The App: App-ocalypse (1)

Day 8 - Knowing

Georges finally told us more about them when Michael was taking a nap this afternoon. Anna had stopped driving to eat and he came to us and just told us their story in a row. They've been through so much in the last week! I thought we've seen the worst when we saw that dog eating a human face with Anna but they have also seen nasty things...

They didn't knew each other before the App-ocalypse. Michael was playing in a park with some other kids when it all started. He saw his mother collapsed. I can't imagine how hard it was to see something like that - someone you love falling unconscious without any reason. At his age... And she wasn't alone, of course. Many adults around the park just collapsed without any damn good reason.

Michael was scared and ran to his mother and little sister. That's right he had a little sister - a baby actually, she had two years old. People all around him were screaming and crying - or were asleep on the ground. That's when he met Georges and Mary.

They were a couple for two years. Georges described themselves as a perfect shiny happy couple who were living together and never arguing. I don't know if that's true - that's not actually relevant. They were doing a footing before going to work. Mary was a waitress in a downtown restaurant I barely knew since it was really expensive. Georges was a French teacher in a high school - not Anna and I's high school of course.

Luckily for them they didn't bring their phones with them. So when everyone started to collapse in the park they didn't understood what was happening. They saw those kids who were left alone and went to them. There were four to be left with Sleepers-parents or nannies. Two of them were Michael and his sister. The other two ran away to their home before they could do anything. Michael couldn't run with his sisters so he looked at them even though he was a bit scared of them.

Mary decided to took care of them when she saw the chaos around them. They thought it was some kind of terrorists attack and they decided to take the kids home - to Michael's home. He didn't want to let his mother so Georges carried her.

They forced the door of the home because no one was there. Michael's dad was working during the App-ocalypse. They waited for him to come home, watching news on TV. Mary didn't let Michael watch and decided to cook a cake with him to distract him from the situation.

They took lunch in this home. They spend the afternoon here. Georges told us how anxious they were not to see the father of the children coming home. Mary took care of Lucy - the baby - who was barely speaking - she was probably less than two year-old even though Michael was strongly positive about her age.

When the evening came, Georges and Mary started to understand the father wouldn't come back. They made diner. They even took a shower. And they decided to sleep there when night comes.

In the morning they knew there was no hope: the father must be a Sleeper too. Mary decided that they should be staying in Michael & Lucy's home so Georges went back to their apartment to pack some stuff - mainly clothes and food.

On his way there he noticed how messed up the situation was. Someone tried to steal one of his bag while he was going to his apartment so he decided to went back with his car - which was also a good way to take more food in the trunk. It was difficult for him to make his way with a car since a lot of accidents had happened (Anna nervously laughed at this point of the story) and a lot of Sleepers were on the roads.

When he came back to the Michael & Lucy's parents' home there was still no news of their father. However they didn't want to confuse the children even more so they decided it was best to move on their house. Life could have been great - even though they didn't knew how to take care of the mother.

Except they suddenly lose the electricity on their house. Here's the main difference between our stories and I still don't understand what happened. When the power went out, a bunch of army guys broke into the home and pointed gun at them asking for the children. Georges is absolutely positive they were army guys since they were wearing commando uniforms and everything.

Mary was carrying Lucy and Michael - afraid of the situation - hid behind the sofa of the living-room. Army guys didn't saw him and were only focusing on taking Lucy ; except Mary didn't want to let the baby go that easily. She simply said no. They simply killed Michael's mother, who was in the sofa.

Mary was so shocked that she startled and let Lucy fell on the ground. Michael understood what happened and went to his mother. One of the army guy yelled at the other one something that Georges didn't understand because he had taken Michael's hand and went through the windows with him.

Mary tried to take Lucy back but one of the men started shooting her at the same time. She had just enough time to protect herself and fled through another window. At the same time they understood other men with guns and commandos uniform were into other houses. A lot of people started to run through the street, crying. A lot of them went to the supermarket. I realized that I was right: something has really made all those people crazier than expected.

Georges tried to follow the men who took Lucy but they went on a truck and fled shooting at anyone trying to follow their steps so he had to stop. Mary found them about five minutes later, in shock.

The three of them decided that living in the house wasn't safe anymore and they went to Georges & Mary's apartment. They stayed there peacefully until Wednesday when they understood they were about to run out of food.

They took the decision to come to high school on Thursday to find a bus - which has more fuel than a car. Of course they were followed by Robbers who only wanted to take their food and Mary got shot.

Their plan was to head toward Mary's parents' house since they were both still alive (she had an email from them before the power went out). Because they live in a farm away from everything they must have some food left. Those three last words were enough to convince Anna and I that we wanted to find this house.

So. Now we know where we're heading because Georges has the address and he is the one driving the bus right now. Anna is sleeping and Michael is now looking at the landscape on the back of the bus.

I had to write down their story to process with it. How can Michael could be this calm? He has lost his entire family... Where is his sister? Did she survived? Because they don't even know that. I thought I had thousands of questions about this App-ocalypse. Now I realized I probably have millions of them.

Will we ever get any answers?