The rise of the planet of Touch me Not

No, I'm not the plant.

I still don’t know how and where I was born. Scientists and researchers all around the world are trying to study me. I figured they would try to discover how I was born to restrict future births like mine. But they never really found out. Human negligence and carelessness are breeding grounds for many aliens like us.

Even after discovering my existence, they dismissed me as one of my many brothers. Little did they know that I’m bigger and better.

For the first few months, the local authorities didn’t provide accurate information about me to the world. I was offended and expanded my reign to bring more people under my control. I spread like wildfire, expanding my wings, covering all habituated continents, and crossing all waters around the globe. This left them with no choice but to put me up on the stage and give me the acknowledgment I deserved. I changed peoples lives. Words like quarantine and isolation became common, and masks and sanitisers became the hottest products people couldn’t get enough of.

Scholars and researchers worked day and night to figure me out. They seemed to be making progress and devising new weapons against me, something they call vaccines. However, I am not as weak as they think I am. Even if they took precautions, I stayed and stalked my prey, waiting for them to slip up, to not wear a mask that one time they stepped out, and bam, I was in business!. Humans had their antibodies though, and most of the times they won. I was not to be defeated though, I improvised, adapted myself, and became a whole new being. These humans called me variants. Just when they get comfortable, I become a new variant to clarify who runs the show here.

It has been a long time since their leading health organization declared me as a pandemic. I prefer to go as ‘Ruler of all’ though.

With lockdown restrictions and mask mandates, my spread started slowing down. This is where humans again showed their stupidity, they became overconfident and started getting careless. I sat around, heeding my time to strike. I let them believe they had won. The once followed precautions were now ignored by all. This was the time for me to fly!

So I erupted again. This time, even more intense, thanks to all those people who roamed around, ignoring all warnings. Countries were shaken down. I uprooted their medical systems with my mighty blow. Deaths kept piling up. What could i do? These humans never learn. I particularly remember the plight of this one country, India. Millions were seen outside hospitals, hoping to get a bed. Oxygen, a thing so plentiful on this planet became worth its weight in gold, as people clutched for a chance of survival. Death and grief surrounded all. I won’t lie, even I felt bad, something I never knew I could even feel.

I soon put that feeling behind me though, I mean just look at how happy I had made the other species. The air was as clean as ever, birds and animals could roam about without fear of human encroachment, hell even pollution was down. It felt like all of earth and nature loved me, and why not. I had brought down their oppressor to its knees!

I know these pesky humans will win one day, they are as resilient as they are stupid and I know that will be a day of celebration for them. However, as long as they are arrogant and drunk with the power of their technology, as long as they hurt mother earth and other living creatures, many of my successors will rise up in this world periodically to teach them a lesson.

Ok, so I haven't disclosed my name yet, right? Truth being told, I don’t know myself. Heck I don’t even know where I come from. You humans call me Covid-19 tho. Can’t say I’m a fan of the name, It lacks bizazz :/

Paraphrased by,

Krithi and Shreyansh