Awaken

The Beginning

-four months earlier-

"Honey!"
I could hear the desperation in her voice as I got jolted awake.
"Dani, sweetie, we need to leave now!"
My mind starts racing. My mom has never woken me up this early and in this way. I open my eyes and try to focus on something but everything is just blurry.
"Dani, grab a suitcase and pack only the essentials. We need to get out of here as soon as possible!"
"Mom..." I say groggily "What's going on?"
"Just get dressed and packed and meet us in the living room."
I see the figure run out of the room and then my door slams.
I don't know what that was about but I'm pretty sure it wasn't good.
I get up as quickly as I can, get dressed, and grab my backpack. I throw some clothes in there, my phone, a book, and some chocolate my mom didn't know I had in my room. I sling my bag over my shoulders and run out the door grabbing my converse and socks on the way out.
I walk into the living room and see my dad moving things around in a bigger bag, probably trying to make some extra room so he can fit other things in there.
That's when I see what's in the bag.
Guns.
Every single gun we own was in that bag and I suddenly realized that this was worse than I thought.
"Dad... What's going on?"
He stops shuffling around in the bag for a moment and hesitates before he speaks.
"There's.. There's a virus going around"

"That we need guns for?"
I mean what was he going to do? Shoot people who were sick!?
"The virus is deadly... and we'll, there were reports that people were coming back after they had died. They were some kind of mutated human."
Oh, Haha, I get it. My family thinks it's funny to wake me up at 5 am and prank me that it's the end of the world and people are coming back to life after they die.
"Yeah, nice try dad"

"Dani..."
I turn around to go back into my room and get some more sleep but I stop when I see the bright screen that was illuminating the room. I stare at the TV for a couple of moments and watch gruesome scenes of people literally ripping apart other people, and reporters scrambling around trying to get a good shot at what's happening and also trying not to get eaten themselves.
"You've got to be kidding..."
I whisper this under my breath because It couldn't be true. How could this be happening. This had to be a joke, a prank, a hoax.
This was not actually happening. People eating people.
I slowly started backing up away from the horrid sight and bump into something.
I scream and curse at the surprise but settle down after I realize it was Just my brother.
" Trey you can't just sneak up on people like that."

My older brother, a real douche. He just turned 17 last week. I say he's a douche but he's actually not that bad.
"Well maybe you should look where you're going whore."
I take that back.
I stick my tongue out at him and he laughs, but it quickly fades due to my mother speaking.
"Trey, Dani, get in the car now. We need to leave now. New York is going to be packed."
Well, I guess it wasn't a joke. It was for real and we were about to leave my house at 5 am going to Lord knows where trying to escape some epidemic that is deadly and will then make you come back to life and eat people.

Life is just great isn't it.