Dominance

Chapter 13: Informative Roller-coaster

Although Sara was surprisingly famished, her breakfast wrap tasted like sadness and doom. Judging by the face Eric pulled after a sip of his takeaway coffee, the hot beverage was equally terrible.

"Couldn't we have stopped for breakfast somewhere with a little more... class?" Eric asked Norman, trying to find an appropriate adjective.

"Not for drive-through food. I'm not really keen for us to look for somewhere else to stop." Norman answered without taking his focus from the road. "Plus, not much else is open currently anyway. And the food at Wc'donald's is cheap."

"I'll say", Eric mumbled into his drink. "Trust them to still be open. I don't think a full-blown apocalypse would stop them from operating."

"Well, we're not officially in lockdown till tomorrow."

Eric snorted mid-sip.

"Yeah. Fantastic. That suddenly escalated fast, no didn't it? The idiot government has been covering up the rapid increase in death numbers, with a handful of ridiculous explanations, for weeks now. And what's with the wearing of masks all of a sudden, ay? What is the government saying is the cause of this 'abrupt pandemic' now?

"Both here and overseas are pushing a mutant strain of diphtheria, last I heard."

Eric coughed, choking on his drink as the wheels of the van dipped into a small pothole on the road. He rolled his eyes once he recovered before he spoke again.

"But that's an olden day fluey thing! Which they already have a vaccine for! You're telling me the excuse they came up with for the bodies lined up down the hallway of Greg's morgue... Is diphtheria?"

Norman kept his hands on the steering wheel as he shrugged. "Symptoms like breathing issues and heart and nerve damage could be linked. Although it's a stretch. I guess that's why they're pushing the 'mutant strain' theory."

"Ridiculous," Eric mumbled as he wiped some spilled coffee off of the already heavily stained passenger seat upholstery.

Sara sat silently in her cloud of depression while she listened to the men talk. She stared somberly at the aged interior of the van. Was it wrong that she was feeling unfazed that they were allegedly in a pandemic? A part of her had already succumbed to the idea that her world had ended the moment she saw the lifeless bodies of her parents. There was no family to go back to now. No home. No life.

Sara was meant to be graduating soon. Working on getting her driver's licence. Applying for part time work. She'd still not decided exactly what she wanted to do with her life, much to her parents dismay. Sara thought she'd have plenty of time to get her act together. But it turns out she didn't. And now she felt like none of that mattered anymore.

Sara slouched further in the side chair and looked to the brothers who occupied the back-of-van space along with her. Sparkie had already finished his breakfast and was now eating Twister's serving, who had turned his nose up at it.

"You eat a lot," Sara noted at Sparkie.

"Yeah. I do." Sparkie smiled between bites. "And transforming uses a lot of energy too, so I'm extra hungry today."

Sara glanced over at Twister with a raised eyebrow. "Oh. I see."

"What?" Twister snapped as Sara gave him a side eye.

"Nothing." Sara snapped back, shoving the remainder of her flavourless wrap in her mouth. She washed it down with a swig of bottled water.

Sara let out a heavy sigh as she slumped forward, resting her elbows on her knees and head in her hands.

"I keep finding myself back in this stupid ugly van. What am I even doing? Where do I go from here?" she groaned and rubbed her sore eyes. In the last couple of days, Sara had cried enough for at least two lifetimes.