Two Summers Ago, the World Went to Shit

Chapter 11: A War Amongst People

Chapter 11: A War Amongst People

     My sweet, sweet Greyson was gone. I'd failed him; I didn't protect him like I should have. I came here, I did this for him. I wanted to do right by him and give him a safe place to live, but this ended up being the worst decision of my life. To everyone else, it seemed like it could've possibly been our saving grace, but I had a feeling in my heart from the first time I'd seen Lucy that told me something wasn't right. I never would've thought this would be the ending result.
     I couldn't even run over to his body to hold him one last time because now I was the one struggling to live. That day was meant to be a celebration for his birthday. We'd been through so much bad that it was time for a positive change, but instead of celebrating his life, I was mourning his death. He'd become my son, my moon, and my stars. I lost it all, and I'm sure this was my punishment for breaking the rules.
     Gabe's followers scattered after the gunshots sounded, and Caleb went after Lucy when she'd sent a bullet through my body, and then another, and a third bullet. He knocked her to the ground, grabbing the gun from her possession as every member of Opfer Temple made their way outside to see what was going on. Everything was hazy; my body was in pain, but slowly going numb. I couldn't help but think, I'm dying aren't I? That was it for me. I just knew it was.
The door was opened as people pooled out into the forbidden courtyard. Everyone was in a panic and scrambling as they didn't know where to go or what to do; their leader was now dead. Screams of fear and despair filled the air around us as the unaware, innocent residents here scattered in every direction. I remembered hearing what sounded like an army of zombies coming from the wooded area behind the courtyard where almost every member now stood. Jackson ran over to me as he cried, unsure of what he could do in the moment to save me. He tried holding pressure on the wounds, but it was impossible to do with three gaping holes and only two hands.
     Somewhere amongst the chaos, Bailey and Ryan came out and ran to my side to assess the situation. Jackson's hands were now covered in my blood as I looked up at him from the ground. I could see something change in him as he realized what was happening. He was distraught, begging for me to stay alive. I knew he didn't want to leave my side, but Bailey and Ryan took over trying to keep me alive. Jackson stood up, looking down at his hands and back over to me. He tried to find Caleb amongst the crowd of people.
     Eventually, he'd seen Lucy wrestling with Caleb, ordering for him to let her go. But, none of us were prepared for this. Up until this moment they'd been a couple. He had to readapt and quickly react to the state of Opfer. His girlfriend had shot his sister, and all of the secrets this place had been keeping for reaching the surface. They'd murdered Greyson, they'd nearly murdered me, and now he was somewhere between saving me or stopping her. I mean, what did you do in this situation? You couldn't just lock her up; it's an assisted living facility after all, not a prison. He couldn't kill her either. After you killed someone, everything about you altered—you never really went back to who you were before. Trust me.
I couldn't tell exactly where I'd been shot, I just knew I was in pain all over my body. I was in and out of consciousness, and I was losing so much blood. I needed to be alert for so many reasons pertinent to the situation at hand, but I was quickly withering away. I couldn't tell Caleb and Jackson at the time what I'd discovered about this place other than what they'd just witnessed. They were probably so confused. But, we were in enemy territory.
     Those words Opfer and Gabe together were German for sacrifice. The soldiers that'd attacked us at the start had an accent that I now know was German. The people here were working with or for the German soldiers that were injecting the population with something before killing them. I tried to muster out the words to get Bailey to warn them, but I was unconscious—I was almost certain that I was dead.
If you've made it to this part of my story, you know that this past summer, the world went to shit. Everything—the sequences of events that'd happened was the epitome of shit. Absolute shit. I was in a love triangle with my brother's best friend and my baby's father even though I'd just caught one of them cheating with a woman who gotten Greyson killed. I'd been given medication for my bipolar disorder for over a month, only it wasn't my medication; it was either another medication that had nothing to do with the disorder or was just fake or a vitamin. Either way, I was in a manic episode in the midst of a zombie apocalypse which is when you should absolutely not be off the rocker. I'd lost Greyson to the very people who caused this whole ordeal with dead corpses roaming around. And now, I was dying, dead, or maybe not, because after who knows how long, I'd woken up.