Dark Blood

Chapter 8: Rebuilding Hope

None of them could contain their excitement as they told Kyle everything about how they remodel the school and fortified it to be a fortress against freaks. They kept all talking over one another over how they got it done and what they did, and Kyle was just following them only getting to understand the basic bits. 

"... Ahem! So basically, you all control something in the school?"

"Oh um, Yes! Jackson is a general for our scouts and guards, Sam is our weapon instructor, and Isaac is the freak biologist, and I'm in charge of our resource storage!" Sarah seemed exceedingly proud of herself for her job so much to the point that while smiling at Kyle her eyes were sparkling with delight. Like everyone else Isaac made a fake smile at Sarah to hide his embarrassment for her misplaced pride. Isaac then made a fake cough and changed the subject to rid the atmosphere of the awkwardness.

"There's still much we don't know about the freaks, but my team has been making great progress about the biology of the freaks, not to brag of course. But if you'd like I could escort you to the-"

"Blah! Blah! Focus on the science later, let's go and see the outside!" Sam took Kyle's arm and led him from the lab where Isaac was originally trying to take Kyle to, which annoyed Isaac. Instead, Sam escorted Kyle outside the school and what he saw in the front field of the school was amazing. There were crop fields of carrots, potatoes, cabbages, tomatoes, and grapes in front of the school, and they were being harvested and tended by some of the surviving high school and middle school kids. And beside them was the elementary and the primary kids chasing each other around and laughing.

"Yeah, after we picked you up, I drove us to the elementary and me and Sam grabbed the kids there; we saved about thirty of them. So now there's over a hundred of us."

"Didn't find any functioning androids though." Sam had a sarcastic tone to her voice as if she was still bitter at Jackson and Kyle for not prioritizing survivors.

Kyle then noticed that Marco was playing with them, but he was shocked to see him out of his wheelchair. Kyle couldn't believe it Marco's legs were always too weak yet now he was running around to play a game. Sarah noticed him staring at Marco and stood beside Kyle.

"Yeah, we don't know how but he's been getting stronger lately, I mean his brain hasn't changed but he can stand on his own now." Kyle couldn't believe how something like that is possible but at the moment he didn't care he was just glad his best friend could finally stand by himself, and he smiled watching him play with the younger kids.

"What are they doing now?"

"They're playing freaks vs kids; I don't know why but they love that game." Kyle snickered a little at this but then his smile faded when he saw the graves. A land on the right of the school that was once a pit of dirt now had hundreds of graves each one belonging to someone who had died too young, none of them didn't deserve this and none of them had been marked with names. Quickly Sam noticed what Kyle was looking at the graves and responded.

"Oh those, yeah we couldn't give them coffins but we still gave them the burial the deserved and we did pray for them and moralize them by writing their names on the sidewalk. We also mourned for them a lot... like A LOT, I mean we are kids after all." Kyle then noticed the sidewalk being filled with hundreds of carved in names.

"Yeah, I carved the names myself, with pure luck the apocalypse happened a month after picture day! Without the picture books containing everyone in every school names we would have to bury them nameless!"

"*sniff* Yeah thank god." Jackson was smiling at first but then stopped when Sarah spoke up and they all saw that she was starting to tear up. it was clear she was not over it just yet, it made sense since it had only been three days since the apocalypse happened. it had all happened too fast and everyone was forced to adapt so quickly despite being so young; Kyle hated all of it but he knew better than to let his anger fuel the negativity growing in the atmosphere, so he instead changed the subject.