The Cure Is The Curse

Chapter One

The year was 2057 when they finally found the cure for cancer. They found the cure in animals, but only certain animals such as panthers, mountain lions, tigers, lions, cheetahs, and leopards. Apparently there was something that they produced that prevented the multiplication of cancerous cells. Once they started to inject this into people that had cancer they were miraculously cured. Until nearly two centuries later, everything was fine. The off spring of the people injected with the cure had this in their bodies and then their off spring had it and so on and so forth. The offspring, after many years of mating with this new substance in their body, mutated. It wasn't detected when it was born, but it slowly started changing into a mixture of the five cats. Now the year is 2341 and the whole world has been infected with very few survivors. I, along with my four other friends, were survivors.

"Shut up, Jax," I whisper yelled at the only guy in the group. He was younger than the rest of us at the age of 16. He was loud and his hormones were a little crazy at times, but he was a survivor so I took him in.

"Be gentle with him, Miri," Celeste said. She was the mother of the group. She knew how to heal wounds and she looked after each of us to make sure we remained as healthy as possible.

"Don't Celeste," Quinna hissed. "You know how she is on this day."

Four years ago today, March 16th, my mother was bitten by one of the mutants. The bite causes the mutation to happen quicker than it would if you were born with it. I had to kill her. I had to kill my own mother. I was only sixteen.

For the longest time it was her, me, and Quinna against the world. My father had died when I was just a baby. I assumed that Mom had to kill him because he got the disease. Mom taught me all that she knew. Then it was just me and Quinna for about two years before we met Celeste. I was trying to keep Quinna safe because she had cut her leg very badly and Celeste stumbled upon us. Then we added Jax to the group when we found him fending for himself. I was cautious at first, but Celeste welcomed him in. He was okay. He slowed us down a little bit, but he wasn't infected so I had to try to protect him.

"It's okay Quinna. Celeste is right. Maybe we can just set up camp here tonight. This seems like a pretty safe building. Start up a small fire. I'll go check around and make sure everything is okay."

"Do you need someone to go with you?" Quinna asked.

"No." I took my gun off of my back and held it in a ready to fire position. I set off down a darkened hallway. The building looked intact and it didn't look like any creatures had broken in, but they were smarter than normal animals because they were still human. I made sure that my boots didn't make any sound as I walked through the hallway and searched the rooms. I heard a bump against a wall in a room ahead of me and I quickly and quietly made my way to the room. The door was completely open. I stepped in and scanned the room slowly. It didn't seem like anything was out of place.

An arm came around my mouth suddenly while the other arm disarmed me. They were human arms. I jabbed my elbow into this person's stomach. They grunted and their grip loosened enough for me to spin around. I punched towards his face but he blocked it. He tried twisting my arm behind my back but I was able to get away. I kicked the back of his knee in and he fell to the ground. I quickly pounced on top of him. I grabbed both of his arms and twisted them behind him so that he couldn't move.

"What are you doing here?" I growled in his ear.

"We wanted a safe place to stay. You interrupted it."

"You interrupted our safe place." He tried to move and I dug my knees into his back. He grunted again and stopped.

"Taveon?" I looked up in the direction of the voice. My body was tense and ready to attack if she posed a threat.

"Would you let me up? I'm not affected and neither is she," Taveon said defeated.

I cautiously let go and got off of him. I stood up and looked at the girl in front of me. She was laughing at this. "How the fuck did you get him down?" She asked bluntly.

I shrugged her off and said, "I'm stronger than I look." I looked over at the guy she called Taveon. It was surprising that I was able to hold him down. I wasn't small by any means. I stood at 5'10" and had a muscular body, but Taveon stood a good five inches taller than I did. His body was also muscular and thick.

"I'm Niva and that's my brother Taveon. His friend Axton is with us as well. We're all clean." I was still cautious of them. She was a few inches shorter than me, but had a muscular build as well.

"I'm Miri."

"Are you alone?" Niva asked as I scanned the room for my gun. I spotted it, but I'd have to pass Taveon to get it.

"Miri! Are you okay?" I heard Quinna call out. I ran past them and met Quinna in the hallway. I stopped her and pushed her behind me before I turned around. I knew that Niva and Taveon would follow.

"Well, I guess you aren't alone," Niva said.

I glared at them while Quinna peered at them from over my shoulder. "Are they clean?" Quinna whispered in my ear.

"They say they are," I mumbled back.

"We are," Niva insisted.

"They seem normal. They look all human," Quinna said. "We'd have better chances of surviving if we added them."

"We're fine."

"She's right. It would help us Taveon," Niva said.

"We're fine," Taveon's deep voice echoed my words.

"Taveon. There are only three of us now. We need security."

"We're fine," He growled at her.

"Miri," Quinna whispered. "They need us. They're clean. We need to protect them." My resolve broke.

"We need each other. Follow me." Taveon and Niva looked at me to make sure what they heard was right. "Just let me get my gun."

"I'll go get Axton," Niva said and nudged her bother while giving him a look. I walked back in the room with Quinna beside me.

"I'm sorry for attacking you," Taveon said. I turned while slinging the gun over my back.

"It doesn't matter. It's not like you won the fight anyway."

"You two fought?" Quinna asked.

"He attacked me. I pinned him to the floor," I said matter-of-factly.

"She caught me off guard," Taveon defended.

"Doesn't change the outcome. Your guard should've been up."

"You're not going to apologize for pinning me to the floor?" He looked frustrated.

"No," I answered.

"We're here," Niva announced. Axton was shorter than Taveon, but still muscular. I nodded at them and turned. I walked back to where we were camped out at. The fire was started and Celeste already had three squirrels cooking over it.

"I was starting to get worried," Celeste said and then looked up. "Oh, hi," she looked at me, confused.

"We found some other clean people. This is Axton, Niva, and Taveon," I said while pointing out the new members of the group. "I'm Miri and this is Quinna, Celeste, and Jax," I said while pointing to each of them.

"I'm afraid we may be a little short on food tonight," Celeste said.

"That's okay," Axton said. We all sat down around the fire and ate quietly.

My eyes kept trailing over to Taveon. I hadn't been around many males in my life. Since I was twelve years old it had just been me, Mom, and Quinna. Jax was the only male I had been around in years and he wasn't a threat. He was my height and lanky. Axton didn't feel like much of a threat. He was maybe two inches taller than me, but didn't seem threatening. Taveon was a threat. He was much taller and muscular than me. He didn't talk very much either. I didn't trust him. Something about him just put me on edge. I didn't like it. I didn't like him.