The White Angel's Prayer

01. The Hunter and the Hunted

TWO YEARS LATER

27 YEARS POST OUTBREAK DAY

2040

OKLAHOMA CITY QUARANTINE ZONE

The air was tinged with the bite of icicles, but the winds stood silent and still. The bone-shuddering coldness seeped through the many layers in which 29-year-old Lucy Burgess wore; the skin on her face stung, and her cheeks and nose were coloured with blush pink. Her footsteps crunched under the snow as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

The house in which she stood sported the evidence of a long-burnt-out blaze, the likes of which having hungrily consumed its neighbours in a wrathful dance fuelled by the greedy need to accumulate in size. This house, however, had seemed to be where it met its end, with only half of the structure bearing the brunt of the attack. Blackened walls sat charred and unstable, opening holes for the elements to destroy the rest of the house. But under the safety of the last remaining bit of ceiling, snow peppered the rotting hardwood floors in its attempt to reach further in.

Against the wall opposite Lucy sat two rotted corpses forever locked in a lover's embrace. One sat between the legs of the other, curled into their chest with their arms locked between them. The other skeleton had its head lolled to one side, one arm still strung across the back of the smaller one. They both sat in a dried puddle of liquified tissue, and the wall behind them was stained brown with arching blood splatters. An empty gun lay discarded on the floor beside them, the hand that held it now lying limp by the owner's side.

Lucy stared at them. Her brows pulled together at the sight of them, curled protectively with each other — they had danced into the very end, their final breaths taken in the comfort of their lover's presence. It was a death that Lucy could only ever wish for; so beautifully poetic and yet dreadfully painful — a love that never died until they did.

The brunette exhaled, the fog of her breath puffing a small white cloud ahead of her. She had come in with the intention of picking out the leftovers in the house, but she was taking the sight of the dead couple as her sign to pack it up and leave. Besides, it was late afternoon, and Lucy wanted to get home so she could double-check her traps before nightfall.

She adjusted her grip on the wooden recurve bow in her right hand and backed out of the house. Lucy jumped down from the foundation and felt her heart skip a beat as movement blurred in the corner of her eye. She turned only to find someone standing by her horse, Attenborough. Upon closer inspection, this person seemed to be picking through her saddlebags.

"Hey. What do you think you're doing?" Lucy asked as she marched closer. The person proved to be a teenage boy as they whipped around in shock, holding in their hand one of the squirrels that Lucy had caught earlier in the day.

"I-I'm sorry," the boy stammered. He nervously took a step back and held out the squirrel. "Here. You-you can have it back."

When Lucy looked him up and down, she deduced very quickly that he was most likely on his own with no affiliation to any group. He wore stained rags, and he was bone-thin, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. He probably hadn't slept in days.

Lucy frowned. "Just get out of here," she finally said. The boy looked startled, and his eyes unsurely swept from her to the house to Attenborough. "Now," Lucy said firmly, jutting her chin out. The boy wasted no time in heeding her advice. He turned on his heel and began to run away, his boots two sizes too big, appearing as if they would just slide off his feet any moment.