A New Virus

Two

After school, I raced down to the stables to grab Bailey, my dark brown coated bay horse. Nearly everyone without Heartfire would ride a horse to get around as we didn't have the stamina required of the others. Some would also drive cars powered by either electricity or solar panels but those were much more high maintenance than a horse was and they also couldn't travel across unpaved areas without difficulty. Though that didn't mean that only those without Heartfire would ride on horseback or within those cars...just that people without it were more prone to do so.

As I approached the mare, I placed my hand along her forehead as I brought it down to pet her. She let off an amused neigh before she sneezed. "Eww...Bailey...!" I lightly scolded the horse as I wiped my now horse snot-ed hand along my jeans, used to Bailey's antics. Bailey only lowered her head as if in apology. I let out a sigh. "I can't stay mad at you now can I...?" I asked the mare, only for said mare to shake her head from side to side as if she understood me...which sometimes I wondered if she actually did. These were one of those times. I pet her mane before I placed a foot upon her saddle before I brought myself up to sit along it, taking her reins. "Come on." With a slight squeeze of her rib cage, she trotted forwards as we left the school stables.

After we left the school grounds, Bailey and I picked up our pace as we neared the edge of the walls which encased the main part of the city. During the darkness, the main city was all there was with the walls which stood high to keep those inside safe. Now...the walls stood in near crumbles as we'd expanded beyond them, no longer having enough space inside for everything. Bailey leaped over a crumbled joint in the wall, her feet gracefully landing on the other side before we picked up our pace even more. We passed a couple small houses before we entered the forest edge, the same part of forest Emma had gone missing in when we were ten. Once inside the forest, I dismounted Bailey before I roughly hit the ground with my feet as I just dropped from her saddle. I didn't want to waste time...I couldn't...it's been nearly six years...six years of pain and suffering. I placed my hand to my heart as I picked up my run into a light jog, Bailey stayed trotting behind me as we went.

"Emma...!" I screamed out into the forest like I always did. I'd scream and scream and scream...and she'd never appear. I'd do the same thing, over and over again on repeat...hoping for a different outcome than before. That was the definition of insanity...perhaps I was insane...or just hopeful. I hoped it was the latter as I continued my search. "Emma...!"

I didn't give up until my voice was nearly strained from yelling so much...until the sun begun to set. I quickly heard a cautious neigh from Bailey as she raised herself up along her back legs, letting off a more worried neigh as she did so. My head quickly swung back to her.

"Bailey...!" I tried to calm down the mare, reaching my hands out as if to grab her reins. A snapping of a twig behind me startled me and Bailey, I quickly swung around...Bailey bolted away as if sensing danger. "Bailey...!" I called out after the mare once more, it was no use. I felt a drop of rain fall onto my hand before I swung it off. "Oh...just my luck...!" I complained to nobody in particular...I was by myself after all. Another twig snapped as I heard the faint sound of leaves being crunched, walked on. I quickly swung to the noise. "H-hello...?" I asked out, my voice a little bit afraid. "Anybody there...?" When nobody answered me, I grew a bit angry. "Oh come on...! Zack...! If this is your idea of a prank...we are having words! Come out, I know you're there!"

A figure walked, no stalked, out of the trees and towards me...like a predator as the forest around me seemed to darken with the setting sun. I took a step back as I saw them, backing myself up a tree. The figure snarled as it saw me, my heart seemed to drop with fear. I looked at it's eyes...they glowed a bright crimson.... I let out a stifled scream as it quickly pined me against the tree, it's eyes seemed to scan me as it tilted it's head as if in confusion.

I took in it's appearance...it looked somewhat like me...if only dirtier. My eyes stared into its slightly glazed over ones...the windows of it's soul. It acted as if it didn't have any, a mindless animal...but I could see the hurt in it's eyes. My voice seemed to leave me before I had enough time to think. "E-Emma...?" I questioned it, although the creature looked around my age and not that of a small child near the age of ten...like how Emma had been when she disappeared.

