"We interrupt this story to bring you a breaking news bulletin. Officials from the NHSA have announced that-"

Rob Grier's eyes flitted open. PISS. Fell asleep in front of the television again. The news anchor droned on, saying something about the latest bio-terrorism threat. Rob tried to look at the screen. The glare stung his eyeballs, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

He groped about blindly in the darkness, trying to find the remote.

"This new contagion presents an extreme threat to the United States. The infection is highly contagious, and can be contracted from any form of physical contact or exchange of bodily fluids."

A empty beer glass fell off the coffee table, and landed on the carpet with a muffled thunk.

"Documented cases lists coughing, high fever, and impaired sensory perceptions among the symptoms, but in rare cases symptoms can lie dormant for days, during which an infected individual may come into contact with any number of people."

Rob found the remote, and squinted at it, unable to find the correct button in the gloom.

"No outbreaks have been reported in the continental U.S. thus far, but several low-scale incidents have been reported in Africa, South America, and Europe."

Rob tried a button at random. It was the volume control. The news anchor blared something about the need for vigilance, and urged viewers to report anybody who displayed tell-tale signs of the contagion. A handy list of symptoms flashed on the screen.

"Son of a bitch!" Rob grumbled, mashing the power button. The news program folded in on itself, became a single pixel, and winked out, leaving him in darkness.

Blinking away the ghostly after-images, Rob hauled himself upright, and headed for the bedroom. He wasn't fully awake yet, and he hoped that if he got into bed soon enough, he'd be able to collapse into the pillow and fall back to sleep before the sound of his wife's constant coughing could rouse him. She'd been sick for ninety-six hours, and he'd been awake for ninety-one of them.

Sure enough, Robette lay huddled in bed. The blankets convulsed as she began coughing violently. Grimacing, Rob flopped onto his side of the mattress.

"Honey..." his wife murmured.

"Yeah?" Rob mumbled from the depths of his pillow.

"Can you go down to the store and get me some NyQuil?"

Rob sighed. He'd been down to the corner store three separate times in the past two days, twice for lozenges, once for Buckley's. Nothing had worked, and he doubted NyQuil would either. "We really need to go see a doctor."

"Tomorrow. Tonight, NyQuil."

"Ugh. Fine."

Rob hauled himself out of bed, staggered to the coat hook, and succeeded in putting on his jacket after two tries. He locked the door to their fourth-floor apartment, and took the elevator down to street level.

The corner store had no NyQuil, and the ambiguously Arabian cashier seemed quite convinced that such a product had probably ever existed in the first place. This forced Rob to choose whether to force himself to trudge five blocks to the nearest 24-hour pharmacy, or run the risk of returning empty-handed. He ultimately concluded that even if the NyQuil didn't work on Robette, it would probably work on him, and he'd get to sleep either way.

He heard a few sirens as he paid an exorbitant price for the NyQuil, pocketed his change, and left the store. A helicopter whirred overhead unnoticed as Rob made his way down the darkened sidewalk, a plastic bag swinging limply from his wrist. It wasn't until he literally ran into a barricade that he noticed that the emergency forces of the entire city seemed to have converged upon his apartment building.

"Hold it right there, pal," snapped a police officer.

"What's going on?" Rob demanded.

"CDA's put the whole building on lockdown. Nobody gets in or out."

"Look, buddy, I live there. I haven't slept in like-"

The police officer ignored him, and waved frantically at two men in Hazmat suits. "Hey! This guy's a resident!"

Rob had had quite enough of this crap. He stormed past the barricade. He didn't make it halfway to the door before the men in Hazmat suits rushed him. He was seized by countless pairs of rubber gloves and dragged towards a portable trailer. A large sign proclaimed this to be a "Decontamination Unit."

Meanwhile, CDA agents began the arduous process of locking down the building. Doors were barricaded, windows were sealed, streets were cordoned off. Helicopters circled the air above. Snipers took up positions in nearby buildings, prepared to fire at anyone who tried to breach the perimeter. Once the process was complete, the CDA sat back, watching for any sign of movement from within. All they could do now was wait.

For the residents, however, the night had only just begun...

Sign up, my friends!

This mafia will be loosely based on the film Quarantine, but you're certainly not required to have seen or liked the movie to play. I've planned the game for about 14 people, but I can tailor it to run with more or less as circumstances demand.

Good luck!

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Whoa, awesome turnout so far. If we reach more than 14, people can still keep signing up, and I'll adjust the game accordingly.

I'm going to leave signups open until Monday night, then hopefully send out roles late that night or early Tuesday. (It's my birthday, so I probably can't get away from familial and spousal obligations until a bit later.)

I'm going to arbitrarily close signups at 11:57 PM tonight. Roles will be sent out some time after that, depending on when Robette goes to bed.

Signups are well and truly closed, and I shall be sending out roles very shortly!

All roles sent out. Day 1 will begin tomorrow around 1 PM EST.

Correction - Day 1 will begin whenever I can harass Curtis into making that section he promised me. :p