Feral

Part one

(TW: this book contains gore, sickness, loss, and death)

I glanced out of the closed car window and looked up at the sky, I found it was covered in gray clouds, almost, though no rain came falling down yet. In the distance, thunder rumbled ever so slightly. I slumped back in my seat and silently hoped it wouldn't rain, it would suck to have to load all the heavy suitcases in the back while it was pouring. I knew we were almost at the hotel, we had to be, I had been in this car for what seemed like a whole entire day, probably because it had been. "Dad, how far are we? I'm hungry again." My dad breathed a small sigh in annoyance. He'd been a little bit upset at having to drive all day and leave our old house for his work trip, I personally didn't mind that much. Having to temporarily transfer to a new school halfway through my sophomore year wasn't exactly fun, but I wasn't close to many of my classmates enough to care all that much, besides, we would only be away for about two months, so it wasn't all that bad. "We're almost there, sage, about two hours away." He said. 

Two hours, not that bad I guess. I began to get a bit tired so I decided I would take a nap to pass the time. I leaned my head against the back of the seat and was about to fall asleep when I heard the sound of police sirens ringing in my ears. I turned to the window and saw about seven cop cars, followed by a few ambulances, drove past our car and made a right turn down a different road. Whatever's happening must be pretty bad... I thought. Within a few minutes the thought of those cop cars had already vanished from my mind. I leaned back and closed my eyes, eventually drifting into sleep.

I awoke a few hours later to find it was raining pretty lightly when we arrived, though luckily not nearly as much as I expected. I rubbed my eyes and hopped out of the car, my legs trying to get used to the sensation of standing after sitting down for so long. We got to the check in and my dad started talking to the receptionist, who looked like he hadn't slept in years. After a while, my dad got the room key and we walked up the stairs and into our room, which was on the second floor. "Why don't you start unloading the bags, sage." He said as he unlocked the room. I signed, I was exceptionally tired, as I had mostly been unable to sleep in the car, the most I had slept today was two hours, and it was about one in the morning at the moment. Nevertheless, I sulked downstairs and in the driveway to start taking the packages in the car. I took a suitcase with some clothes in it first, lugging it up the stairs and into the room.

I had unloaded half the stuff from the trunk when my dad told me he would handle the rest, I threw myself onto one of the beds and took a look at the hotel, there was a big tv in the front of the room, which probably operated on cable tv. But I reached for the remote that was on the desk next to the bed and turned it on anyway, I just couldn't sleep in silence, I always needed some background noise. I turned it on and pulled the blankets over me, but before I could start to fall asleep, the things the news anchor was saying immediately caught my attention. "Earlier today here in Jacksonville, there was an incident where several people were attacked and bitten by an individual who appeared to have a sickness of some kind. The individual's skin was discolored and he seemed to lack cognitive ability. The individual was detained by police officers and sent to a nearby hospital, along with the people that were injured. It is a mystery as to what kind of virus he had, but it was suspected by doctors that it had to be some kind of mutated strand of rabies, considering that a wound was found on his body resembling that of an animal. As for the other people injured, they were sent to a hospital nearby and are now awaiting recovery..." that was about how far I'd gotten before I started to fall asleep, eventually slipping into a dream, or, a nightmare rather.