A spark of recognition seemed to drift behind it's eyes as I said that word...that name. There was nothing else to say about it...I was sure it was her. I could feel it in my very being...my soul. I had found her...at long last.

My body seemed to tremble as she stared into my eyes, an unsettling hunger behind her own. I swiftly closed my eyes, as if in fear. When I reopened them...she was gone.

Had I imagined it...? I asked myself before my eyes seemed to fling down to one of my arms. I didn't notice it until she let go, there was a long scratch along my arm...it seemed to slightly burn. I grabbed my injured arm in one hand as I slid down the tree I had been backed up against. That was real.... My inner voice seemed to tell me. There was no debating it now...the proof rested along my arm, where she had gripped it at to pin me. It stung as I sat there...there was nothing else I could do. Bailey left, it was about a two hour walk back without her...and I didn't want to walk in the dark...in the darkness which seemed to surround me.

After a while, a pins and needles sensation told me I had sat there far too long. Like those with Heartfire, I was prone to the pins and needles sensations...although they came to me far less and far dulled down than it did to those with Heartfire. I paced the area, not much else to do to get rid of them. My eyes then landed on another figure in the darkness. "H-hello...?" I called out to it. "E-Emma...?" Had she returned...?

A quick snarl told me otherwise, a more threatening one that what Emma had let off. It didn't help that the voice sounded much different as well. My heart seemed to stop as I stared at it. N-nope...! I quickly told myself. I needed to get away from it...my instincts seemed to tell me. Only one problem with that...I was in the middle of the fricken forest. I looked at a tree beside me as I remembered something I heard Miss Briella once tell the class.

I didn't want to image for a second that all her talks had been true...but if they were.... I stared at the beast in front of me, it's eyes seemed to glow even brighter than Emma's as the forest seemed to be blanketed by darkness. I quickly turned around and jumped up to grab one of the lower branches that I thought would support me. It did.

As if it knew what I was doing...the beast swiftly came forward, taking hold on my leg. It pulled me down, the wind seemed to fly out of my lungs as my back harshly hit the forest floor. The creature quickly stalked over me before it sniffed the air, it's eyes quickly found the wound Emma had inflicted upon me as blood beaded up around the wound. It's eyes seemed to scan it, it's mouth watered as saliva dropped down onto my arm.

I did not like that look. Luckily...when it pulled me down, it also pulled down with me the branch I had been holding on to. I brought the stick up to it's head, striking it. Stunned by my strike, the creature snared as it looked at the stick...knowing my weapon. In it's distraction, I brought my leg up to kick it in the chin. It staggered off of me. I quickly wiped away it's saliva from my arm, finding it really disgusting just sitting there, as I wiped my arm along my shirt.

It stalked closer to me, I just narrowly avoided it's razor sharp claws. I brought the stick back against it's side, it staggered back but swiftly recovered. It's eyes seemed to glow brighter at it's anger, it snarled.

I snarled back at it, mocking it. It looked at me in confusion. Enough confusion which costed it dearly as I brought my stick back down upon it's head. I knocked it down to the ground. I struck it again before it could get up. My stick grew bloody at the impact as it tore through it's skull. Again and again and again, I struck it. I didn't want to chance it getting back up.

For if it was what I thought it was...it seemed impossible for it to even exist. There was no killing it...not that I could right now. If Briella was correct, enough brain damage meant that it'd be incapacitated like a Human in a coma.

Once done and satisfied with my work, I staggered back as I dropped the stick beside me. I turned back towards the tree it pulled me from. I tiredly started my climb, not stopping until I was at least more than twenty feet up the tall tree. I let out a long, tired, sigh as I sat there up in the tree...waiting. It was only a matter of time until someone noticed that Bailey was without me. They would come looking...like what Emma's little stallion had done all those years ago.