The Mandela Catalogue - Surviving Your Dread.

Prologue

Cold frigid wind, the desolate streets are quiet, hearing nothing but the pure agony of silence. Your hands are cold. Callused and damaged beyond repair, you miss when they were soft and delicate from your childhood. God your pathetic. Cowering and afraid of the creatures that lurk in the dark, possibly from your own home. You shiver as you remember you must go out there sometime soon, you couldn't keep living like this. The stillness in your room drove you mad, it left you with your own thoughts, thinking about all your past mistakes and wishing you could have said one last goodbye to everyone before they went. 

Mandla county was merciless on the mind. Once you come in there is no going out. The recent phenomena in your small town have left things in madness and despair. Everybody was scared and skeptical but acted like it was fine. The police claimed they would keep the people safe, but you lost trust in them some time ago. False promises on false promises. 

Everything was utterly useless at this point, might as well sleep under the angel's trumpet because they're not going to save us.

You got up from your bed, the springs under creaking as you sat up. You felt tired but things had to get done. You started to walk to your bedroom door opening it slowly, it had become a habit of yours recently. Once fully opened you walked out, feet dragging slightly as you did. You looked around your apartment, being reminded of how empty it was. You made your way to the dining table. Sitting down you feel a headache starting to form from the sudden change in lighting. Rubbing the gunk from your eyes you catch something faint near a darkened corner. 

It looked like a person. 

You blinked rapidly, relieved to find that it was just a trick of the eye. Your stomach grumbled, body demanding for even a smidge of food. Getting up from the table you went to the pantry, sighing as you see a single half-eaten pack of crackers, nothing else to add to your feast. The plastic wrapping crinkled as you grabbed it, you cringe at the noise. Delicately unwrapping the food, you take three crackers from the package. Placing the rest back into the pantry for later. 

You savored the buttery and saltiness of the small "meal" you took. The salt stings your cracked and peeling lips. You grabbed a cup from your cabinets, the smoothness felt nice on your fingertips. You moved to your faucet and turned it on, the water fell quickly. You place your cup under the stream and watch it fill up, taking it away before it could overflow. 

You take a sip, the coolness felt relieving in your throat. You chugged it down quickly after, feeling satisfied.  You go back to sitting at your small dining table, the chair lets out a small creak as you sit back on it. You began to think about your old life, about how you would visit your friends every weekend, how you all would meet up at 10 pm and stay up until 3 am, how you would wrestle and play fight on the floor. You thought back to your family, oh how you miss them. Even if you didn't get along sometimes you still loved them dearly.

Why.

WHY.

Why was that all stripped away from you, why did you have to suffer. You've never done anything bad in your life, you've never wronged anyone, you've never stolen or cheated. What made those THINGS think they can just stroll into the peace and disturb it.

Your eyes started to tear, you felt helpless. But you really needed to pull yourself together. You can't pray to God, silence was the only answer to your pleas. Wiping the tears from your face you got back up from your chair and pushed it in. you looked around your house, observing how messy it was despite having little furniture or belongings. School papers were everywhere, there was trash scattered around and there was dirt and grime in every corner.

You decided to not clean up, too tired to even keep your eyes open. You slightly stumbled back to your room, the headache from earlier still pounding down in waves.

You made it to your bed, you collapsed onto it.

You let your eyes slowly close.

And you drifted to sleep.

Tomorrow was another day.