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♠ D r o w n e d ♠
Darkness. That's all she's ever known. It was her home, her sanctuary, her friend. Never dare step out into the light, Mother would say, there are predators, dangerous predators out to get you. Opposite to the girl she once was, she loved and embraced the darkness. As the truck made a stop, her breathing hitched and she opened the doors.
She was washed with the first rays of light of San Francisco. Jumping off the truck and closing the doors, she drifted off in the shadows of an alleyway, completely going unnoticed by the truck drivers she had hitched a ride from Ohio to San Francisco.
San Francisco.
Her home, her love, her sanctuary. It was not the same they way she had left it. As the sun shines brightly on the streets, every thing looked dead. The buildings had been taken over by mother nature's glory, her vines twisted on buildings, crumbled leaves on the streets. The walls painted in horrid graffiti, all of which mentioning the deadly virus that killed off humanity.
The city was dead, just like her little black heart as she walked down the sidewalk, aimlessly and not having a destination. She held her backpack straps tightly letting her feet guide to a clearing from the buildings. It was a beautiful peaceful clearing yet depressing all the same as she searched through, walking between each stones.
And there it was.
Calliope Natalia Rodman stood before the stone, many kinds of flowers placed in front of it. She dreaded to even think about this when she heard, to see it now with her very own eyes, twisted her heart pulling it hard than she had interpreted. The pain almost unbearable as she read in her mind of the words forming, written;
Charles Rodman
Father Grandfather Loving Teacher
Calliope knew he was much more than those three words written on the stone. As she came here, she was meant to weep, to feel the emptiness of the void left in her dark heart but, no. That was not the case. Her cheeks were dry, no tears in sight. Her heart was swollen with loss and agony. She knew it would come after the Flu broke out. She knew she'd lose her family one by one. She sat by the corner of the four walled room and cried in sheer agony of not only losing her family but of losing herself.
She was nothing but a shell of the person she once was. In fact, she was no one. She had no one, no one to run to, no one to hold onto, no shoulder to cry on. Why bother crying? Why bother singing a song full of hope for the void that has long been abandoned?
She didn't speak. She didn't need or want to. What was she to say to thin air? Was this some kind of sick joke? Absolutely not. Calliope Rodman knew what goodbyes meant but in her childhood she never used them, she never uttered that world. When she parted with someone, her phrase would be, 'See you when we meet again'. And in this case, there was no meeting her Granddad, not unless she dies of course.
She sighs, kneeling. The damaged rotten flowers were a proof enough that it had been long since someone visited his grave. Taking them away, throwing them to the side, she took the roses and periwinkles in her backpack, placing them where the recent decaying flowers once were.
Running her finger tips on her grandfather's name, her eyes shut as she remembered memories of the past. But the flashes stopped almost immediately, a family voice scolded, destroy your past, so you can build your future, she hated that voice with every fiber in her body. She made a choice, she had to live.
But with what? What was her source to live for in this dying world? Nothing. Her granddad was gone, her 'parents' were gone. Her brother was gone. So exactly, what was there to hold on to? Calliope didn't dwell on this questions much longer as she pressed her palms on her knees and stood up. It has been a long time since she had been in San Francisco, 12 years to be exact to which she needed a map to locate her surroundings.
Her next destination would be the mall to get supplies. And as she expected like the city, the mall was in ruins as she pushes open the doors that used to be automatic. Thanks to her strengths that far passed that of a human, it was a breeze.
She attempted to push open the pharmacy store's door but it was locked as she saw the key. Tapping her foot on the tiles, her boot echoing through the halls. A small small made a way to her lips as she saw a table. Taking it in her hands, she swung it with force that broke the glass and she easily went through the door.
She made advantage of this and took whatever she saw, painkillers, antibiotics, everything and and anything that was needed. Surviving. That's all she's ever done these years and will continue to do so till whatever the future will bring her.
When she was done at the pharmacy, she ventured her way to the clothes store and took all she could get then moved to the food store. Now that was the tricky part. Food had been expired, some gone. A sigh left her lips as she passed by each empty isle, each of which making her lose more and more hope.
Then she heard a sound. Calliope stopped dead on her tracks, not daring to move a muscle as she stood like a statue. She held her breathe. All those years in the cage she was taught how to handle being caught, so she wasn't scared when that same exact brief sound returned. There was shuffling, following by light gibbering.
Calliope frowned and reached for her gun holster, taking out the weapon and pointing it forward. Slow and steady, she took cautious footsteps towards the sound. Like any other sane person who would run from the dark, she was a rebel, she was relentless. And it is those that are relentless that venture into the darkness to bring light to the truth, a gentle voice taught during her dreams that weren't nightmares that she usually had.
As the sound grew closer and closer, she knew she was approaching it. Gibbering. She recalled hearing. The gibbering came from a dark blue towel and she furrowed her brows, aiming the gun towards it and kicking her foot on whatever the towel wrapped.
She slowly approached and her grey eyes widened, seeing the sight. A baby ape. His arms held out high as he gibbered about, his bright green eyes shines with curiosity as he looked up at the strange human above him. He could be no more than a day old, thought Cal as placed her gun on it's holster and kneeled beside the baby.
"What are you doing here, little one?" she asks. Then she remembered that the apes were given hate by the humans of starting this virus. Calliope scoffed at the thought, poking the little ape's belly which looked undernourished. "You must be hungry."
Suddenly, she heard growling. It was deep, but behind it, it sent a message of a threat. And out from the shadows came out a little ape, it stalked towards the baby and pulled it away from her. They must be siblings, Calliope thought. She knew that look of protectiveness from a mile away. "No, no, no, it's okay, it's okay . . ."
"Look," she kept her voice low and in a friendly manner. She tilted her head, "I'm a friend. Friend. I protect, not destroy." she pats her chest gently, trying to give on an impression that she was no harm.
To be honest, she was a lot of harm. But she had a choice now and she chose not to harm the defenceless nor the innocent.
"Shh, it's okay. I won't hurt you." the bonobo toddler stopped sneering her way, his eyes glimmered and Cal noticed, that glimmer of hope he had in his big eyes. She once had it when she lied or 'promised' to herself that her father will come and find her. He never did. And she lost that hope.
