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Artemis looked at her sister, wondering how it would be when she was not here anymore.
She was here, yet so far away.
It seemed impossible, though she had seen the disease implanted in so many people before her. Her curly, brown hair and the constant spark in her eyes. How could these traits ever be gone? How could she walk in the same house knowing the ones she cared most about wasn't here anymore?
Unthinkable.
Yet so soon.
Eileen laid with her eyes closed, while the chest rose and fell in gasping breaths. She had been locked in as soon she showed any signs of the disease. A weird virus the government released after the Sun Flares or Solar Storms as we call them.
We weren't prepared. I don't think anyone was. At least not for what happened in October.
Massive Sun Flares destroyed the planet and turned the areas between the two tropics, Cancer and Capricorn, into a wasteland, now known as the Scorch. Extreme heat, tsunamis and the firestorms killed too many to count. But what happened afterwards weren't much better. The human civilization was on the brink of collapse. Many countries, such as Mexico and India, had been destroyed.
And then the PFC or Post-Flares Coalition released their deadly, airborne virus with the purpose of having control of the population. We call it the Flare. Yes. Sun Flares, the Flare. Exactly where we got it from. Creative right?
But just within months the creators of the Flare being airborne, lost total control of it. With its quickly spreading it became a global pandemic. Us out here living with it doesn't know the original purpose with the virus, but the outcomes where terrible. No one really knows what happens to those infected with the Flare, only that they become extremely violent and have a murderous rage to kill others.
Eileen let out a scream and began clawing herself, as her head twisted in a weird position. Now staring at Artemis with horror in her face.
"My head! My head! My head!"
"Eileen." Artemis whispered knowing that it was impossible to talk her sister into reason.
"My head! My head!" The two only words she seemed to know. "My heaaaad!" She let out a lengthened scream and began tearing her arms to blood with her nails. Rolled in a ball on the floor, shaking with blood covering her forehead, her chin, her cheeks and her neck.
"My head! My head!"
All she wished was to break through the barricades and pull her sister close. Relieving her for the pain she was in. But she knew she couldn't, even if she felt terrible. It would also be really stupid of her.
Artemis heard the sound of moving and then a loud bump against the door. Then another. And another.
Bump. Bump. Bump.
"Eileen." She stepped away from the door with a crackling voice. There was a few more bumps, and then a last, long and tearing scream, which ended with a wet and rattling sound. Artemis heard her sister whimper as she fell onto the floor, with her last exhalation.
With tears in her eyes she looked away, ashamed of herself, but still in that moment feeling somehow relived over that her sufferings were finally over. Even tough it hurt to think about it.
