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Who let the rats out ?
In the beginning, before the great darkness, there were seven mighty gods. All the gods were feared, but revered, which was weird, but that’s how it was.
Eons went by and the gods vied for followers, smiting each other at every turn and encouraging their minions to follow suit. There were complaints, but people did their duty because they knew that’s how things were.
To get ahead, to live among the élite, people needed to be better than others at worshiping their chosen god’s creed in thought and deed.
The world turned and chaos was spurned in favor of balance and order.
Lust was responsible for ensuring that the tribes replenished their numbers, despite sickness and accidental death. She ensured that her minions reproduced often and with gusto so that her followers swelled in number, moon-to-moon.
Gluttony kept the farmers and purveyors of fine delicacies in business, while Greed ensured that there was very little left on the vendor’s tables at the end of each moon’s cycle. Sloth’s minions kept millions employed just to clean up after them and see to duties they’d neglected.
Wrath, of course, was in a class of her own and made certain that everyone was kept in line and did what they were told. Envy forged workaholics out of ordinary men and women - people developed the fields, built fine houses and worshipped the currency, which was good; what better way could there be?
Things were well made, ingenious inventions developed and general order, oiled by the exacting standards laid out as the rules of the realm that were formulated by Pride’s minions.
And so it came to pass..
Lust grew far more powerful than any of the other gods. The balance was corrupted. All the other gods instructed their followers to devise a weapon of destruction to prevent Lust in her efforts, which was overpopulating the towns and causing the rationing of supplies.
The minions went to their labs, brainstormed as one and eventually created a multi-spiked monster of destruction that would force Lust’s minions to keep their distance from each other. The invention created by gain-of-function testing was designed to spread in the air, infecting Lust’s minions if they so much as coughed in each other’s breathing space.
Naturally, the plan included the creation of an antidote for the monster, which would keep everyone, other than Lust’s minions safe. Additionally, the cunning scientists set up massive testing labs to ensure that their weapon would work as planned and that the antidote was as effective as could be. Lab rats were infected and the weapon seemed to work very well. All that remained was to test the antidote.
However, Pride’s followers had been sorely depleted and the gates of the rats’ cages were not made to the exacting standards usually set by this, the most arrogant of all the gods.
The rats went into the sewers, into the fields, under the food markets...
A story based on the seven deadly sins, which we are all guilty of in one way or another. (A prompt I saw on Ecency, but can’t remember where. LoL)
Also, Gain-of-function testing, which most people know very little about - government backed funding for research and testing of deadly viruses, including mutations of such viruses, increasing the transmission rate and the implementation of testing on animals (Its akin to biological weapon testing) - https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Gain-of-Function-Research.aspx