Restart

Chapter 1

Ophiocordyceps unilarealis. O. unilarealis. The zombie ant fungus. Different names for the same thing: the thing that killed my parents and about seven billion people in the world, leaving only about five thousand to try and survive. There was a cure developed, but that didn't resurrect those that were killed, which included my parents. Luckily the fungus didn't kill my whole family. I still had my brother Xavier who was also the only person I would speak to after my parents were killed. After my parents were killed, I was mad; I was mad at the world, mad at the doctors that couldn't save them, mad at the scientists, whoever they were, for not finding a cure sooner.

I watched my parents--first my mom, then my dad--slowly die and then their body get taken over by The Fungus. It was horrifying. The only person that knew exactly, or at least as close as possibly, how I felt was Xavier. I would only whisper things in his ears and no one else heard my voice for months, not even when we found Taylor and Oliver.

Xavier and I found Taylor and Oliver after the cure was distributed. We met them at the injection site. I wouldn't speak to the doctors because my brother wasn't in the room. Xavier was off in another room with another group getting the cure and immunity injected into him. I was silent and the doctor was trying to get me to talk to him to make sure that I was okay. Taylor was in my group and he could tell that I was fine and that I wasn't going to talk to the doctors. Taylor had seen me whisper to Xavier earlier and explained to the doctors that I didn't talk to anyone except my brother, who was put in another group.

The doctors just ignored me the rest of the time. After we were let go, I ran right to Xavier and told him what Taylor had done. He later found out that a ten year old boy, Oliver, that was in his group was Taylor's brother. Xavier asked them to stay with us at the house that we had found. The house was better described by a mansion, but it was also surrounded with a woods that Xavier (and now Taylor) hunted in.

The house (or mansion) was something left by a family that (or at least Xavier and I had assumed) had died from the fungus. The mansion had three floors with the bottom floor being entirely a basketball court. Xavier was playing basketball for his college before our parents had gotten sick and died.

Once Mom and Dad got sick, he dropped out of school so he could take care of them. After they died, he took me and we went out into the woods where we might be safe from the fungus. We found the house a month layer. The cure came out about six months after my parents had gotten killed. Right before they died, my parents made Xavier promise that he would protect me from the fungus and make sure that we didn't see anyone, and no one saw us, until there was a cure developed. About five or six months later, we met Taylor and Oliver.

The second floor of the house had six bedrooms. Since we only had four people and no intent of having company over, we turned one room into a playroom for Oliver and the other into a living room. We added a couch and some chairs, along with a TV which could only play DVD's because there was of course no one to transmit television stations. There was still one AM radio station that we listened to occasionally, but there was usually nothing positive on it. It told of the damages to the world and none of us needed to hear about that and worry, especially Oliver.

All of the bedrooms looked very similar. The four of us had found paint cans sitting in the basement, presumably from the former owners. We all painted our rooms a different color. I painted mine light blue, Oliver painted his dark blue, Xavier painted his a light red, and Taylor painted his green. The oldest, Xavier and Taylor, at twenty-one and seventeen respectively, got the rooms that had a full bathroom attached and the younger two, Oliver and I, at sixteen and ten respectively, had the rooms with a half bathroom attached, so if I wanted a shower, I had to go to Xavier's bathroom and Oliver would have to go to Taylor's. The bedrooms had a bed and a dresser in them.

The wife's clothes mostly fit me and the husband's clothes mostly fit Xavier and Taylor. Oliver was the tricky one. He was too small for the husband's clothes, and still a little too small for the son's clothes. I got the job (not voluntarily) of hemming up the bottoms of the son's clothes and taking in the waistline. I also got the job of patching the knees of not only Oliver's, but all of the boys pants. Luckily, I didn't have to cook. Taylor cooked all of the meat that he and Xavier find when they are out hunting.

Taylor was going to go to cooking school after high school, but after his parents got sick, he could no longer do that. He cooked soups for his parents and brother until his parents got sick.

The third and top floor (besides the attic) was an art studio and a music room. Oliver found that he liked to draw after he moved into the house, so Xavier and I decided to keep the art studio that they had planned to get rid of and everything in it. The music studio was my place. I loved music and I was in the marching band and the concert band. I played many instruments, but I truly loved the trumpet. The music studio had almost every instrument imaginable. There was a piano AND a keyboard, a couple guitars, electric and acoustic, even a drum set. There were also band instruments, a trumpet, a flute, a French horn. Every single instrument imaginable was there and I played most of them.

Once, shortly after Taylor and Oliver had moved in, I found myself playing a song on the piano I couldn't remember the name to, just that my mother used to play it all of the time. I also used to sing to it, but I had long since forgotten the words. I was playing it, somehow remembering every note and rhythm. When I was done, I heard a single person clapping softly behind me. It was Taylor and he had obviously recognized the song. "That was 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' by the Beatles isn't it?"

At that moment I started remembering my mother sitting at the piano, singing the words, "Oh yeah, I'll tell you something I think you'll understand..." I felt a tear run down my cheek, remembering my mother like that. She had been so beautiful and everyone always said that we looked so much alike. She and I had the same hair and eyes. We were also both tall, yet we still wore heels a lot. She would wear stilettos, but I could never make them work.

Then I started seeing my mother dying, slowly getting taken over, no longer quite herself. The doctors said that she still had about a day until she was totally taken over, but I knew that the most important parts of her were gone. She was as good as dead by then.She grabbed my arm, scratching it with her long nails and drawing blood from it. Xavier practically jumped on her to get her off of me. He ripped her hand off of my arm and I just stood there doing nothing, too shocked to say anything.

Taylor had no idea what to do so he immediately went and got Xavier. Xavier came and sat down next to me on the piano bench. Even without either of us saying anything, I calmed down and I was okay after about a half an hour. Taylor saw my brother and me differently from then on. He almost saw us as one person. I was nothing without my brother.