The Last Seventeen: (Book 1) An Apocalypse Story

Chapter 42: Day 9

Chapter 42: Day 9

I dreamt that night. It was very unusual this time though. Instead of The Loon trying to hurt me or seeing Shelby's body be melted to flesh and bone, I was in empty dark space. I couldn't see anything around me except for my own body. It was too dark to see anything else.

As I kept looking around, a dull gray portal popped up in front of me about twenty feet away. It showed disturbing pictures of bodies at horrible angles, blood and entrails strewn all over the place, and bodies piling up in the streets all dead by different means. I had to look away from it. It was all too much. If it was someone's sick idea of a joke, it wasn't working.

I swallowed all the bile that rose up in my throat and walked towards it. I got a couple of feet from it and sat down in front of it like a child watching T.V. It showed pictures of families being torn away from each other, short videos of babies being left behind in their cribs, and longer videos of mass executions. I just stared in shock. Was this how the world was? In nine days it had completely fallen apart? The videos kept going, showing what the word has come to. People committing suicide, children crying as their family turned on them with hungry eyes, people killing each other for scraps of food, psychos cutting people open and feasting on their insides. The world had become hell.

"Ryan?" I heard a familiar voice ring. I turned around with shocked eyes and trembling hands.

"Mom?" I asked as tears ran down my face like a river.

"Yes it's me." She chuckled as her tears fell on the floor. She stood there in pure white clothing with her arms spread wide for me.

I ran to her and felt her warm loving hands hold me tight. I buried my head into her shoulder and let every tear come out. I felt her stroke my long blood dried hair and shush me. But I couldn't. I couldn't stop crying. It had been too long. I felt another pair of hands wrap around me. I looked up from her tear-stained shoulder and saw my father holding me equally as tight. I wrapped my arms around both of them and continued my reign of tears.

When I felt another pair of hands lay on me, I knew exactly who it was. Alex, my brother. The whole family was here like it should've always been. We should have never been separated. We should have just stayed as a family this hold time. I never wanted this whole moment to end. I had never felt so much love in my whole life. I had never felt so appreciated, so respected, so important.

My whole family pulled away from me. Their eyes were bloodshot and huge smiles filled their pure glowing faces. They each gave me one last hug then headed off into the darkness.

"Wait! Wait, where are you going?" I called out to them as they were swallowed up in the darkness.

I decided to run for them. I ran farther into the darkness, leaving the dull portal behind me. I could see their untampered white clothes flowing in the blackness. I tried to reach out for one of them but they were all just out of my reach. I tried to reach out again but they were gone. They vanished. I skidded myself to a stop and looked around me. They left me. They abandoned me. I dropped to me knees and just shook my head. They couldn't have. I was their son. I was his brother. I was family. They couldn't have just left me like that.

"Guy's? Where did you go?" I asked the impenetrable darkness.

"We are right here." I heard my father speak.

I turned my whole body towards his voice and saw he was standing in front of another portal along with everyone else who had been killed. This portal was way different from the dull gray one. This one had more light, more color, and pleasing sights. A beautiful rainbow shining in the sky over amazing trees. Families hugging each other in loving manners. Little boys and girls playing together on a new playground. It was completely different from the other one. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to be part of that world instead of the one behind me. I wanted the normal world.