The Husks

Valentine sighed as he shrugged on his purple jacket, his shaggy black hair pulled back in a hair tie leaving only his bangs framing his face. His blue eyes scanned over an imaginary list before him, mentally listing off supplies he and his travel companion would need for the trip they were about to take.The boy turned his face to the dirty and cracked window, listening as the rain pitter-pattered against the roof. The sound was calming to him, reminding him of his home town before everything happened. Valentine's mouth twitched up into a ghost of a smile as he remembered his young brother, elder sister, and his loving mother. They had fallen ill not long before those...things took over their bodies. He shuddered, shaking his head to clear himself of the horrific images, though not before his companion walked through the tin door frame.

The person before him was Cleo, his best friend since he was a toddler. Her hair was cut shorter than Valentine's, thus she just let it be. She often got stern with her partner for leaving his hair down, the locks falling past his shoulders. Cleo often worried for her friend that one day she won't be at his side to remind him to pull his hair back, whether it goes into a messy bun or a simple ponytail was his choice. Or the odd occasion he asked her to twist the hair into a pair of dutch braids he would pin together. Speaking of those occasions..

"Cleo? Would you mind braiding my hair real quick before we hit the road?" Valentine's faint accented voice came to Cleo's ears, making the girl lift her head to look at the male before her. She still had yet to ask where his accent originates. She nodded a confirmation that she would and motioned for the taller of the two to sit down over on the old wooden bench. Cleo had to refrain herself from laughing as her best friend let out an exaggerated whine, his blue eyes lighting up with a childish joy as he saw her trying not to laugh. The boy sat on the bench, his back to his partner with a kid-like whoop. The shorter girl just shook her head as the ravenette wiggled childishly where he sat.

"We should stop near the river today, you need to wash your hair." Cleo spoke quietly, her voice nearly a whisper as she tugged the hair tie from the male's hair. She pulled a face at how greasy his hair was, but then again when there's twisted bodies who can't even be classified as human wandering about trying to drag your soul down to hell, one doesn't exactly get much time to shower. As if showers still worked anyway. When the husks first came about in a wave of plagues, most people turned to panic and irrationality. And those who didn't watched as the people around them began to disappear one by one.

Soon the survivors began to wear masks and oxygen tanks to filter out the disease ridden air. That hadn't worked for long, the illness simply adapted to the temporary solution. It was almost aware of what was going on. Soon the virus began to physically eat away at one's flesh, turning the muscle to mush and the skin scaly. Valentine and Cleo called them the Withered. Those husks were slower, stupider, though still very dangerous. The husks taken first were the strongest, smarter, and even still less dangerous than the withered being. It's unclear how they were taken, the believers in the supernatural would say demon possession. Scientists might say it was a brain worm. Nonetheless, the cause was unclear.

 All that was known of the illness was it came from a green fog, the fog was suffocatingly thick and smelled of rot. It engulfed the cities and the town one by one, day by day for two weeks before it dispersed mysteriously one night. Everyone had been glad at that time, they thought the worst had come to pass. They were...thoroughly incorrect. The illness rolled about exactly two weeks after the fog disappeared, starting with a simple cough. It spread into the throat, blocking the victim's airways. After being ill for two weeks, the infected would die at exactly two fifteen in the morning with blood pouring from their eyes and ears. They would scream for hours on end after the departure...wailing like banshees driven by hunger. Howling out to be freed from their rooms, always locked, or freed from any binds holding them down. Screaming to kill.