Bird's Eye View

Chapter One

The sun begins to rise as I wake, painting an orange and pink hue onto the dew-kissed, grass I slept on last night. Two weeks have passed since I was separated from my friends, but I've been travelling to our destination every day. We were on our way to a place called Daper. It's a sanctuary which accepts numerous people every month and we thought maybe this was our chance. I know that if any of them survived they'd be going there and I can't bear the thought of all of them being gone. There has to be at least one left.

Thirteen years have passed since the end of World War Three, the battle that caused the apocalypse. The human world has been in disarray ever since, but nature has retaken our cities and roads as if it were its birth right. Greenery litters the streets I walk, moss blankets the broken down vehicles and animals scurry about without a care in the world. It's quiet now, the silence almost unnerving since our world used to be full of so many different sounds; a cacophony in itself. The air is fresh, that heavy mog no longer suffocating my lungs. Honestly, without the over population and interference of the human race, the earth can heal. It took a beating with all our nuclear wars, its surfaces becoming inhabitable in some places. I supposed that in a way, the apocalypse was what we deserved. The Unkempt are only the exterminators, here to pick off the rest of us,

I don't miss much from back then, I was too young to remember the majority. I was nine when it happened and I had never made any friends nor went to school. I grew up different than most, though I never let that upset me. My parents kept me safe during the early years of the apocalypse, but when I turned twelve they succumbed to a group of Unkempt. I ran away from our little wood cabin in the forest and a few years later I met the group I was residing with not too long ago. They saved me, I owe them my life. The leader, Grayson, and I formed an unbreakable bond and he's now my current boyfriend.

I look up at the sign in front of me.

" Ottawa, five kilometres," I read the words out loud.

I have never been to Ottawa, but I'd heard that it's the capital of Canada. I used to live in Vancouver, but I've relocated since then. It was far too big of a city to be in during the post-apocalyptic years. Though, I don't know much about survival except the big idea in our new world; avoid big cities. I've always relied on others and now that I'm alone, this fact is becoming very disheartening. Why didn't I take the time to learn anything? Why didn't I press Grayson to tell me why he won't let me learn how to hunt or kill?

I wander along the highway, my feet sore from walking barefoot. Birds sing and the crickets chirp, filling the otherwise silent air.

Eventually, after spending quite some time walking, I reach the outskirts of a small neighbourhood adjacent to an off-ramp. Deciding that this might be a good place to find loot or people, I find my way through streets overgrown with weeds and grass, pushing through the cracks in the asphalt. Vines snake their way through the remnants of once-sturdy houses, while trees, predominantly pine, emerge from areas that were once lush with grass. It smells sweet, like how a forest smells right after it rains. It looks like this place wasn't evacuated before the Unkempt attacked judging by the skeletal remains which scatter the dilapidated homes and streets, layers of moss or some form of fungi cover their whiteness, indicating their undisturbed presence over an extended period of time.

I'll have to try and hunt for food sooner rather than later, the growling of my stomach making this obvious. Though, I have no clue how to execute this. I only have a knife and no one ever taught me how to build a snare. I've watched Grayson and the others make spears before, so maybe I can try that. I walk up to a tree and jump, grabbing onto the first branch I can. It breaks off and I land softly on the ground, pulling out my knife, beginning to sharpen the point of the stick in order to make a spear. Small wood shavings fall to the ground underneath my feet as I carve a tip into the point carefully.