The Laughing Plague - A "Crossed" TL

May 16, 12 p.m. (local time).

The fall of the Belgian capital was quite predictable, but no one could have imagined the speed and deviousness deployed by the crossed to take over one of the most important political decision-making centers in the world. Brussels thus joins Washington DC and London in the list of martyred cities, the spectacle is all the more distressing as less than 16 minutes after the fall of communications with the Belgian government, Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès appears in a short video published on Twitter calling on her fellow crossed "citizens" to have a gigantic party in Antwerp and soon in Paris and Berlin.
It goes without saying that if the video is deleted by the social network a few minutes later, it has already gone around the world.

May 16, 2 p.m./ Moscow.

The ruler of the Kremlin didn't like what was happening, his military leaders and his propaganda agencies would say that the Russian army would have no trouble crushing some drugged and perverted maniacs (no chance of such individuals appear in Russia, right?), Vladimir Putin was well aware that the international situation, although favorable to Russia (NATO practically no longer existed, the United States had lost much of its political center, the England and soon France would have succumbed to the virus) could very well turn against him: let the virus cross the Dnieper and Russia would be finished.
This is why he had carefully taken the trouble to create a series of fortifications, worthy of the great patriotic war, starting from the coasts of the Baltic (soon the Baltic States would be obliged to eat from his hand) to the shores of the Crimea (Ukraine would have no choice, and if it refused the Russian army would intervenel to protect ukrainians brothers from the Western virus) but he had no illusions that with the fall of Brussels, even the a more impenetrable fortification would not last long.
Putin could consider many options, he still had time (for how long?) but his mind liked to imagine Russia as the savior of the West (rather of Europe) and restoring Soviet greatness, which had been so unjustly destroyed.
He still had a lot on his plate.

Yep, at this point Putin have nearly the hand over the "red button".

As bad as Covid-19 is and it is bad it pales in comparison to what this would be doing to the world. Covid only saw nations try to lower the number of people out and about. This would see them locking everything down and sending troops to ensure nobody enters their lands that may have this.

Covid to this is akin to a tiny drop of water in a planet-size sea. It is happening and people are getting sick from it but when you have a wave of crossed-faced rapists and killers you're going to care too much about a virus that attacks your respiratory system. So...yeah if you think we didn't care about it here in our world the number of people who will give an atom-sized shit about it now is damn near nothing in this world. I doubt it will even be so much as a footnote in our history textbooks. If it is even that it would be only talked about as the thing just before the world seemed to fall off the proverbial cliff and into the very depths of Hell itself.

This would be the 21st century's black death. Given the number of WMD's that we will have used it may even be worse. The world we would likely have will be one filled with massive levels of death. Millions of people will be displaced and housing them will be an utter nightmare. 

As I have sort of stopped reading this so I'm not as up to date with what has been happening in this story as most people. With that said anything that can get into this many places like this can is easily going to be up there with the worst things to ever befall human race. At any rate I agree this could be what sends us into the dustbin of history.

If I had to guess at the outcome I would say we are down to maybe a few million. Massive cities would be left to rot away to become the new hills and river valleys. We will once again be small villages.  

May 17, somewhere in the red zone.
Corporal L had avoided all major roads, as well as all urban concentrations, for fear of making bad encounters, but fortunately he had not encountered any living beings, only human and animal remains that had suffered the worst.
His combat gear was mud-stained and scratched, his stomach empty and he was thirsty (he had no doubt that most water supplies must have been intentionally or unintentionally polluted by the virus), HK-417 he was carrying had only a handful of ammunition (enough not to fall alive into the hands of the infected) yet he was trying to stay on course (to where, by the way) so as not to descend into madness.. .

Evening of May 17.

The front line of E313 begins to be assailed, it is Czech elements of the 31st CBRN Defense Regiment who absorb most of the attacks, well equipped and well warned by the disasters suffered by their American, French and British colleagues; the Czech troops will hold out for two days, thus saving precious time for the Dutch and Germans who complete a gigantic line of defense resembling more a no man's land than a line of fortifications.
Further south, it is consternation and rage that burn in the hearts of the remnants of the Belgian army, far from having perished with Brussels, where it is motorized elements which, to the great surprise of the commands of the NATO, carry out a series of violent counter-attacks against groups of crossed, the latter are dangerous because of their unparalleled violence and their mass attack, as soon as they are isolated and spotted, they become easy targets for long-range shooting .
This is how a raid by the Belgian army reached the suburbs of Waterloo, thus releasing a column of refugees destined for a macabre fate.
In the skies, the French, Belgian and American aircraft are now replaced by F-16s from the Polish Air Force and Czech SAAB Gripens, which still have sufficient ammunition and aircraft to carry out CAS operations.

If the night remains terrible for the defenders of Belgium, it remains catastrophic for those who watch over the destiny of France, indeed the bulk of the attack of the crossed seems to be for reasons, now obvious, on Paris.
The French Army has assigned the bulk of its force to a new line of defense stretching from Abbeville- to Amiens and Saint Quentin, the abandonment of thousands of civilians and strategic industrial installation is strongly criticized and even sees very violent urban insurgencies occurring in major cities across the country, calling for the downing of the government accused of treason:
The forced extinction of the nuclear reactors of Gravelines and Penly led to gigantic power cuts throughout the country.

It is therefore obvious for the command of NATO and SHAPE that France will not hold, where the military command remains confident in its strategy of gradual retreat and a scorched earth campaign (each line of defense prepares a gigantic area emptied of its inhabitants where the number of the infected can be eliminated), the command is definitely convinced of the fall of a significant part of France, which could lead the French government to use the nuclear weapon on its own ground.
This is how the Italian government ordered the deployment of Italian troops as reinforcements, with a view to a possible French withdrawal beyond the Seine.


Much further north, it is Sweden that decides to send military aircraft, for the moment transport planes to facilitate the evacuation of civilians but preparing in the future to send a small contingent to protect northern Europe from the arrival of the infected.