UnAlive

(draft) Chapter 1: She awakes

Seven years ago

2021 April 21st                             

As the military truck heaved and swayed along the uneven gravel road, the stretched shadows of a drowning sun made its last attempt at staying afloat. The final remanents of daylight clawed at the world with its phantom talons as the encroaching darkness made its way through the hills and mountains.

Streams of waning light weakly illuminated the packed truck. 

It wasn't a comfortable ride. With no semblance of personal space, knees and elbows jostle against each at every lurch of the vehicle. The air was stale, smelling of disinfectant and dense with a somber atmosphere of impending doom.

The train of trucks, buses and cars all slowly trespassed into the forest's domain, plunging themselves into the woodlands haunting darkness. 

Her heart hammered in her chest with each tilt of back and forth from the moving truck; the world was ending around her, and despite her efforts to remain brave and calm, a wave of dread steadily rose within her; lone survivors fleeing their destruction leaving behind only desolation.

Before boarding the truck, the soldiers warned them all about the lack of reception at their final destination, urging them to say their final words to family and friends.

Rani barely glanced at her phone griped in her palm. The death of her husband left her with no one she could call that would pick up. Rejected and disowned by her parents for loving a man of another race, the last contact she had with her family was when she got engaged to Rocco. Since then it had been four long years, and sometimes Rani questioned whether she made the right choice. The ghosts of doubt and regret awaited for a moment of weakness to grasp her in their clutches.

For the nth time since her husband's passing, she craved to have someone or some place to call home. She longed for her mother's old gnarled hands to caress her hair one last time. The same way she did when Rani would sit in the between her legs as her mother braided her hair with nimble fingers and intricately woven tales. But she was ocean's apart on a different continent and four years in the past in another life time. 

Only the slight whine of the engine and hushed whispers of the wind spoke to her.

The reminder of her solitude only made her feel more conscious of the device in her palm. It burnt against her skin, as if calling attention to its existence and mocking her's at the same time. What use is phone, a device invented for communication, if you have no one to call?

She traced the carved initials on the inside of the smooth curve of the precious metal, tugging it against her neck. 

R & R.

In darker moments of uncertainty and anxiety, she always reached for the gold ring nestled against her sternum. A habit of reflexive reassurance to smite the bleak bitter taste of loneliness. She had sacrificed far too much, all in the name of gaining her freedom and independence, for her life's work to now be threatened by an apocalypse?

It was something right out of a cheaply written romance thriller movie. Where the heartbroken female lead who's world just got torn to pieces in front of her is rescued by a prince in shining armor. Viciously slaughtering zombies left and right with inhuman strength and speed, which he would claim, was all because of the power of their love. 

She scoffed at the idea. As if she would let someone else write the ending to her story. 

If anything, if she were to die, it shall be. But she would not be forgotten. 

She vows to tell her story, for any that were curious, to leave her mark in a world of nameless corpses. Lest she be forgotten, the papers that soaked up her inked ramblings would tell her tale.