The Decay

Chapter 52 - Anita

52

The white light faded. Anita found herself looking at a younger version of herself staring into a mirror. The thirteen year old girl had lost her parents a year ago to bandits. She lived in the ruins of an apartment with two other families. Of the two, she only really had contact with one which consisted of a man in his forties, Joseph, and his ten year old son, Mitchell. She would spend most of the day either playing with Mitchell or observe Joseph hunt, without him knowing. Indeed, she was very stealthy, a skill her dad had taught her. She used it whenever she could, and it made her even better at it. She had fashioned her own little dagger out of wood and stone,though she never showed it to anyone, not even to Mitchell.

Anita's parents had settled in the apartment building just a few years after Anita was born. They had moved from the West towards Boston due to a large amount of violence between two neighboring communities. The apartment they had found was far from the chaos, and still far enough from the center of Boston. They had fled here together with the other two families and they had all agreed on settling down there.

Anita had always admired her father. He had been a tall, well-built man with short black hair. His dark skin used to glimmer in the sun,almost as if a thin layer of oil covered it. He had been a doctor until circumstances forced him to train with weapons. Killing people instead of saving them. He had never liked it, but he did what he had to in order to keep his family safe.

His wife, Anita's mother, was a beautiful woman. She had been a few years younger than him, and her long black hair was always a sight for sore eyes. She had been almost as tall as him and thin as well. She most definitely had given all of her charm and looks to Anita.

The white light flashed again, and the image seemed to blur in front of her.

Anita was now seventeen. This is four years ago, she thought. She ran in a field, as fast as she could. Mitchell was in front of her, but this time there wasn't the usual feel of playfulness and happiness. No, this time there was a feeling of fear,panic and despair. Anita wasn't just chasing Mitchell. She was trying to save him from some mercenaries. She ran and ran, nearly tripping a few times in the process. A man stopped and took aim at her. She dove to the ground, hoping the rubble would cover her, and it did. She then got up and continued to chase after Mitchell and his captors.

As she looked on at the scene, Anita felt a tear trickle down her eye.She remembered all too well what happened next. She closed her eyes as she imagined the mercenaries reaching the edge of a crater, the panic in Mitchell's eyes the last thing she saw before he was shot,his body tumbling down into the crater. The fury and anger that surged through her, ultimately resulting in killing the two culprits.The first humans she had ever killed.

It had changed her. A small part of her humanity had been lost. They had killed Mitchell, and now she was going to kill all of them.