The True Beast

Montserrat Cosio

ESL 100

October 19, 2015

Final Draft

The True Beast

The worst feeling in life is fear. Fear is one of the most powerful emotions that controls human lives. Moreover, living with fear is like not living. Seven years ago, in Mexico,  people were living in fear because of the influenza epidemic. This situation not only affect people’s health, it also affected people in their economy and education. All citizens were warned not to go out of their houses, and if they had to go out they needed to use a mask because the virus was so contagious. Therefore, my family and I experienced the worst feeling in life, and this situation changed our lives not only physically, but also mentally.

Every day that passed the situation got worse; it even got to the point where the government decided that businesses needed to close for public safety. All commercial stores closed. This affected my family because my father had to close his business. This meant no customers and no money for one week. My family and I were so desperate because we struggled financially. It was difficult for us to buy food and other daily necessities. At this point my family and I were like a sick baby. We were open to any suggestions that could help us. However, we were not the only ones that were affected. There were a lot of people affected by this situation too because they also had to close their business. Moreover, it felt like the virus was taking everything that we had.

The second effect of the influenza epidemic was that my siblings and I missed school because it was too dangerous to have contact with people. The flu was everywhere; school was like a nightmare because everyone was sick and scared to get sick. Moreover, school leaders decided that all students should wear masks all day long, so they would not infect others. Nevertheless, the virus started to spread more and more until parents were scared to send their children to school. I was one of those kids; my parents did not want me to go to school because the situation was serious and possibly deadly. Therefore, my siblings and I missed a lot of classes, and we did not have time to recover those subjects. All those weeks we missed a whole section of our school year.      

Additionally, during the epidemic, the doctors told me that I had Cystic Fibrosis and being in the place where the beast was attacking every citizen made it really difficult for me to maintain good health. I became a victim of these beast. I could not stand up and it was really difficult for me to be awake because every time that I was awake I felt pain in every part of my body. The fear of the true beast shoot me and perforated all hopes of survival. In addition, this situation changed my family’s and my life because now we appreciate life more and we take better care of our health than anything else. We learned that it is not good to live with fear. We need to be cautious, but live life like it is. It is really important for my family and me to maintain good health. Now we know that we are stronger than the beast because we continued our life and we succeeded in gaining everything back that the virus took away from us.  

That year, everyone in Mexico, experienced the fear of the true beast that attacked every living person in our country. The influenza epidemic impacted people’s  lives with a physical virus and a mental fear because everyone was scared to live life, and people did not want to leave their houses. Moreover, people were in fear of dying or simply losing their financial resources. Influenza was the true beast, but like a story that my father used to tell me, evil always loses. Now, I am glad that science has found something that can kill or control the virus because people can now relax and not be afraid. Now, the new generation will never know what living with fear of the true beast means.