Excerpt:

Everyone was surprised when the bombs fell. Ha, I say bombs, because my parents called them bombs, and their parents before them. The ICBMs didn't fall so much as rocket. In 2022, the atomic bomb was a thing of the past, a dinosaur in the age of mass-killing devices. Every educated person knew the only way anyone outside of a terrorist cell would deliver a nuclear device was with an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile. But it had been more than 30 years since the Wall had fallen, the Red Menace was over. China, our communist 'ally', was far more interested in dominating our economy then our land or people. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The war wasn't the end of civilization, it was just the final nail in civilization's coffin. In 2013, the world as we knew it, as the Mayans had predicted. In fact, all in all the year was supposed to be rather boring. No new wars had cropped up, and the American economy was slowly digging itself out of the vicious depression it had made for itself. The world was in good shape.
At least, it was for a while. The first strains of the 'virus' (no record remains of what it's official name was) hit in the 3rd world countries before anyone knew what it was. China felt it first, along with India and some of the more uncivilized African nations, where people in small villages and cities were reported to be feeling the effects of a new form of E.Coli. It was reported to last several days, slowly tearing apart one's immune system and disabling internal organs, until the subject simply stopped functioning, like a fader switch was slowly being dialed down. But this wasn't E. Coli. It wasn't even related. Unless E. Coli. found a way to go airborne, and resist every form of current treatment. The virus spread through the poorer countries like wildfire, where the governments had no infrastructure to set up quarantine zones or roadblocks. Within a few weeks it was clear that this was not E. Coli., Nor any other strain of virus currently in existence, and there was a global outcry for containment and assessment. The U.N. sent their own teams of medical experts to join the World Health Organizations' units, while all travel was suspended from the known infected nations. They found nothing. Six weeks of scratched heads and confused expressions, of martial law and civilian oppression, and then the dam broke. As if it had been planned from the start, all quarantined nations rose up in unison, their militaries leaderless and angry, their civilians vengeful and afraid. The road blocks fell like wheat to the scythe. Africa became a single, massive war-zone overnight, each country fighting its neighbors for land and resources like never before. India lashed out at it's oppressors with what was still a more or less cohesive military, and Pakistan crumbled in days. Soon, the largest land battle since World War II had broken out on the Indian/Chinese border. China had managed to self-contain, with it's oppressive government and behemoth military presence, and now that presence was demonstrating its power with prejudice. While most of Asia was in turmoil, the West wasn't fairing much better, though for different reasons. The American people wanted nothing to do with more problems away from their own shores, and protests raged through most major cities. When the first major outbreak of the virus occurred in New Orleans, it was the beginning of the end. Anarchy became the norm in Louisiana, and that anarchy spread like the virus itself. Tiny pockets of federal control remained in each city, but they were like rocks in the middle of a raging river, soon to be overswept by the rising surge.
It's not known now who first 'pushed the button', but the few historians that remain agree that it was most likely North Korea, followed closely by Russia and the United States. All that is known for sure is that use of the nuclear option was never a decision made by the countries' actual leaders, for only a handful of nukes were exchanged. The popular theory is that North Korea was on it's last legs, it's military in ruins, it's people ravaged by the virus, and Kim Jong did what the world had feared he would. He carried his 'If we can't have it, no one can' policy to his grave, and launched his arsenal at Russia, Japan, and his closest neighbor, China. Within hours, there had been 'limited exchanges' between the US and Russia, Russia and India, and presumably any combination of the above. And that's when poeple stopped writing history books.