed more and who needs it the most. I just laughed and coughed, my throat was really fucking dry. I figured though it was just an after effect of the partying. I was screaming a lot of song lyrics, could be that. Or it could be just a cold, there were a lot of people there after all. 

I pulled up google chrome on my laptop to look up the best pancakes recipe when I saw the time and the news. It was 3pm, we had all slept for nearly a day, and the news was blowing up about some virus spreading. It was the “Chronic respiratory incontinence influenza virus” or CRIIV-20 that everyone was just calling “The Wet Flu”. I had heard about it briefly when it was only in Taiwan, but now they were saying it was a worldwide epidemic. 

To be fair, I don’t really look or care that much about the news. It was just by fluke that I saw this article but as I dug deeper it became apparent that this had been going on for a while. 

“Hey guys?” I yelled over their bickering “Have you heard of this Wet Flu thing?”

Jenna walked in, still in her pee soaked pajamas and said “Isn’t that that virus in Taiwan that was making people piss themselves?”

The article I was on had the symptoms. “Yeah look, it says you will feel flu-like symptoms, sweating, chills, dry-cough, headaches and sometime’s runny nose, generally non-life threatening, the only difference is the virus attacks your bladder and gets caught in your urethra, causing permanent damage. The result is incontinence in 90% of female contractors and 15% of male contractors.” I turned to look at Jenna, who was paler than before, and looked down at her wet pjs. She covered herself with her hand.

“Keep reading” she suggested, and I turned back to the laptop. 

“The virus was initially thought to be contained in Taiwan, but soon spread to Korea, China, the UK, and now people are showing signs of the virus in the USA.” I trailed off at the end, starting to get concerned. 

“Where in the US Elle” she asked me. I scrolled until I found it, then looked up to her. 

“Florida” I said with a whisper. 

Jenna started to panic. She took the laptop from me and frantically typed. When she found what she was looking for she screeched, covered her mouth, and looked like she was going to cry. 

“What?” I said. She pointed at the screen. On it was the headline: ‘10 Spring Breakers attend Florida festival after knowingly showing signs of Wet Flu, charged with criminal offenses’.

As I read, I could feel the blood rush from my head. It almost felt like it was going to my legs as my legs started getting warm, but then I heard a trickling sound and Jenna’s scream.

“Oh my god Elle look!” She cried, pointing down at my legs. I looked down in concerned confusion, and saw piss flow down my legs and soak my leggings. 

“Oh my god” I said, starting to feel lightheaded. My legs gave out and I collapsed to the puddle I had made on the floor. 

“Elle!” Jenna cried trying to help me. Trisha rushed out to see what was happening and saw the two of us on the floor. 

“What the fuck is going on?” She asked. Jenna pointed to the laptop, and we all knew. 

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4 weeks later, nearly 1 million people across the US were exposed to the Wet Flu. We were not ready for it, and measures were not taken fast enough to stop the acceleration of the spread. There were very very few deaths, only 10,000 or so and all were very elderly or autoimmune. It was in every other way a normal flu, but with a very nasty and permanent side effect: Incontinence. Women around the world were now stocking up on diapers and pads leading to a shortage. Many manufacturers turned to producing diapers to keep up with increased demand, but around the start it was a struggle. It was not uncommon to see women out with make-shift towel diapers during the first wave.

A lot of the reason it spread so badly was the lack of urgency by men in powerful positions. Since men only really felt the flu symptoms for the most part, they didn’t think it was as big of an issue as it was. The virus was highly contagious and could be spread 10x faster than a normal flu, but most of the time it was brushed off as “just a flu”. Since it attacked the urethra, the only men that got the incontinence damage from the flu were well...men with less length. This led to a whole other issue of the men who got incontinence being shamed by men and some women as it was a clear indication that you had a small dick. The only treatment that we had was to hook people up to a catheter when they first showed signs of the virus to stop the virus from doing too much damage to the urethra, but there were only so many hospital beds. It was a really damaging situation for men and women and one that a lot of people, including myself, will have to deal with for the rest of my life.

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I feel like I should say I’m not trying to make light of the current situation in the world, and I was just using it as inspiration. I’ve done virus stories before, I find them an interesting "what if".