The Smog Storm (Discontinued)

Chapter Seven

Helen and I took off like we were yanked by a string. We quickly ran towards the sounds of misery, that seemed so full of absolute fear, that it made me want to run in the opposite direction. Unfortunately the noises sounded even worse than when I walked through downtown earlier. And that laugh? It made my skin crawl just thinking about how cruel it sounded.

My mind was a jumble of racing thoughts as we sped forward though we were still cautious not to full out sprint, since the smog made it so difficult to see where you were going. As we ran, my mind started to wrap itself around the fact that the situation we were barreling towards could be extremely dangerous.

As we got closer and closer to the voices, the less and less I wanted to see what was happening. I thought it through for a moment, until I gradually slowed my pace, before coming to an outright stop. It finally dawned on me that we had no idea what could be around that corner, and luck had not really been on our side for the past 24 hours and Helen and I did not need any more bad luck.

Helen stopped and looked at me when she realized that I wasn't running beside her anymore. I quickly strode over to her and with an effort to try to block out the noise from my mind, I hastily explained why I wasn't running anymore.

"I want to figure out what's going on, just as much as you do, but I think we need to be more careful. We have no idea what is happening and if it's awful, we can't afford to risk ourselves by just rampaging around the corner with no plan of action. We need to be smart about this," I explained.

Helen agreed with my reasoning and we both decided to climb up a fire escape, to get a bird's eye view of what was happening. We were fortunately right beside a dingy, old, apartment building. So we agreed we would simply go into someone's empty apartment and exit out their window onto the fire escape. It was a much safer and smarter option then blindly trying to find the ladder to get up onto the fire escape and we were less likely to make much noise.

The last thing we needed was to draw attention to ourselves. I for one did not want to be apart of the cries of misery and torture. So Helen and I swung open the front door to the apartment building and I had major case of deja vu as we walked through the lobby. We encountered more corpses in that lobby, as well and let's just say that the stench that emanated from rotting flesh was not pleasant the second time around. Not to mention, buzzards crawled around these particular bodies.

Helen and I gagged and made inhuman sounds. We tried to cover our noses to block out the horrid smell, while we made our way to the elevator. Tears ran down my cheeks before I could stop them, the scent was so nauseating. After we entered the elevator and as soon as the doors closed behind us, we breathed a sigh of relief. I pushed the button for the second floor so we would be able to somewhat see what was going on, without being spotted.

"Ugh, that was even worse then the last time," muttered Helen.

Man, I hope we don't have to get used to the smell of rotting corpses, I thought to myself, solemnly.

Helen and I had completely messed up lives now and it made me think about what would become of our futures, once we found help. If we found help. The truth was, we had no idea what was out there and the thought of finding no help or the possibility of never finding a civilization free of smog was enough to make me break into a cold sweat.

Also what would we even do afterwards? Would we both have to move somewhere else or would we be stuck in a lab, somewhere isolated, from fear of us being contaminated? As far as I could tell, the government intended for this to happen and we were all supposed to die and those that were left would be gunned down, until every citizen was dead.

The morbid nature of my thoughts must have shown on my face because Helen rested her hand down on my shoulder, which startled me for a moment before I remembered where we were. The elevator had stopped and she patiently waited for me to walk out, while she held the door open.